West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Reply to the comment left by "Concerned Landlord" at "21/11/2013 - 08:55":

Thank you for your kind words.

I have said from the start that I will share 99% of all information in public forum because I believe it cannot hurt us. West Brom may see my posts over the last 14 hours as an opportunity to strike at a weak point in our deliberations and I have taken that into account and also this comment too. Let them try, they don't know about the 1% of information I am not sharing here.

Let me try to make one thing even more clear though please. Conditions 15 and 15.1 are nothing to do with repossession of property or displacement of tenants. The conditions relate only to their apparent contractual right to give 28 days notice of a demand for the loan to be repaid. Whether that is actually enforceable remains to be seen. West Brom will have been advised that If the loan is not repaid by day 29 they will have numerous rights in addition to applying to the Courts for repossession. If their advice is right (I have reason to believe it is flawed) they will also have been advised that they have the right to issue a statutory demand giving their borrower a further 21 days to pay up or face bankruptcy. They will also have been advised of their rights to employ an LPA receiver to collect rents. This would not involve them having to evict tenants.

Please trust my judgement on on what I'm up to, especially the 1% of information I am not sharing publicly.
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I'm confused trying to catch up on the last few days.

Have WBBS actually threatened anyone with loan recall or is it something we are considering may be a legal problem?

Wow

Last night was certainly kicking off. I bet a few had an uneasy night.

However, I think we should take the positives and work on the negatives. All problems can be solved.

Mark pointed out that Clause 5 should be able to be shown that it was never meant to refer to tracker mortgages but SVR. So if that s the case that is what we have all been wanting to hear from day one.

Clause 15 is obviously another issue we need to consider. I was led to believe that this booklet was sent to everyone. Not just landlords with Buy to lets.If that's the case WB will have sent this with residential mortgages. Therefore this is surely a mistake on their part, a typing error. I don't see too much of a point in debating this to death. What will be will be . Leave this part to the Solicitors and Barristers. I think there have already been many valid positive points posters have made already on this.

Our goal was to stop the interest rate rise. The only way to do this is apparently legally. We can not rely on any Governing Authority. So we need to keep doing what this forum has done best for the last few months. Getting more support and raising more funds.

After my posts yesterday about Out of Court settlements I received three emails from people last night who have paid their money to Justin as a result of me banging on over the last week or so about this possibility. Two have actually stated that having done this they feel a lot better. Although £240 per mortgage is a lot of money they have swallowed that. The debate they have had with themselves whether to join or not was adding to their worries. They are sleeping better now they have joined.

So I would urge anyone else out there still thinking whether or not to join to do so. Take away at least that worry.

The events of last night should only encourage you to be part of the group.

Firstly this clause 15 will cause a worry, but better to have the relative safety of the group on your side than be on the outside should this rear its ugly head.

Mark also pointed out last night that even if we take this to Court and win, there is still the possibility that it may just involve the Class Action Group. Others maybe able to then seek damages themselves but possibly at a much higher cost than £240 per mortgage.

He as also come up with the idea of a cut off and a higher rate after that cut off. I think this is a good idea. Perhaps the end of the year or maybe extended to the 31st January bearing in mind its Christmas.

As a group lets concentrate on the first hurdle and in reality the only one we can . The raising of the required funds! All the legal stuff should be left to those we are raising the funds for. The more we raise the better quality and more time we can afford.

We should take the biggest positive we have seen since we started from last night. Clause 5 is a joke ! That's what we all wanted to hear.

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "21/11/2013 - 09:10":

Just some loose thoughts:

WB are doing all of this to raise their underlying profit, but they also want to reduce their effective exposure to BTL portfolio. As they say they were considering recalling the mortgages, but decided on raising the (fixed) premium margin instead. So, the bottom line is this that they decided not to take the option of recalling the mortgages - WHY?

That is the question!

Reply to the comment left by "Ken Rose" at "21/11/2013 - 09:31":

Hi Ken

To my knowledge no loans have been called in but several people received a response to their initial complaint which contained a veiled threat.

The importance of dealing with that veiled threat has now been highlighted to us, hence my posts since last night.

The outcome of this is that I have requested Justin and our legal team to address this issue further before we are given templates for submission of our FOS complaints and before templates are issued for the purpose of writing to solicitors who should have provided legal advice.
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Reply to the comment left by "Concerned Landlord" at "21/11/2013 - 09:45":

"they decided not to take the option of recalling the mortgages – WHY?" is indeed a VERY good question.
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Mark Alexander

Hi Mark. Thanks for all your efforts to end this very scary experience.

I would just like to ask a simple question please.

As I pay my WBBS mortgage payment by standing order and have now been told I need to instruct my bank to pay the increased amount ( increase of £190 per month) will doing this mean that I have consented to the increase ?

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "21/11/2013 - 09:43":

Superb comment Dean, I whole heartedly support every word you have said. Possibly your best comment yet and I've given you a thumbs of for it too 🙂
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A bleary eyed morning to you all,

(Mark, Time for a bit of down time. I would think everyone here will keep the lights on if you take a few days off or even just keep it 9 till 5.)

Well that was a bit of a bombshell. If anything it just backs me a little closer to the wall and motivates me to put up more of a fight.

We've said all along that our action will help those not directly affected yet. But this is unexpected. These non-standard T and C's apply to all WB mortgages, it might be within the FCA remit to look at this.
Is it regulation that tells them to add " Your Property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage" on the bottom of letters. Or is that there to lull the public in to false sense of security. To be accurate it should read "..... repossessed even if you do keep up repayments ...."

BTW has anyone else noticed this statement is now "Property" instead of "Home"

My comments on the points -
1) Deadline, sounds like a good idea. Especially for those joining after the target is reached or close to it.

2) Powerful stuff and another angles could be added the the press will love. Oooo The headlines they could write with that. The potential impact on tenants, crooked lenders being Landlords as well - faeces and fan blowing their way.

Reply to the comment left by "Terry Harris" at "21/11/2013 - 10:04":

Hi Terry

It's a good question, I do not know the answer. I suspect it will not matter but if you want absolute "belt and braces" I would suggest switching to Direct Debit and/or writing a letter confirming that you continue to dispute the increase.
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