West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

I've got the booklet and I've spotted an interesting point

Under meanings of words and expressions:

"Offer of Loan" means the offer of loan made by us to you consisting of the offer of loan letter, the Special Conditions of Offer and our Standard Conditions of Offer and including any matter specifically altered by us in writing to you;

I understand - the repetition of "with a premium of 0.99%, until the term end" is a matter specifically altered by them in writing - over and over again.

IMO.

The intention and wording of the Terms and Conditions were definitely not written to allow this rate increase. If they had ever intended to invoke this action it would have been written in such a way that there could be no arguing against it. (and so they could sting everyone with it).

At the time I signed up they were sure they where offering a definite "fixed margin tracker".

Section 5 in the booklet was written to apply to their standard variable rate products.

Is there something in contract law about "intention at a the time" ??

However proving this is difficult, apart from: They have only just invoked it after a lawyer has pointed it out, surely if it was originally intended they would have known about it and invoked a few years ago.

Just another idea for the pot.

OFT guidance;
A price variation clause is particularly open to abuse,because consumers can have no reasonable certainty that the increase imposed on them actually match the net cost increases. [unfair contract terms guidance-sept 2008-para 12.3]
Law Commission
A term permitting a small escalation may be fair, a large escalation may be unfair. It would be difficult to assess the fairness of the term without taking into account the size of the escalation [Law Commission Issues Paper- july 2012-para 4.25

I think someone mentioned previously, that in the terms of the mortgage, the bank can demand full payment of the loan within 28 days at any time ? Is this only if the mortgage payments are defaulted on, or just if they feel like it ?

If this is the case, could West Brom, not just ask for our mortgages to be repaid within 28 days if we were to win a court case ? Making the whole thing a waste of time ?

Thankyou for the template complaint letter supplied.

I have 3 btl mortgages, one of which is with WB & I have received the outrageous 2% hike letter from them.

I have joined & fully support your class action campaign & will happily pay the £100 as needed. In the meantime I have sent the letter of complaint to WB and copied to the onbudsman as suggested. I shall forward any responses.

I understand that the FCA cannot rule on this rate rise as Buy to Let products are not regulated, never the less the FCA can investigate complaints against the West Bromwich as their complaint handling process is regulated. I would suggest that if one feels ones complaint is not being handled fairly then a complaint to the FCA is in order.

We now have 700 expressions of interest in the Class Action, of which 400 relate to WBBS accounts.

If you have registered you should receive an email from Justin Selig within the next 24 hours.

In the meantime, the link below takes you to the body text of the email you will receive from Justin.

I asked my accountant a question and he just emailed me back

For entrepreneurs relief [see hmrc] BTL is not regarded as a business

Is this helpful?

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "02/10/2013 - 17:19":

I say again Mark thanks for leading on this. Must be extremely time consuming. We all owe you a big debt of thanks

Re the e mail due from Justin and likely questions that might ensue may I indulge a bit more of your time about:

1/. £240 per BTL WB mortgage will be required BEFORE the class action even starts if it does? I'm not complaining at all but the £100 per person estimate at outset was optimistic maybe? We need to be ready to cough £340 minimum per mortgage I take it?.

2/. In amongst the posts a few days back was comment that some "might" decline to pay on basis that "let others pay and get the benefit of winning FOC". Would be a cheapskate attitude BUT does not a class action still carry the names of those involved so when it is hopefully won, those who have sat on the sidelines will still have to fight their corner with WB albeit armed with the benefit of case law from the winning action? Got to be less dear and significantly less time consuming to ride the wave with everybody else at £340 per pop than fly solo. In other words being a cheapskate won't pay!!

3/. There is mention in Justin's e mail about small claims action. I don't get it. Nice because it's cheap but such an action has to be for a sum of money. Since until December we are not out of pocket, what would the action be for?

Hallo. I am not affected by what West Brom are doing but this could obviously spread. I made the point in another e mail thread about whether West Brom are saying that anyone with three mortgages with them will be affected or anyone with three mortgagees with ANY lender will be considered as a "professional". I do think this is important as the amount of people caught in this will vary hugely depending on what the answer to this is.

I would like to make another point. I have seven buy to let mortgagees with another lender and these were all transfers from other mortgagees with the same mortgagee when rates when down to .75% above base. I had to pay £750 for the privilege of being able to change onto this rate which has no floor and therefore I had an absolute contract which I doubt my lender could break. I wonder if any of the West Brom borrowers were in this situation and if this would help them.

One further point. I would go after the solicitors who acted on behalf of the mortgagees. If they did not point out such a salient point as the mortgagees could go up at the mortgagee's whim they are guilty of having been negligent and if thousands of people took action against them in respect of their projected "losses" as a result of their negligence in not pointing this out it might have an affect and would also be a darn sight cheaper. I think you might find that some of these solicitors are not in business anymore in which case I think the Law Society have to cover claims but Justin would know more about this than me.

Just want to clarify, estimated costs step 1 -4 is 15k
400 registered at £240 each is £96k ? plus those with multiple WB paying extra £240 per loan
Is that correct ?