West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

We have received the 1.9% letter on 2 out of 3 properties saying what the DD amount will be. 10 days later still nothing received in respect of the 3rd (and by far largest) one. The new rate applies in just a few days but we have no knowledge of the amount to be taken from the bank account. Any thoughts on this? They advised us re all three simultaneously back in September. Why nothing since on the third property?

When your on the outside looking in, when you sent in your docs & money & then it took a long time to get a receipt then that must of raised suspicion for the others.

I'm going to make this very simple for all those still sitting on the fence debating whether to join the class action and stump up £240 per mortgage to fight the tracker rate increase at court.

Either we will manage to raise the necessary funds to purchase the insurance to provide us with security for costs at court and pay for our own legal costs OR we will fail to secure the necessary funds and we all pay the increased rate until the mortgage term expires or we remortgage. That's all there is to it. Heads we win or Tails we lose. Or what is commonly referred to as a binary outcome. Letters of complaints to the FOS, the FCA, or the OFT will not stop the West Bromwich from unjustly enriching itself at your expense. All the howls of protest or righteous indignation will not change that one simple fact. Only at court will you achieve restitution and satisfaction. The FOS, the FCA, and the OFT are nothing more than "paper tigers" and these organisations are not in the least bit interested in helping us. The sooner all those of you still considering whether or not to join the class action realise this, the sooner we can all achieve victory at court.

Let me tell you all of you "fence sitters" a little something about civil actions. Most civil actions where litigation is commenced result in a negotiated settlement. Cast iron non-disclosure agreements are de rigueur with such settlements which is why you'll likely never hear about them and certainly not about the terms of the agreement.

Then of course there are Part 36 offers. A Part 36 offer can be made by either the claimant(s) or the defendant(s) at any time within the duration of a claim and can be on the issue of liability or the valuation of the claim or both. Any offers on the value of the claim are intended to be without any admission on liability. This means that when an offer to settle the claim is made, the party making it does not necessarily admit liability.

A Part 36 Offer can be accepted within 21 days of it being made. However, after 21 days the party making the offer does have the right to withdraw the offer and proceedings with continue as if the Part 36 offer was never made.

Part 36 Offers are intended to put pressure on a party to accept a settlement and there are cost consequences arising from this.

In particular, if the offer is rejected but you then fail to beat the offer at a later trial or settlement, you would be responsible for the other party’s costs from the date of when you could have accepted the offer (i.e. after the expiry of the 21 days) up until settlement of the claim. This means that your compensation is likely to be swallowed up by legal costs.

However, if you beat the offer then the other side will be responsible for all of your costs.

So fence sitters, chances are, if this does proceed to litigation and a negotiated settlement is arrived at, or a Part 36 offer is made and accepted, you may find yourself out in the cold and not part of the brave few that chose to fight injustice and were justly rewarded for having the courage of their convictions. You may find that only those party to the litigation and named in the class action reap the rewards of any victory or negotiated settlement.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Adams" at "25/11/2013 - 22:33":

Richard. There are some very sophisticated scams out there. The best ones go on for years and you would never even know it was a scam until the end.

I feel stupid admitting this but some years ago I got conned big style and I'm a qualified chartered accountant.

I signed up for 7 yes 7 buy to let tracker mortgages fixed at a certain percentage above base but also fixed for a five year period. During that 5 years I paid over the odds knowing that when that period finished I would be on a low rate. It was with a reputable British building society governed by a British government body. What could go wrong. We'll between you and me, please don't tell anyone else. When the fixed rate period finished the reputable society wrote to me and told me that because they wanted to show more profit so they could build new offices and pay bigger bonuses they were going to add a premium to my mortgages. They even referred to some terms and conditions in a booklet I had never seen saying they had the right. I know what your thinking. No way !!! Honestly it's true !

I wrote to complain. I thought this won't happen. They came back to me. After investigating my complaint , and here's the bit you will love, they know it's not what I wanted to hear ( straight out of the " Brush the poor sap to one side" manual ) but they can not agree my compliant. However here is a little booklet You can either write to the financial ombudsman or if you want to really get something done go and tell your mum on them.

I couldn't believe it ! I felt violated I had fallen for a right scam ! Anyway. Please don't let on.

Dean

Reply to the comment left by "The Man From Nowhere" at "25/11/2013 - 22:46":

Where were you when I was trying to get this over the other day ? Would have been good to have had someone who actually seems to know what they are on about instead of my ramblings !!

But in plain English. Are you saying that for those who have not got their details in with justin something just might happen out of the blue and there could be a cut off point after which no one else will be able to join ?

Dean

Reply to the comment left by "Scotsman " at "25/11/2013 - 21:48":

Hi fellow Scotsman,

I have 3 wb mortgages and I have joined the class action. I have already paid £720 and sent my docs to Justin on Friday. I am awaiting clarification from Justin whether I can join or not. However I have been promised a full refund if I am not eligible. I did seek legal advice and was advised that as WB are incorporated in England I should be able to join. The class action is going to be made up of various different sections, some who were recommended by broker, some not, some who had independent legal advice, some not etc. We all have the same complaint, that WB have fundamentally changed our product, from fixed premium tracker to a moving target.

I understand that you are going to change your mortgage in a year but £240 is a small amount to pay to get this injustice overturned, if we are indeed eligible to join.

Clarification from Justin at this point would perhaps help to bring on others affected in Scotland.

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "25/11/2013 - 22:56":

Hi Dean,

A part 36 offer would only be made after legal proceedings have commenced i.e. after the claim form has been issued with the name of the claimant (or in our case) claimants on it and the name of the defendant(s) on it.

Part 36 Offers are governed by the Civil Procedure Rules. They're are an extremely potent weapon in civil litigation and can be wielded by both claimants and defendants.

For example, if you were claiming £10,000 for negligence is a personal injury against ACME Sprockets and after litigation commenced (and at any time up to judgement) ACME sprockets made you a Part 36 Offer of £9,999, if at court you won your claim against ACME Sprockets and ACME Sprockets was held to have been negligent, but the judge awarded you£9,998 pounds compensation, even though technically you would have won your claim, you would be liable for ACME Sprockets legal costs. If they had a dream team of lawyers, those costs could potentially run into hundreds of thousands. That is why you have to have ATE (After The Event) insurance to provide you with security for costs should you a) lose at court b) Win at court but fail to beat a Part 36 Offer in which case you have a pyrrhic victory as you could win a couple of thousand pounds and then be liable for hundreds of thousands in legal costs.

If we can't secure ATE insurance to cover the class action, this class action is dead in the water. That's all there is to it.

We have to get enough money together to:

1) Purchase ATE insurance (we're talking £100,000 plus)

AND

2) Pay for our own legal team to represent us at court.

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "25/11/2013 - 22:49":

Sounds like the same scam I got suckered into Dean? Small world. Never saw it coming.

Why is it though that when I stand on a busy street corner with a handful of £10 notes offering to give one of them to anybody who gives me £5 in return folk cross the street in embarrassment whispering "scam" and "there must be a catch"? None at all. Do the deal and they are £5 better off.

This parable illustrates my point re suspicions about Property118. Easy to check out - unlike the mob that stung you and I - so I stick to my guns saying fence sitters are not staying away for this reason. Shouldn't be anyway. Being careful is wise but over suspicion to the point of paranoia leads to never doing anything.

I think I'll stay up tonight in case the bed collapses!

If this does go all the way to court, it's going to be a risk/reward, cost/benefit analysis by West Bromwich as to whether they would want to settle. If it's say, a 1000 or so borrowers in the class action, they may be willing to settle because they can still make a huge profit from the 5,700 borrowers not part of the class action. If however, all 6,700 borrowers were part of the class actions (which realistically is unlikely to happen), what would the West Brom have to lose (putting aside potential bad publicity) by trying to argue their case in court without resorting to a settlement?

As for cut of dates after which no one else would be allowed to join, that would be down to Mark, Justin and the lawyers. Whilst parties can be added after litigation has commenced (addition and substitution of parties to a claim is governed by Part 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules), I have a feeling that once the claim form is submitted, it will only be those people who have paid up to join the class action that will be named on the claim. Also, I have a feeling that if you have mulitiple mortgages, mortgage account numbers will be referred to in the claim and only those mortgage account numbers in the claim will be affected by a judgement or settlement in our favour. Therefore if anyone is thinking about sneakily paying for one affected WBBS mortgage when they have multiple affected WBBS mortgages, I would urge them to reconsider that particular strategy.

To all of those sitting on the fence, if you are thinking that you can piggyback of this case by not contributing to the class action and then citing it as a precedent in any separate claim against the West Bromwich BS, just bear in mind that only the Court of Appeal and above can create a precedent. Precedents cannot be created in the High Court.

Reply to the comment left by "Mervyn Wharton" at "25/11/2013 - 21:02":

Hi Mervyn
I have multiple BTL's with the WBBS and yes its cost me thousands but I feel that it is important that I pay for the legal advice I am receiving not getting the advice for free. If everyone was sitting on the fence waiting for free legal advice then the action would not go ahead. I have said multiple times on the forum before that I believe it is important that we do not form a clique where those who have paid do not keep the benefits to ourselves, but with comments such as this I can understand why people who have paid say that we should keep the benefits to ourselves. I DO NOT subscribe to this but I understand why some do and urge you to (like me) to pay your thousands (I am the biggest by far) to help us all fight this unjust and possibly illegal action of the WBBS.

Ian