West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

18:38 PM, 30th September 2013, About 11 years ago 3869

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West Bromwich Tracker Rate Mortgages Legal Action Group

West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Are you affected by the West Brom Tracker Rate Hike?

If your mortgage account number begins with the number 8 you are highly likely to be one of the unlucky 41% of the mortgage customers of the West Bromwich building Society with a West Bromwich Mortgage Company account affected by the 1.9% increase in your tracker margin rate. However, if you arranged your mortgage directly with West Bromwich Building Society (i.e. not via a broker) or before 2006 the chances are that your account number will begin with the number 9 and you are not affected – YET!!! West Brom will give no assurances that mortgages with account numbers beginning with the number 9 will not be affected at some point in the future.

OUR INTENDED CLASS ACTION LITIGATION OVERVIEW

Tracker Rate Class Actions Updates

The reasons we started this campaign are very simple:-

1) We believe the actions of West Brom are immoral

2) We believe the actions of West Brom are unlawful, i.e. they have no legal grounds to increase their tracker rate margins

3) We have no wish to subsidise other areas of the West Bromwich Building Society business model

4) We are fearful of other lenders following suit if West Brom are allowed to get away with this

Mark Smith (Barrister-At-Law) said …

“Representative actions, where one person starts a case representing many others, who all want the answer to a legal question from a court such as ‘is this contract enforceable against me?’ but are not seeking damages. All those who sign up to the action will get the benefit of the win, but they do not have to start their own cases, as they are ‘represented’ by the lead claimant.

The only people who will definitely benefit from success in the case are those who have signed up. There will be no free rides. Any others will have to fight their own corners individually, either alone or with legal help (which will inevitably cost significantly more than the group case).”

We will NOT settle on any basis.

Landlords take legal action against West Brom Mortgage Company

We have a moral duty to do what is right for those who support the values upon which this campaign was started. Our promise to all who support these values is that we will not sell out on you at any price. We will continue to fight this injustice and we will fight any other lender who tries to follow suit.

Are you with us?

This discussion thread is now closed – we’re off to Court!

To link to the new discussion please CLICK HERE

West Bromwich Mortgage Company Tracker Margins Legal Action


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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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13:09 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

We need to get the London Newspapers on-side as so many people read them, especially the Metro and the Evening Standard. Any volunteers?
.

Appalled Landlord

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14:06 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "David Lawrenson" at "28/11/2013 - 12:22":

Hi David

I am not complaining that paragraph 5 of the Mortgage Conditions 2006, which WB is relying, on is in a separate booklet.

I am protesting that it is over-ruled by paragraph 1 of the same conditions because paragraph 5 is inconsistent with the Offer of Loan.

Seething Landlord

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14:09 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

David, great letter, but just wondered, have you considered mentioning the threat to call in the loans?

Dean

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14:11 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "28/11/2013 - 14:06":

Para 5 also does not relate to Tracker Mortgages but to SVR mortgages.

However, if Davids letter gets any form of response from Mr Tyrie I think that would be a great result to build on

Dean

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14:12 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/11/2013 - 12:26":

I have left my comment for what it is worth and for how long it manages to stay on for

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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14:28 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "28/11/2013 - 14:06":

I completely agree, condition 5 is clearly only intended to Standard Variable Rate mortgages, as described very nicely on the West Brom website and other promotional materials and NOT tracker rate mortgages which are equally well defined by West Brom.

West Brom are trying to pass off Tracker Rate Mortgages as SVR's in to attempt to increase their profits.

Frankly, I don't care a jot that the condition they are relying on is buried in small print because along with many other conditions also in small print in their a generic mortgage condition booklet THEY ARE NOT RELEVANT.

I do not feel this point has been made strongly enough in the current draft of David's open letter.

The matters of Treating Customers Fairly etc. are all separate issues to this and play nicely into our hands to demonstrate that the West Brom Board of Directors are clearly deluded if they think they can get away with this.
.

The Man From Nowhere

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15:01 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Agreed. The conditions in the small print in the generic mortgage condition booklet do not give West Bromwich the right to increase the tracker rate on our BTL tracker mortgages.

This will be made plain in court provided we get enough funds together to go to court. I know I sound like a broken record going on and on and on and on about the same thing over and over again (I feel like the flippin' Energiser Bunny) but everything hinges on raising sufficient funds to make these arguments at court.

If we can raise enough money for ATE insurance and litigation, then that is all I need to know to provide me with the first decent night of sleep since I received these damn letters from the West Brom.

Mark Smith Head of Chambers Cotswold Barristers

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15:16 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Hello all

I thought I would introduce myself and provide some information to those who may be wondering what a barrister might be thinking about the prospects of the case.

My name is Mark Smith, I am a barrister and former solicitor of 26 years’ experience in practice. I am currently involved in several mortgage related cases, principally acting for the borrowers on a case involving the fallout from a £10 million Barclays mortgage affected by the LIBOR/EURIBOR scandal, amongst other high value cases. I have spent significant time in research on mortgage law, in conjunction with a leading academic lawyer from Cambridge University. My thoughts have been focused on helping borrowers who have been badly treated by increasingly desperate lenders. I have always acted for the customers, never the institutions.

I had the privilege of connecting with Mark Alexander through LinkedIn, when he posted that he was seeking a “no win no fee” arrangement to commence professional negligence claims against professional advisers in the event of the principal claims against West Bromwich Mortgage Co Ltd failing.

Mark has very kindly sent me copies of the papers he sent to his solicitor Justin Selig and having reviewed them in great detail it is my opinion that the borrowers have a very strong case to oppose the margin rise. I also have additional strategies to discuss with Justin and the chosen QC once his opinion is formalised on or around 9th December. I will not go into details now, suffice to say that I am prepared to be involved with the class action in whatever way Mark and the signed-up borrowers decide . I am obtaining proposals for ATE insurance, which will include quotations on various bases including taking into consideration that West Bromwich Mortgage Company may seek to appeal to the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court. The benefit of having ATE in place is that everyone’s total cost exposure will be known before any case begins, however far it goes.

I have read the various comments over the last few days and I can assure you that you will not find a more cost effective option than a group action litigation for a case like this. I would also implore all “fence sitters” to sign up now whilst the window of opportunity to do so remains open.

Mark Smith Barrister-At-Law

Richard Watters

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15:19 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Well, with comments like this surely no-one will still sit on the fence?

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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15:20 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

I have just tweeted the following ....

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