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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ROSEMARY BOSWORTH

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21:28 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Paul Eastabrook" at "28/11/2013 - 20:29":

I have already challenged WBBS regarding the authority to obtain details from credit Agencies, their reply was "Under the terms of the declaration made by you on submission of your application for your loan , you provided the Company with the authority to disclose and use your information, permitting it to make these enquires." The declaration states that the Company is able to use this information for 'debt tracing and the prevention of money laundering as well as management of your account'. In this instance we have reviewed this information in relation to the management of your account.

Paul Eastabrook

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21:41 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "ROSEMARY BOSWORTH" at "28/11/2013 - 21:28":

I would have thought "hostile manipulation of your account" was a more appropriate clause to introduce, rather than "management of".

Richard Adams

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21:50 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mervyn Wharton" at "28/11/2013 - 08:18":

Hi Mervyn, Been out all day so just saw your post. It it's any consolation I am utterly skint. I want to pay out £240 like a hole in the head tight now, but if I keep it back for Christmas what happens in January, February and so on through the year at the end of which I'm £3120 worse off and worse still with no hope of getting it back. Christmas 2014 might as well be written off now plus other stuff I had in mind?
Take it a step further if we all look no further than this Christmas, no action will happen so WB get away with it then other lenders join the rip off fray. By mid 2014 being just £3120 pa worse off will look like peanuts.

Surrey Landlord

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22:28 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Dear All, I haven't put anything on here for awhile. I have however sent off my money for the 2 BTLs that I have with West Bromwich.
I am awaiting their response to my letter of complaint about their behaviour. I am encouraged by the recent Barrister's thoughts. However there is another tack to consider.
I am mentioning this to West Bromwich:
1) Regarding being viewed as "commercial". There are commercial lenders out there with commercial products. However West Bromwich Mortgages were never advertised as being commercial mortgages in the first place. Commercial mortgages and the treatment of commercial tenants is very different from how we can treat our tenants. With a commercial tenant, there are rights of possession to the landlord if the tenant defaults. We cannot take possession of the property without further court action. I don't see how we can be classed as having commercial mortgages when we cannot treat the tenants we have as commercial tenants. We can't treat our tenants commercially and that's that.
2) I gather from this website, that West Bromwich is treating those holding mortgages with multiple properties (with them) as being "professional" landlords. Although there is no specific prescription that I am aware of that describes what a "professional" landlord is, this term is rather vague and inconclusive. As landlords we have to behave professionally and there are certain things that are demanded from us but that is as far as it goes.
3) My wife pointed out however, and her experience is that of having done a law degree and the LPC (legal professional exams of a solicitor), that it would appear that West Bromwich may be inconsistent in how they are treating even the so-called "professional landlords" holding two or more mortgages. It would appear from this website that they are differentially treating landlords with multiple mortgages depending on whether those mortgages were advised by one of their advisers or independent ones. If this is the case, this process itself is discriminatory and unfair. If they want to treat landlords who hold more than two mortgages on the basis of the fact that this makes them "professional landlords", it would be irrelevant to that argument as to who advised them to have those mortgages. This would appear therefore to weaken their argument substantially.
I'm in the process of asking West Bromwich, under the Freedom of Information Act, the following questions:
1) How many borrowers hold buy to let mortgages with them
2) How many borrowers hold two or more mortgages either with them or with other mortgage lenders in total and are therefore classed as professional landlords.
3) Is West Bromwich only increasing the interest rates of those borrowers who are advised independently or are they also increasing the interest rates of those landlords who were also given advice by their own advisers.
My wife advises me that the courts look very, very dimly at discriminatory and unfair treatment of the weaker party. I think this argument is an interesting one in addition to those that we already know about.
I hope this is of some use to all concerned.

Norfolk n'Chance

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22:36 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Adams" at "28/11/2013 - 21:50":
Richard,
I think you have misunderstood.

I wasn't suggesting that my post applies to me personally or to anyone already signed up to the class action. It was just a suggestion as to why the cost of joining might be an issue for others.

Richard Adams

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22:47 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mervyn Wharton" at "28/11/2013 - 22:36":

I quite understood you were not referring to yourself but making a point about possible attitude of others. Hence my reply was an attempt to paint the bigger picture for their benefit. That's all.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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23:12 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "28/11/2013 - 17:17":

New member posts always go into a moderation queue, hence delays for new posters, especially if I'm not by my PC.
.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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23:30 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Ivan Ratnayake" at "28/11/2013 - 22:28":

Welcome back Ivan

In response to the points you have raised ....

BTL mortgages are not regulated (unless under very exceptional circumstances) hence they are treated by all lenders as commercial mortgages.

West Brom refer to us as landlords of multiple properties. As you say, there is no legal definition of a professional landlord or sophisticated borrower. We suspect West Brom wants us to fight that argument because it would cost a fortune to create case law and would probably divide us even if we were to get a definition. Therefore, we feel it is pointless arguing that point.

Freedom of information act only applies to Public Bodies, West Brom is a Building Society hence that act does not apply

Mark Smith Head of Chambers Cotswold Barristers

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23:34 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Ivan needs to request under Data Protection Act not FOI

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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23:39 PM, 28th November 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Smith (Barrister-At-Law)" at "28/11/2013 - 23:34":

Agreed

@ Ivan - see "subject access request" >>> http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/personal_information
.

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