West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

In the Chief Executive’s Business Review for the 6 months to September Mr Westhoff also wrote:

“The financial services industry faces increased regulatory and public scrutiny in the wake of PPI mis-selling and, more recently, LIBOR fixing scandals. As a traditional, regional building society, the West Brom is run for the benefit of its members and is committed to acting with integrity in all of its dealings with them.”

I would have thought that the last two words were superfluous. I would have liked a full stop after “dealings”.

However, the words have been added, and restrict WB’s integrity to savers. Any others who have dealings with WB - borrowers, brokers, suppliers, building contractors, etc. – should not expect integrity from their counter-part.

As regards savers, the whole sentence is superfluous. If WB did not act with integrity towards them, they would take their money out with little or no notice.

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "09/12/2013 - 13:17":

I set it up so I probably get to see a little more information than you. However, only so many show at any one time.

Its very strange that within one morning an additional 73 people have now added their signature. The brief info is suggesting they are from many areas of the UK, certainly not confined to any one or any region.

I am trying to find out but I can only email the ones who leave comment or everyone at once.

So far can only find one person who left a comment, but they have not replied as yet

Dean

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "09/12/2013 - 14:04":

There has been a corresponding jump in the number of Class Action Expression of Interest Forms completed in the last few days too. I can only assume it is a combination of all the effort people have put in to spread the message though leaflets at landlords events, engaging with mortgage advisers etc.

The reason I took the leaflet off the To-Do list by the way is that it is now dated. The lead article now confirms that we are fully funded and ready to commence litigation but the leaflet was produced at a time when we were only half way there and still desperate to raise extra funds.

The ONLY reasons that an opportunity still exists to become part of the Class Action Group is that we are very close to the Christmas break and some time is necessary to consolidate everything in readiness to commence litigation.

We are on final approach, fasten your seat belts folks 😉
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When I saw in the Chief Executive’s Business Review for the 6 months to September the blithe statement that the operating profit was £6 million but the loss was £5.2 million, without a word of explanation as to why, I decided to see what had turned the profit into a loss.

The accounts show that it was mostly due to a £10 million impairment (reduction in the valuation) of the assets in the Commercial segment. Its negative equity at the end of September became £75.4 million.

In the 3 years to March the impairments had been £9m, then £6m, then £7m.

£10m in 6 months equates to £20m a year, which is about three times the average of the previous three years.

This perhaps indicates a sudden downturn in the performance of Commercial loans.

Commercial lending is defined in the Glossary at the end of the annual accounts as:

“Loans secured on commercial assets. Commercial assets can include office buildings, industrial property, hotels, medical centres, shopping centres, farm land, buy-to-let and housing association properties.”

I wonder if this is what prompted WB to try to impose its 1.9% levy on us, so that we pay for its bad Commercial loans.

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "09/12/2013 - 14:25":

Hi Mark

I think the flyer is an excellent tool for handing out to strangers at landlord events. We are still trying to spread the word.

The original claim, that we were half-way to our target may have put some people off as looking like an appeal for money.

May I suggest that the funding section be amended to show we have enough money, and other positive statements, and have it resuscitated. It will then just look like a way of helping tracker borrowers, whether with WB, BoI, or any other lender.

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "09/12/2013 - 15:04":

What a great bit of analysis.

Shows that they are saying one thing while trying to explain it away as another !

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "09/12/2013 - 15:20":

I agree, I will draw Andy Bell's attention to this comment.

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "09/12/2013 - 15:04":

This potentially could just be a provision for bad and doubtful debts.

The banks have been using this recently. Effectively all they do is provide an estimate of what they consider to be bad and provide for it. As long as it is based on something specific then the Revenue will not challenge the provision.

That way they can reduce their corporation tax liability. However, for WB it could have a two fold effect of also showing how bad things are so they can justify their rate increase.

They may have provided for all loans 2 months in arrears for instance , perhaps in the past they had a policy of providing for loans 4 months in arrears . As an example.

When all the fuss dies down they could then go back to their original policy. You may find in 1-2 years that figure is significantly reduced. All legal and above board , the Auditors may query it but as long as there is a credible basis there should not be too much of an issue.

Got my SAR back eventually from them over the weekend.

Not a great deal in it that I didnt already have apart from the computer screen printouts and a few audio phonecalls. Glad I opted to not phone them when the first letter arrived with the increase as Im sure that I would have been able to hear my blood boil on the calls 🙂

Only reference to any credit search was Equifax back in 2007 when we took out the mortgage so god knows how they were able to say exactly how many mortgages we have in response to our complaint letters over the last couple of months

Also the new increased payment has started for me too !

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "09/12/2013 - 14:25":

@Mark

I was hoping a few of the new enquiries are as a result of my emails.

Today I sent the email to about another 20 Mortgage Brokers in East Sussex. About 100 email total covering many of the brokers from Hastings to Brighton.

Some are multi-branch so I sent to each branch.

It's a bit time consuming because I'm using Yell to locate their websites.