West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

This will be my first post on this website forum regarding the antics of WB, however I have followed the comments from the very start of the campaign. At the very beginning I was very, very sceptical that a group of people could unite and challenge WB, and did monitor the site for several long weeks, given that the challenge to fight the BOI seemed to have fizzled out.

It was very obvious from the postings on the site that a core selection of people have been working very hard with some very constructive, serous, and at times humorous suggestions on how to tackle the problem of WB. I have myself been actively working behind the scenes informing as many individuals (brokers, solicitors etc) of this website.

I was not a fence sitter, merely a very cautious seasoned old landlord having been a full time landlord since the inception of my property investment business in 1990.
A you can imagine in the very early days websites like this did not exist, I stumbled, muddled, and engaged very quickly with the legalities of being a full time landlord, for when I got it wrong.....you did not eat.

Over this period of time I have dealt and with many local authorities, banks and building societies who apply the dogmatic attitude, and thought ' here we go again' with the WB scenario. I know from experience that sometimes it is the staff working in the positions within organisations that get very vindictive, for that very reason I have not posted on this site in my real name.

The comments and research on here has been fantastic (except one who only seemed to post negative thoughts) each day it was clear people had the same mindset to tackle WB.

I only have two of my residential properties in my portfolio with gearing secured with WB at 0.59% over base, which when secured through my broker was executed very swiftly with WB legal team, Enact. My opinion is that given my broker offered me a service and recommendations based on my remit to them, that I technically I was a 'consumer' and should be covered under some consumer law. Which I will look into later.

Finally it was clear support was growing, and I did send details and payment to Justin for one property (best to have one iron in the fire) weeks ago. I have been actively marketing the other rental unit for sale, as with the decision by WB to raise the tracker rate this particular unit becomes un-viable in my business plan.

I raise my glass to all the team with the continued efforts in fighting WB, it has been a good experience in watching a group of people come together with a common attitude to fight WB. I thank you all in reinforcing my confidence once again in my fellow human being.

Reply to the comment left by "Appalled Landlord" at "09/12/2013 - 16:46":

@Appalled Landlord

I see you make a lot of positive contributions to this forum.

Would you be interested in starting the ball rolling by doing 10 emails?

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Kent " at "09/12/2013 - 16:26":

Could you copy us into the letter you have used, so we can get the word out there?

many thanks

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Kent " at "09/12/2013 - 17:43":

Richard, could you possibly provide a template for the email? I think it would be a good idea for us all to be saying the same thing. Many thanks

Hi Rosemary,

Thanks, My letter was very simple but open letter as follows and I have put my user name on it here instead of my real name....................:

Dear Mortgage Broker,

You might be aware of the current Class Legal Action at http://www.Property118.com which is mounting against the recent mortgage rate hike imposed by West Bromwich Building Society.

If your clients Buy to Let mortgage account number begins with the number 8 they 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 their tracker margin rate.

This letter is not wholly about the need to raise further funding as Property118 has already raised over £100,000 which is enough to fight this case.

Class Action Legal papers will be served on West Bromwich in January 2014 and as a result Property 118 are calling on brokers to inform their clients with mortgage account numbers starting with the number 8.

Please will you help spread the word about the legal action to your clients who may wish to contribute the legal fund arranged by Property118 and Solicitor Justin Selig?

Some of the affected borrowers are solicitors and mortgage advisers like yourself.

Kindest Regards
Richard Kent

(CeMAP, MAAT)

Reply to the comment left by "Anne Jackson" at "09/12/2013 - 18:11":

Thanks Anne,

I appreciate the support. 🙂

Reply to the comment left by "The Seasoned Female Investor" at "09/12/2013 - 17:40":

Good for you Seasoned Female Investor. Welcome on board and I'm sure you will enjoy riding the wave apart from benefitting from being on it.

I'm also pretty sure your post, your first, will inspire many others who like yourself until now have not committed, to do so. Let's hope so.

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Kent " at "09/12/2013 - 18:15":

I could do the north west/Trafford area. I will get on with it tonight.

Reply to the comment left by "Jackie Kay" at "09/12/2013 - 18:59":

Thanks Jakie 🙂

Forum members: In case you missed it, my original post related to sending 10 email to mortgage brokers in your local area as follows..............

Please go to http://www.yell.com and search “Mortgage Brokers” in your area such as “Essex” or “East Sussex”

Once you’ve done the Yell search you can then see links to the Mortgage Advisers websites. So just have a simple letter regarding spreading the word about this cause ready to copy and paste to them.

All you have to do is 10 emails (more if you want 🙂 ) and email Mark Alexander to let him know you have done it.

If 100 members send 10 emails each that's 1 email to each of 1000 brokers who could each have several affected clients!

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "09/12/2013 - 15:23":

Attn. drawn. update asap.