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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Concerned Landlord

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9:13 AM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

All this is just too sad - seeing how the boss of a reputable company is destroying the perception of not only his own bank but also the industry that has already got a battering and all because of greed and bonuses - these guys just don't learn ever....

Ian Burton

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11:02 AM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

As I am just pulling together all of the paperwork associated with the WBBS for Justin I notice that even though I had 7 (yes 7) contracts with them I have not 1 copy of the terms and conditions! I wonder if anybody anywhere has a copy WITHOUT asking for it, because of this I wonder whether this may have been deliberate. 1 missed copy could be construed as an operational failing but all or nearly all must surely be a deliberate policy to hide or mislead. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable in the law may know the answer to this. If it appears most of us haven't perhaps a poll / survey of everyone involved may be enlightening.

M Jones

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11:42 AM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Hi Ian - interesting what you say about the T&C's indeed I was wondering - it seems to be a continual theme that no-one recalls receiving the T&C's I know I most certainly did not. Did WB actually send them out with the paperwork? If no-one received them then might we be able to prove a trend that the WB did not actually make it policy to include the documentation?
I have recently received my Final Response from the WB needless to say it is a standard reply and does not address my individual concerns. They have sent me my paperwork and included the T&C on this occasion.
Also of note - speaking of 'veiled threats', the letter of final response also emphasis the WB option to call in the loan within 28 days notice. This is extremely aggressive and although carefully worded it is undoubtedly designed to unsettle me.

Ian Burton

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11:51 AM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Matthew " at "04/10/2013 - 11:42":

Hi Mathew
Don't let it intimidate you I'm certainly behind you 100% as I suspect lots of others are.Man this is a LOT of photocopying!

Mark Landlord

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12:04 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Hi all,

We are have been affected by the WBBS situation too & after reading through the comments glad that we are not fighting this alone.

Well done to Mark on starting this & using this forum as the launch pad .

Both our mortgages with them were remortgages & am pretty sure both came with free legals

We will be getting a letter off to them for each of the 2 mortgages that we have with them. Then I assume we will get the standard letter back referring to the t&cs plus the clause about recalling the mortgage in 28 days. Which is pure & simply designed to scare us.

One question I wondered if anybody could answer is that we have one mortgage for a property in England & another for a property in Scotland. Can Justin & the class action cover both mortgages or do we need to look at Solicitiors in Scotland for the one there. ?

Richard Adams

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13:02 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Ian Burton" at "04/10/2013 - 11:02":

Whether anyone actually received the booklet "Information you need to know about your Mortgage" might just be irrelevant. If anyone genuinely did not then their case is maybe done and dusted if they can prove it. The crunch issue is whether hidng the onerous conditions about interest rate hikes in small print and NOT drawing attention to it in any form whatsoever will win favour for WB in front of a judge. This I believe is what we are paying our barrister to give a view upon.

That our solicitors and mortgage brokers did not point out what we were signing up to is another matter. If they knew and failed to warn us, professional indemnity insurance might kick in. There have been posts about this. Because WB are undoubtedly devious I can't help thinking that in defence of lawyers etc they might
have not been aware of the interest rate hike bombshell? Were they given a copy of the booklet?

Concerned Landlord

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13:17 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

It might be of interest to members here to know that my Norther Rock mortgage clearly defines what Bank of England Base rate is and in what circumstances they can switch to a different index - clearly explained in the mortgage offer letter and not in small print in their booklet.

I have received a standard reply from FOS (Financial Ombudsman Service) that they will get back to me! I urge everyone to approach them too as well as of course pursuing the legal route...

Will The Gasman

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13:21 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I've just fished out the paperwork for the 3 properties we have with them.
I do have a copy of the terms and conditions booklet.

I have read the section 5. which they are using to raise the interest rate.
I have noticed a couple of points. It says that they can vary the interest rate for pretty much any reason that benefits them, except during any period that the interest rate is expressed to be at a fixed rate ?

The way I see a tracker mortgage, is that its a combination of a fixed rate and a variable rate, but within strict boundaries. i.e base + 1.5%. So does this mean that it is technically a fixed rate ? If it is, can the clause be used ?

The paragraph they are using, is obviously written to apply to their variable interest rate and was never meant to apply to their tracker.

I feel that our rate is a fixed rate and they shouldn't be able to increase rates using this paragraph.

Thoughts ??

Concerned Landlord

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13:28 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Will, I think as it has been said before, the emphasis should be on miss-selling: not explaining clearly what the pit falls of the product are.

The technicalities should be irrelevant if the miss-selling is ruled in.

The product is BBR+(a fixed margin) - a variable rate for the life of the product.

Anything that influences this basic premise must be explained CLEARLY in the letter and not burried in small prints in a seperate bookle.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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13:32 PM, 4th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Will Brown" at "04/10/2013 - 13:21":

Hi Will

My thoughts at this stage are that we should see what our barrister thinks. Rest assured, I'm very confident that he will read all of these comments because that's what he did last time on the BoI thread prior to writing his 32 page opinion.
.

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