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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Dean

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13:54 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

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13:55 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "29/01/2014 - 13:54":

how can you tell??? spill!!

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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14:29 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Ian Burton" at "29/01/2014 - 13:29":

I have just spoken to Justin and he is happy with the security measures proposed for the secure forum.

One additional security measure will be that the forum users password will be emailed to the users email we have on record as having received instructions, payment, ID etc. from and only after this has been manually cross referenced with our records.
.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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14:49 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Provisional date for your diaries

Please pencil in the day of Thursday 27th February for a confidential members meeting somewhere in Central London to discuss the email sent to members by The Law Department yesterday and progress thereafter.
.

Richard Kent

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14:50 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "29/01/2014 - 13:54":

Dean.

Excellent News!!!!

The Financial Services Consumer Panel have caught this issue in the early stages.

I think Mark is going to chat with the FSCP anyway.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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15:01 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Kent " at "29/01/2014 - 14:50":

Yes Richard, the following email was sent to them last night 🙂

Dear Lorna

I am the organiser of the legal action and campaign groups in respect of the tracker rate mortgage increases unfairly imposed by West Brom Building Society and Bank of Ireland last year.

I would like to arrange a meeting with Liz Barclay please.

We have cross party support from MP’s on the issues I have outlined below, please see Early Day Motion 976 - http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/976

Key issues are:-

Mortgage lenders are breaching tracker rate mortgage contracts by unilaterally increasing the margin they charge over the Bank of England base rate in order to increase their profit margins and deliberately targeting borrowers where consumer protection law is ambiguous.

There are believed to be 2.5 million tracker rate mortgages, i.e. mortgages which track the Bank of England base rate at a fixed margin for a defined period
147,000 readers are following a campaign to expose this scam via the Property118 internet forum as concern that other mortgage lenders will follow suit is increasing
Alleged examples of deliberate misuse of ambiguous consumer protection laws include ….

• 12,200 Bank of Ireland mortgage accounts whereby a mixture of homeowner mortgages and buy to let mortgage borrowers were targeted – all of which pre-dated the Oct 2008 mortgage regulations

• 6,700 West Brom Building Society mortgage accounts whereby landlords with 3 or more properties have been targeted – there is no case law to define what would constitute a consumer landlord although there is case law to acknowledge that landlords can be consumers. Therefore, Unfair Consumer Contract Terms legislation may or may not apply and it would appear that the WBBS are relying on affected borrowers not being able to raise sufficient funds to challenge this or litigate other points of contract law.

The case of OFT vs Foxtons recognised that a landlord can be a consumer but there is no legislation or case law to say when a landlord ceases to be a consumer. This has a massive impact on which landlords have the protection of UTCCR on all forms of contracts including mortgages, insurance, estate agency, suppliers etc. As you will be aware, there are in excess of 1 million UK landlords, the vast majority of which have invested into buy-to-let for their pensions and are certainly not sophisticated investors. They are generally hard working folk who have identified property as a safe haven for their retirement savings.

I look forward to hearing from you with a view to arranging a meeting with Liz Barclay at her earliest convenience.
.

Richard Kent

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15:17 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/01/2014 - 15:01":

Great letter! 🙂

I take my hat off to you!

Things are 'hotting up!'

Richard Kent

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15:26 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/01/2014 - 15:01":

Without causing too much enthusiasm I there is a long shot that the FSCP will put pressure on the FCA to act before court.

Or even support your case at court with their "Grey List" of the consumer scenarios which the lenders are taking advantage of.

Again-it's a long shot.

Just a thought.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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15:56 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Richard Kent " at "29/01/2014 - 15:26":

That's exactly the angle I intend to pursue if I get a meeting 🙂
.

Richard Kent

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15:59 PM, 29th January 2014, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/01/2014 - 15:56":

You know Courts really love to hear evidence from consumer bodies 🙂

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