West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Reply to the comment left by "Badger " at "29/01/2014 - 16:56":

There will be no end date until we commence the actions referred to in the strategy recently outlined to paid up members.

Action will hopefully commence soon after our members only meeting which has been provisionally scheduled for Thursday 27th Feb, details to be disclosed in due course to paid up members only.

Between now and then, the only way to find out what is going on legally will be sign up, pay up, get the email from The Law Department and join the secure forum, strictly in that order 🙂
.

To add to the MPs contacted - we contacted Patrick Mcloughlin by email and have received an automated acknowledgement that our email has been received. Will give a reasonable period of time for his office to reply - but they may have other priorities to railroad through before doing so 😉

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/01/2014 - 17:14":

Mark
Will 27th Feb include BoI members or is it going to be a separate issue?

Reply to the comment left by "ian " at "29/01/2014 - 17:30":

We will probably have a separate meeting for BoI members immediately after the West Brom meeting.

The Law Department will be emailing all BoI members tomorrow 🙂
.

Reply to the comment left by "Onslow Clough" at "29/01/2014 - 17:05":

I would wish to temper that comment with the proviso "We do need you and likewise, you need us". Civil litigation is an expensive business at the best of times. We have much to be proud of in raising the sums already raised but I suspect that there will be a further round of fund raising required. The more that join up, the more beneficial it will be for all us.

Hopefully our efforts with our respective MP's and Mark's efforts at Westminster will significantly boost the publicity for our cause and bring the West Brom legal action group to the attention of those who were previously unaware of it. It may even convince those who are contemplating joining up to take the plunge on the basis that we represent their best chance of reversing the rate hike.

I would urge everyone not to lose sight of the fact that a victory at the High Court for us could result in an immediate appeal by the West Brom to the Court of Appeal. Conversely, a defeat for us at first instance would require us to pursue an appeal at the Court of Appeal. An initial defeat unfortunately would result in the ATE premium being reviewed and ATE insurance being considerably higher due to the perceived higher risk for the ATE insurer resulting from the initial defeat. There are many ways this could go. e.g. initial loss and then victory at CoA for us, win at first instance for us, loss at first instance and win for West Brom at CoA which may then result in an appeal to the Supreme Court etc.

Litigation is often a long drawn out process and I would not want to be in position where we won the battle but lost the war. It is in our interests to ensure as many people join the group action as possible as we will be expending significant sums of money to fight this at court; in all likelihood more than we have raised thus far.

In short, keep some cash aside for the war chest. We may end up needing it.

That said, things are looking very positive going forward.

I was just looking through some paperwork and came across the leaflet that WB sent explaining why they were ripping us off, I i mean increasing their rate.
In case there was doubt as to what type of mortgage we had, the title of this leaflet is:
"Understanding the changes to your buy to let tracker mortgage".
It doesn't say "Understanding the changes to your buy to let let's put the premium up mortgage" hehe

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/01/2014 - 14:49":

We will need to extend our apologies as 27th Feb is a work day for both of us - the point being that this is not our main occupation and that therefore we both have full time jobs. Being a landlord and managing our small property portfolio is very much a side line for us which we had hoped would supplement our pensions.

Reply to the comment left by "The Man From Nowhere" at "29/01/2014 - 18:19":

I agree, Man from Nowhere, but being honest at the beginning i was reticent to join the group for fear that the whole thing might fizzle out and my money would be lost...
That being said I jumped in anyway and am very glad I did.

I just think people sitting on the fence need to be aware that we have reached our initial financial goal and can therefore join confident in the knowledge that this IS going to happen.

That being said clearly the more contributors to the fighting fund the better.

Hi folks
Must be up to a pound by now (when you add up all the tuppence worth's)
A secure forum is great (especially as the legal bods do not object)
A Meeting is even better (central London is a pain in the bum for us northerners but I guess its a lot cheaper for us to come down than for the legal bods to meet anywhere else)
Might I suggest we all draw up a list of questions to ask at the meeting (I know we'll repeat a few ) If we then cross off the list those addressed on the secure forum then in theory we should have a list of last minute queries and we shouldn't waste too much expensive time (and the rest of us can just chat til we run out of breath)

Reply to the comment left by "Ju Stacey" at "29/01/2014 - 17:03":

I wrote to Ed Milliband right in the first instance (as a lfetime Labour supporter) and (eventually) received a disappointingly bland reply 🙁