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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11:52 AM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Sam Collett" at "09/10/2013 - 11:29":

That good Sam

Hopefully other papers will pick up on it too and the MPs contacted will see it as an opportunity to piggy back on for some publicity.

How do you know about the feedback they have had ?

Thanks

Dean

Peter Davis

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12:02 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Common Man" at "08/10/2013 - 12:21":

I called them and asked this question. My wife and I have a joint BTL mortgage with WB. I have a separate BTL with BM and we have a joint residential loan on our house with Halifax. The guy on the phone said the criteria for being 'a landlord of multiple properties' as defined in their original letter was anyone whose name appears on 3 mortgages - even if they carry different names and even if one is your own home! I asked him who I should write to complain about this and he responded with 'why do you want to complain?' I proceeded to tell him that under the terms of my mortgage offer I didn't believe they had the right to raise the rate and that I have never seen the Ts & Cs booklet he referred to. I received a letter saying that my complaint has been logged and I will receive a full response by 29/10. They were supposed to include the booklet with the letter but they must have forgotten to put it in (again).

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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12:04 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by " " at "09/10/2013 - 11:17":

Justin provided an update 2 days ago with the information you have requested, he also agreed to provide a weekly update. I don't want to trouble him too often as his time is charged back to the funds raised. I would also ask people who have been emailing or calling Justin directly to bear this in mind. The template letters he will provide are also clearly detailed in the email you get from Justin when you sign up. If he adds further processes and templates to the advice I'm sure he will let us all know.

This is the link to Justin's last update >>> http://www.property118.com/west-brom-building-society-to-increase-btl-tracker-margins-by-2/43657/comment-page-35/#comment-29738

I think your strategy is an interesting one but my overriding advice is to wait and see what Justin and the barrister come back with and for us to follow the advice and procedures they provide as opposed to us all running around like headless chickens at the risk of causing collateral damage.
.

Dean

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12:23 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Peter Davis" at "09/10/2013 - 12:02":

Sounds like he was an arrogant guy !

Would he complain if WB pointed to some tiny clause in his contract that said , if we are not doing as well as we would like to do we will reduce your salary by £200pm ?

Since when did WB have the right to define anything ? Who says the criteria is three properties why not 1 or 11 or 111? They are making it up as they go along !

Dean

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12:30 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "09/10/2013 - 12:04":

Thanks Mark I did see that didnt realise it was only a few days ago seems to have been going for so much longer .

I thought I saw a comment from you saying he was going to put a message on after that though , I might be mistaken ?

I would apprecaire it though if you could put the suggestion to him of contacting solicitors and brokers to try and get funding from the PII . I dont want to contact him direct as Im sure he as enough on with this but I do think it could be a source of some considerable funds if done correctly

Thanks

Dean

Seething Landlord

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12:33 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "09/10/2013 - 10:31":

An excellent blog - it summarises the position in a way that anyone can understand.

As I do not have any mortgages with WBBS I had not previously seen the precise wording of clause 5, which is helpfully included in the blog. The opening clause of 5.1 states "Interest is payable by you at the rate or rates specified in your Offer of Loan letter, which except during any period in which interest is expressed to be at a fixed rate may be varied by the Company ...(for various specified reasons)".
The wording of the offer letter is crucial but if as I suppose it says that interest will be at x% over Bank Base Rate for the remainder of the term, that in my view makes the remainder of the term a "period in which interest is expressed to be at a fixed rate" i.e. BBR plus x%.

This is clearly what is conveyed by WBBS in their current advertising “Tracker mortgages give you the certainty of knowing that the rate you pay will move in line with Bank Base Rates", otherwise they would have added words such as "and in line with any change that we might make to the differential after you have signed up".

As emphasised previously by Mark, any ambiguity (which I do not believe exists anyway) will be construed against WBBS in accordance with the "contra proferentum" doctrine.

Seething Landlord

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13:04 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Sam Collett" at "09/10/2013 - 11:29":

Sam, I had considered including this suggestion in my previous comment. WBBS can't have it both ways - either their current advertising is grossly misleading or their attempt to increase the differential on BTL loans is not permitted by their terms and conditions. A challenge from the ASA would compel them to decide which of these mutually incompatible options to defend. On the other hand, the advertising might have strong evidential value in establishing WBBS's own understanding of their products, in which case the longer it continues the better.

Richard Adams

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13:16 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Seething Landlord" at "09/10/2013 - 13:04":

There was a post way back saying that it will cost WBBS £550 for each and every complaint made to the Financial Ombudsman. Is this correct? I checked the fee situation on the Ombudsman website. It seems to indicate that WBBS pay £300,000 pa to part of it. Thereafter the first 26 complaints about them are FOC then the £550 per case kicks in. Does actually this mean per case or each individual complaint about the same case?
If all 6700 borrowers affected complain it could therefore cost WBBS over £3.5 million. Doubtless Justin will be mentioning this in his opening shot letter? I feel a warm glow.

Mark Landlord

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13:20 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Letters on my desk ready to be posted tonight to the PM, Chancellor and Governor of the BoE.

Great article by Sam in the Daily Mail hoping it will bring others affected into this forum not to mention other newspapers etc

Anyone else I could write too as im on a roll !!

Andy Bell

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13:22 PM, 9th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Mark, I've just been put in touch with the senior reporter of Mortgage Solutions, this goes out to all brokers. He's already picked up on the story http://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/tag/west-bromwich-building-society
And he's looking for more angles on the topic, I'm sending him some details, scans of the document etc.

Could you PM me your contact details to pass on.

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