West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Reply to the comment left by "Lisa Stux" at "14/10/2013 - 15:36":

I dont think there will be any gagging clauses. We will either go to Court and win or lose . In which case everyone will win or lose .

Or West Brom will back down and everyone will win. They cant treat people differently in the same agreement.

I dont think they will be monitoring this site either. I dont hink they will give a dam, they are too arrogant.

However, as a group we seem to be adding postings on here that are not really having any direct benefit other than trying to pass on our own thoughts , making ourselves feel a little better . Interesting though most are what we need is more people coming to this site .

How many people have emailed Watchdog ?

What other ways have people thought of to get the messdage out there to get more WB B2L lenders to this site ?

Reply to the comment left by " " at "14/10/2013 - 16:20":

Dean is right. The emphasis now MUST be on spreading the word not talking to ourselves. Watchdog, press, our MP's, our mortgage brokers/advisers, any btl borrowers plus anyone - the world - etc etc needs to be contacted. In addition to our own mortgage brokers cold call others if you have a moment spare. The more mud we throw the more will stick.
As for WBBS stoolies looking at this forum let Mark and Justin decide how best to handle it, or to ignore it.

Would it be worth contacting housing associations they must have mortgages ?

I agree totally with the above two comments. We have to keep momentum going.

But that is not us keep posting on here. We need more people to visit this site.

There are 6700 landlords . Only around 100 have signed up here. On the face of it that is very poor. But i reckon less than 200 people are visiting this thread. So the take up is fantastic.

But we need more . I reckon we need a 600 take up. If you say the average mortgage is 1.25 per take up that would be

£200 x 1.25×600 x 90% = £135000. That must be enough for a good start to a legal case.

So all we can do at the moment as a group is try our best to get the 118 property website known to as many of those remaining 6700 as possible.

A group of us have contacted all the landlord associations so hopefully something will come of that over the next 2 weeks.

If you are in an association. Contact the group leader and ask they mail shot all members and /or put it on their website. Also put it on the next meetings agenda.

Mark indicated that when he gets back he intends to try and sort some form of mail shot to all Brokers. They will know who they sold WB B2Ls to. They will probably also be dealing with disgruntled landlords daily. Hopefully they will pass on the 118 details. Although some may see it as an opportunity to sell a new mortgage !
I still think we should ask our brokers to put their PI insurers on alert. That might focus their minds. In the meantime everyone should call their broker and ask that they tell all their WB customers to visit 118.

Ive emailed and written to every credible newspaper. But if more did that it becomes a story and not just a few peoples gripe. I have a web address for their websites and addresses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom.

Each week we should all email Watchdog. Ive done it three times so far. Again at the moment its just a few people griping on. If all 81 email today and every Monday until we get a mention it becomes a credible story for them. They have already run a peice on Clydesdale Bank.
watchdog@bbc.co.uk

One peice on Watchdog and we should hit another 1000 people on this site easily . If half take it up we are there. So please everyone who as signed up email them today. For those who havent signed up email them twice from two different email addresses and then please sign up. Its £240 versus 20 years of £200 per month = £48000 !!! It has to be worth the punt ??

If you are an agent with a web site please put a link to 118 on your site. Also drop an email to all your landlords with the link please.

If you have a contact at Rightmove, Zoopla etc please ask them to add the 118 link. Every additional person is a bonus, plus they may know one other. It needs to snow ball.

Thanks Dean

PS MPs list. If you havent already drop them a line ASAP . One mention from an MP will get more visitors to 118

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/#nav-W

PPS No apologies for putting this on again . I want the people who can only view the site in the evening to look at it and add some publicity

On the BoI forum they spoke about going private but at the time I said that the BoI would set up a bogus account if they were that interested. I personally doubt that there are watching as they have Barristers for any legal challenge there's nothing you can say that they don't already know.

Emails sent by us to Watchdog and second letter to MP today who had written back asking for more details. Spoke to Justin Selig briefly this morning who has received all our paperwork and obviously very busy! Yes, we are wondering about the security on here - was googling about the Skipton Building Society hikes in 2010 and found they had a facebook site which is still there:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/309129390147/

Does anyone know the outcome of the Skipton situation - did they get an out of court settlement ?

Reply to the comment left by "Peter Cole" at "14/10/2013 - 18:01":

Top man Peter. Good to hear about watchdog and your MP. I'm still waiting to hear from mine but clegg. PM. And Bank of England have all forwarded my letters to treasury.

Hope others will follow suit and email watchdog. I do think we just need that bit of publicity.

Mark as an advertising fund I believe. Hopefully it can stretch to some newspaper ads

Reply to the comment left by " " at "14/10/2013 - 18:19":

Do anyone have a 'standard letter' example to send to our MP? Someone like Tom Watson would be a good person to get on board.

For publicity purposes I've scanned the relevant document so anyone can read them to make up there own minds if they think the hike is fair or legal.
Hosted on my own site, please feel free to copy and paste everywhere, in letters to MPs, Journalist, on-line etc. http://www.idostuff.co.uk/sections/Property/Mortgage/West-Bromwich-BTL-tracker-contract.html

They add some weight to argument that any right minded person would think the margin is fixed.

Any suggestions please let me know.

Helen, there are a couple somewhere back in the thread.

Reply to the comment left by "Helen Landlord" at "14/10/2013 - 18:22":

Hi Helen - here is the standard MP letter that Mark provided a few days ago:

Dear [ ]
I don’t know whether you have seen in the press that the above building society has decided to increase tracker mortgages for some 7,300 landlords by 2%. They are specifically targeting “professional landlord’s” i.e. those who have three or more rental properties despite the fact that there is no legal definition of what constitutes a “professional landlord”. They have carried out a credit check on all of their borrowers to see what other mortgages they hold with other lenders in order to decide who fulfils the criteria. This in itself is an abuse of the credit check system which is not to be used for deciding whether or not members of the public fall into a certain category that can have their mortgages increased. In addition this will leave a footprint on my credit rating history and is totally unacceptable.
My understanding of the basis of the mortgage that I had with them was that it could only ever vary when the base rate changed. They are now telling me that they are able to adjust the tracker rate margin as well. Had I known about this at the time the mortgage was taken out I would have chosen another mortgage product or lender. The building society are relying on a clause that is buried in a booklet entitled “Information you need to know about your Mortgage”. This ability to increase the rate was not mentioned in the offer loan or the mortgage illustration key facts sheet that was provided by the broker. In fact the booklet is not mentioned either although West Bromwich say that it is noted in the mortgage deed that I signed. Case law supports the requirement for important conditions to be made clear and obvious in contracts and this is definitely not the case in the mortgage documentation that was issued to me.
This increase which is to take effect on 1 December 2013 will increase the payments on my buy to let mortgage by £[ ] per month. My main concern is that other building societies may decide to follow suit if they see West Bromwich getting away with this. Having [ ] rental properties in [ area ] this will cause me a huge problem if this were to happen. Although landlord’s often receive bad publicity I do feel that we provide a valuable service and because we have benefited from low interest rates for the past few years we have been able to keep rents down and at a realistic affordable price. I simply won’t be able to sustain paying an extra £[ ] per month and obviously this is not an increase that I can pass on to my tenants. I know that other landlords in the [ ] area are going to be in a similar position. This in turn may cause [ ] Council a huge problem if properties are repossessed and sold making many people homeless as a result.
I am supporting a Class Action group called Property118.com which is gaining a lot of support from landlords up and down the country but we really could do with some political support and have this situation highlighted in Parliament.
If you could assist, I and many other landlords would be very grateful.
Regards