West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

A word of caution:
We are in danger here I believe if we start to use the terminology 'professional' when referring to ourselves on an open forum of giving weight to the argument that we are the 'professional landlords' named and targetted by WBBS - which is a description I would vigorously deny applies to myself or to my partner as we are both professionals in other fields but merely amateurs who are only dabbling in 'landlording'!
Denise

18/10/13 11:50
Just taken a telephone call from Holly O'Sullivan (sounds about 12) regarding our Subject Access Request - we do apparently need to send a cheque for £10.00 to WBBS before she is able 'because of company policy' to progress this fro us - and she also pointed out that our SAR will be 'treated separately from our complaints' which she is also dealing with and that she will 'contact us if she requires any additional information'
No mention of the man who normally deals with SAR being off work for a few weeks!
In fact it might seem to the casual observer that Holly is the only one working on this issue at WBBS - she sounded quite upbeat but I reckon if that's the case we could soon wear her down were all 6700 of us to send in complaints and SARs LOL

Reply to the comment left by "Denise Doms" at "18/10/2013 - 11:56":

I do genuinely feel sorry for Holly. She's just following orders and trying to earn a living like the rest of us. Oh to be a wage slave hey?

Rewind ....

Aren't 6,700 landlords also becoming slaves to West Brom as on 1/12/2013?
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Hi Mark
My husband and I were so glad to come across this website as we've just been hit with the same letter from west brom. For 2 btl. We actually didn't receive the letter from them until a week after it was public knowledge and we saw it first on the bbc website! So we didn't think we were affected, however our luck changed! There is great work going on by the team and we'd be glad to sign up. As we are based in Scotland and have taken out our mortgage with 'condition of mortgage in Scotland' attached to it, will the test case cover all of us across the uk? Sorry if this is already covered earlier. We got the standard letter back from west brom with some conditions which we never laid eyes on before. We contacted our broker espc in edinburgh and they had not even realised that west brom had hiked their tracker rates. We presume the next steps are to sign up and we'll hear further what we need to send on. Thanks. We will spread the news re this test case.

Hi Denise,

Just curious .. are your tenants just amateur and just "dabbling" at being your tenants?

I guess you would have to ask our tenants that question as I wouldn't dream of judging another's professional status ... and so I object strongly to WBBS doing so on my behalf, especially when it apparently then enables them to justify imposing decisions about my supposed income and ability to pay additional funds into their coffers. We have actually already had a discussion on this forum about what constitutes a professional or amateur LL and I am quite happy to be judged as an amateur.

Reply to the comment left by "Marie B" at "18/10/2013 - 12:22":

Hi Marie and welcome 🙂

Things have moved on a bit and we will no longer run a test case, instead, if we do progress to litigation then it will be an action on behalf of named individuals, i.e. those who pay for it. I don't see why being in Scotland should make any difference but I've not personally seen the T&C's issued to Scots yet. I'm sure our lawyers will have done though and they've certainly not raised it as an issue. If it is a problem they will send your papers and cheque back to you.

Yes, the next stage is to sign up. Please see the linked summary article below as that will be much quicker for you to read than all comments on this and other related discussion threads.
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Reply to the comment left by "David Lawrenson" at "18/10/2013 - 08:46":

A quick update after speaking to the Building Society Association and TWO non Exec Directors of WBBS

1) At present, I do not think the BBA are treating the behaviour of one of their members very seriously. They were polite but almost seemed to laugh off the fact that it had nothing to do with them !!!!

I mentioned I though they had a responsibility to ensure the highest standards and governance of their members. They said they were aware of the issue but everyone should complain to the following member to raise the importance of this:

Hilary McVitty
Head of External Affairs
Phone: 020 7520 5926
Email: hilary.mcvitty@bsa.org.uk

2) Lets cut to the chase with these Non Exec Directors of WBBS - it is simply an easy £50,000 + p.a. they pocket for sitting on a board and they attend 5 + meetings a year. They do not want bad press of being associated with the stink we are creating with the WBBS and they certainly do not want their £50k p.a. interfering with their main day to day jobs earning £400k p.a.

Colin Walklin is a Non Exec WBBS and also Chief Operating Officer and Financial Director for Standard Life. Interestingly he is also a member of The Financial Reporting Committee http://www.frc.org.uk

I have spoken to Colin and he is aware of the 'business decision' and I said we would like to raise the awareness of areas that we do not feel the acting board have taken very seriously - his work email address is colin-walklin@standardlife.com and his direct telephone number is 0131 245 4009.

Mark - he has given me his private email address and said he would welcome a letter being sent to him outlining our areas of concern and he said he would have to share this with other non execs and the board - I believe this is a good opportunity to start to make this stakeholders see light in the severity of their decisions. Mark/Justin, please let me know if you want to follow up and I will send you his private email address.

John Ainley is a Non Exec and he can be contacted at his 'main job' contact numbers which are as follows:

John Ainley

+44 (0) 2072244345 / +44 (0) 7800691800
Email
john@theleaderscoach.co.uk

Reply to the comment left by "Denise Doms" at "18/10/2013 - 12:50":

Interesting points Denise, many amatuers do things professionally. I don't like the phrase "amateur landlord" any more than Vanessa does though so I can see where Vanessa is coming from too in terms of potential negative connotations.

The intention of every landlord is to make profit out of property investment so technically we are all professionals.

The phrase professional landlord has no status in law so there is no harm done to our case by calling yourself professional as opposed to amatuer 🙂

What West Brom are trying to do, from a legal perspective is to suggest that we are "sophisticated investors" which does have a legal definition which suits them to some degree. However, the fact remains that there is no legal definition of what classifies landlords as sophisticated investors either. In my opinion it's a red herring thrown up by West Brom in the hope to thwart any legal challenges based on cost.

I suspect West Brom are hoping that we will try to prove that we are protected by consumer legislation and they know that doing that would cost us a fortune because a judge would also have to rule on what constitutes a landlord as a sophisticated investor. Therefore, our legal strategy will bypass all that B*ll S**t and we will mount an attack which will be based on contract law.
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Reply to the comment left by "stuart marshall" at "18/10/2013 - 13:41":

Good work Stuart, I will email Justin to promt him to read this comment.
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