West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

NEW PARAGRAPH ADDED TO THE SUMMARY PAGE (linked below)

"There is also a possibility of these lenders being advised to settle with named claimants out of court as this would prevent any legal precedents being created and could be commercial advantageous to the lenders. Such action would leave those not involved 'high and dry' on the basis of such settlements generally being negotiated on the basis of none disclosure. Therefore, if you are not involved and all records on Property118 vanish you may only guess as to what has happened and you will be on your own from that point onwards. "
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As Watchdog is showing no interest, there's a regional current affairs program BBC Inside Out.
In the Southeast the person to contact is Glen Campbell (not the singer) he won an award for the best Documentary at the CIRCON European TV Awards for his program investigating International banking fraud.
If this is of interest Email glencampbell@bbc.co.uk

Like many I received the NLA update email, with a link to an article informing me of the W Brom tracker rise.

http://nlauk.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/what-difference-a-differential/?dm_i=11G,1WWKU,1KM4K6,6VA2U,1

At 4:34pm on Friday I left a comment on the page suggesting Property118. It still shows as "Your comment is awaiting moderation. " Is it public? No other comments are shown, so I'd guess not.

I think we need to be careful with the NLA as they are such a key potential ally and we want to win them rather than piss them off with aggressive emails. I have no evidence that we are being overly belligerent in emailing them, but please be diplomatic as I am sure Mark has been, despite his exasperation.

The relevant NLA email address is policy@landlords.org.uk

Reply to the comment left by "Ed Atkinson" at "20/10/2013 - 10:49":

I totally agree with everything you have said Ed.

The NLA newsletter has been sent to around 50,000 landlords. The NLA they do not monitor/moderate their website at weekends so there may well be a lot of comments awaiting them on Monday. I have also posted one offering our support.

My concern is that landlords may await the outcome of the NLA complaint to the OFT which may well mean the miss the opportunity to be involved as a named individual in the dispute we have with West Brom. We also know from our dealings with the Bank of Ireland case that the OFT will refer the case to the FCA and that the FCA remit is to regulate lenders and protect consumers. However, the West Brom don’t believe the landlords they are targeting have this consumer protection and they may or may not be right. We could take a case to court to establisg a legal definition of a consumer landlords but the cost of doing so would be far greater than the cost of suing West Brom for compensation based on contract law so what’s the point? The other consideration is that if such a case were to be tried in Court the results would only affect a proportion of the borrowers affected by West Brom. For example, if the Courts ruled that anybody with more than 2 properties wasn’t protected by Consumer legislation then we would all be back to square one.

I suspect West Brom are expecting us to fall into that particular trap and the NLA have already done so. If the NLA continue on that basis they could find themselves with a LOT of disgruntled members who may well miss the boat in terms being a named individual in the contracts dispute with West Brom whilst waiting for the results of the NLA’s proposed complaints to the OFT.

I had a two hour conversation with Mary Latham who is the NLA rep for the Midlands yesterday as I am genuinely concerned for the NLA and members who are encouraged by their latest article. As the NLA article was not accredited to an author she can't raise the matter directly with the author and will, therefore, raise my concerns with members of the NLA board.

I would dearly like to work with the NLA on this as they also carry significant influence in the PRS and political circles. Let's hope they understand the seriousness of this and don't adopt a "made in NLA" approach. I have attempted to communicate with them and I know other members of the Class Action have done so too. I can only assume and hope there has been a communication mishap and the messages have not flowed to the right people.

I have updated the Class Action Updates article to reflect the potential dangers of people not getting involved in the Class Action group and I have also contacted the NLA to share my concerns with them, please see my link below.

If I was advising the West Brom at this stage I would be telling them to nip this in the bud and negotiate a confidential and conditional out of Court settlement with the named individuals already signed up. The basis for such advice would be the risk that a loss in Court will damage their credibility, potentially deprive them of £19 million of income and result in additional compensation claims. The cost of settling with named individuals only would only cost them a fraction of their gains.
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I agree Mark,

I do hope the NLA could be got on board. I will certainly write to Carolyn, their Chairwoman and Richard Lambert, their Chief Exec next week.

And as regards lenders coming to private settlements with those who bring class actions, there may be a precedent here in the Skipton case who some years ago did something similar on tracker rates.

If you follow the historical press on Skipton, it seems that the story just reached a dead end. In that case a legal firm was leading a class action.. and then nothing.

This led me to conclude that that this lender may have come to a settlement with those bringing the class action. Jeff Prestridge at the Daily Mail certainly wrote about it at that time. Perhaps he could be asked what happened, if he knows.

But there would be a lesson here - those who are sitting on the side lines, may well miss out, if the West Brom (and BoI) decide to settle out of court.

LettingFocus.com
PRS Advice and consultancy

Reply to the comment left by "Ed Atkinson" at "20/10/2013 - 10:49":

I also left a comment which seems to have disappeared, pointing out that their statement that "contractually they are permitted to act in this way" was prejudicial and probably inaccurate; asking whether it was based on independent legal advice or they had fallen for the lenders' propaganda; and that there was a strong argument that on its proper construction the contract gave the lenders no such permission to vary the premium over base rate.

someone asked the questions does the FOS charge the WBBS monies for each case referred to them and the answer is yes the amount I think is £550

Reply to the comment left by "Infuriated Landlady" at "20/10/2013 - 18:27":

Is it £550 per complaint ? So per borrower , if a borrower had 5 b2 l mortgages and complained individually would they have to pay 5x £550 ?

Reply to the comment left by "Dean Turner" at "20/10/2013 - 20:40":

Whose "they"? The WBBS is after all a mutual organisation.

Reply to the comment left by "Colin Childs" at "20/10/2013 - 21:52":

WBBS Do they have to pay £550 per individual complaint / mortgage ?