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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George Top

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15:49 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/10/2013 - 15:36":

Mark you have my full respect and support:-)

Richard Adams

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15:54 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/10/2013 - 15:36":

I'm with you Mark 100%.

I don't entirely agree that WBBS might not try to settle - Justin did suggest it might happen - but I'll assume your view is right. If an offer arises let's cross that bridge then and only then. Meanwhile forget it.

If I need to chip in more which i would wish to do should it be necessary I need more than ever not to pay WBBS at their new rate come December to have the funds to do so. I'd rather pay £290 odd per month to the fund than to WBBS. Like Dean suggests might be the case, would I be contravening my contract with WBBS?. Ignore the credit rating issue.

Dean

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15:58 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/10/2013 - 15:36":

I totally agree with your sentiments Mark . I posted as you were posting and I hope for a legal battle and win . But people who are not contributing do need to be aware that if it comes down to not enough funds to fight it but an out of Court settlement for those named , those named can only take one course of action. It may not be immediate. Additional funds maybe requested but if people will not help the fund , the fund can not be expected to help them.

You say one thing I would question though. You calculated the settlement for the Society to have to justify as if it would be shown in the accounts. I don't think that would be the case . It would simply be a reduced income figure in the accounts. On your basis £200 x 12 x171= £410,400 pa . Chicken feed in comparison to the estimated millions they are stealing from us each years .

Everything else I had really already agreed with in my posting as you were posting , I would like nothing else than seeing it through a legal battle, but we should only fight the battles we believe we can win

Dan Smith

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16:03 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/10/2013 - 15:36":

Thank you Mark. I for one stand with you in this action to overturn this iniquitous action by the WB. I will support the Class Action to my last penny.

With a clear objective all contributors now know what they are committing themselves to.

When Counsel's opinion is known would it be possible have an estimate of time/costs that we are likely to face given the possibility that the WB will fight us in every possible Court/Appeal Court etc?

As a tenant myself I have two interests in this action - directly my own BTL mortgage payments and equally directly the rent I'll have to pay if my Landlord has a Tracker Mortgage himself.

Annette Stone

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16:06 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Mark. I have followed Property 118 for a long time now and I think it has become a brilliant forum but your bravery in coming out today and stating exactly how you believe this issue should go from now on has increased my admiration a hundred fold. For some weeks I have felt that people contributing to the forum have not fully understood that this issue is now a fully fledged campaign dedicated to overturning this decision and preventing any other lenders from getting the same ideas. It has been quite obvious to me that a few speculators who thought they were going to profit hugely could be very detrimental to the campaign and it was equally obvious that WBBS could never settle. What they may do in the face of a concerted and well orchestrated campaign is abandon the price rise and that would be the best result in the absence of a full Court decision.

The blogs of the last few weeks made it imperative that you take charge of this issue and direct the campaign and you have done that brilliantly. Well done.

As far as the costs are concerned I am sure when you know what is needed once Counsel's opinion is in you may find that people who are not directly affected will also chip in a bit more to the kitty

Dean

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16:24 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Annette Stone" at "28/10/2013 - 16:06":

Hi Annette . What do you mean by speculators trying to profit hugely ?

I am not having a go and just cant see how anyone can speculate to profit on here . Surely we are just paying our money in and hoping to overturn this injustice one way or another?

I don't think any of us can profit from this . The speculating is surely just to stay as we feel we should be as per our agreements ?

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying ?

Dean

Fed Up Landlord

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16:32 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "28/10/2013 - 15:36":

Mark, very well put and I admire your leadership and courage on this issue. As you have stated a few shareholders affected by this at the AGM together with some leaks to the press and a demo would be damaging to them. But alas either by accident or design they have had their AGM on the 29th July. That is unless there is a mechanism to force an extra-ordinary AGM within the society rules......................

Being unaffected by the WBBS (but I am by BOI) but living local I would turn up as part of the demo...and so should other BOI mortgagees.

Mike L

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16:35 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I have just returned from holiday and have sent my letter to WBBS. Once I receive the reply and supporting docs I will forward it all to Justin together with my cheque. I'll be more than happy to contribute more, significantly more, if the Counsel'd advice is positive. There'll be others like me so no doubt the fund will grow as time goes on, especially when the higher payments kick in. In the meantime BIG thanks to Mark for getting the Class Action going. It's never easy to lead something like this but without people such as Mark we could never stand up properly to organisations such as WBBS. You have my full support!

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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16:37 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean Turner" at "28/10/2013 - 16:24":

Recent discussion have helped me to re-focus and to think long and hard about exactly what it is that inspired me to create this campaign and hence my very long post above.

Perhaps Annette picked up on the same things as I did, i.e. discussions about conflicts etc.
.

Annette Stone

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16:58 PM, 28th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I think Mark has answered for me very eloquently. This is now a campaign; a campaign as very definite aims and Mark has set out what these are. The idea of forcing an EGM is something which I thought about some time ago and whilst this could be a distinct possibility if the scenario arose where WBBS made an offer to settle to some people, in practise things are unlikely to get that far. WBBS would have to justify their decision to their Board and their members whose money they would be using to fund such a settlement and they would also have to explain how they ended up with such a mortgage book which has become so unprofitable that they have withdrawn from the buy to let market. I simply do not see any of the directors standing up to justify any of this and that is why they will not settle. However, once we have a positive opinion from Counsel I still think it is worth trying to force an EGM to debate the issue as that, in itself, may cause a few heads to roll

This has to be a really sharp, focused campaign from now on as set out by Mark and all we can do is offer support and try and drum up publicity. Most of us who are landlords know other landlords and letting agents; we could each print off Mark's press release and ask our letting agent to distribute it to client landlords and we could approach friends and colleagues. Local radio might also be helpful.

Does anyone know if WBBS sponsor any football team, etc and if so can anyone approach them to let them know what's going on?

Other than that we just need to wait for the lawyers to deliberate and advise

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