Bank of Ireland increase differential on tracker rates

I too have received this letter but on my residential mortgage.

Ive already put in a complaint with BOI and asked them to send me proof of the T&Cs signed by me with that particular clause.

I hope everyone does take action or this will allow all lenders/banks to try and pull this scam!!

The NLA is dismayed that any lender is prepared to introduce such a substantial hike in its tracker rate without considering the impact that it will have on borrowers’ ability to meet the cost.

This represents a substantial increase in the payments landlords will have to make on a monthly basis and is likely to have an enormous impact on their businesses and the security of their tenants’ homes. At best the provision of homes will become more expensive, at worst this may lead to repossessions and homelessness.

The Bank of Ireland appears to be cynically attempting to clear their buy-to-let mortgage book by forcing through unsustainable interest rate increases at a time when landlords and tenants are most stretched.

Hello all

Something that might be really useful here is if you all post the details of the complaint letters you are writing to your MP's, BoI, Ombudsman etc.

I say this because not all landlords will know what to say or who to address their letters to.

They might find your words to be a useful template to use themselves.

Anything that can be done to increase the number of complaints made and hence the pressure on BoI has to be a good thing don't you agree? (BoI employees need not respond to my last sentence LOL)

I’ve just received my first letter on 3 of my 8 properties with Bank of Ireland. I'm absolutely seething! Surly they cant just alter the rates to suit themselves without a good explanation and approved & agreed statement in advance to why they have arrived at this figure? I’m in the restaurant business, imagine how my customers would react half way through eating a £10 meal, being informed its now going to be £20 when you pay! Do you think I’d get away with that because of my supplier costs going up?

About 6-12 months ago, I was offered approx £6000 per property & then another offer arrived a few months later, it went up to approx £8500 per property. At no point was it pointed out or was I informed of their devious future plans to increase the Tracker Differential costs, if they had & it was confirmed to me to be legal, I would have began to consider selling or remortgaging my portfolio elsewhere. At least I could have been able to make an informed decision. I feel truly cheated & hoodwinked at the moment, not really knowing which way to turn. I’ve never defaulted on any payments, even on my 'High' initial 3-4 year fixed rates, which all state revert to a Bank base Tracker thereafter & safe in the knowledge that I expected interest rates to remain fairly low over the next decade a decision was made to retain our portfolio. If anyone can help please email me at darrell@shiftmail.com. As it is I'm going to write a letter of complaint as someone previously mention, separately for each account, thereafter I'm taking it to the ombudsman. Also, I intend cancelling my direct debits & continue to pay manually the original repayments which I believe to be correct, whilst the Tracker Differential rate increase is in dispute.

Even Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask!

Any help appreciate. Cheers Darrell G

I havnt received my letter yet, im dredding the post man coming every day! My mortgage was taken out with bristol and west in Dec 2007 and is now obviously BOI i cant see anything in my mortgage offer about this at all. Im thinking (hoping) that all this might only apply to mortgages taken out before 2004 as per Garys posts, i do feel bad for everyone concerned especially lee with 12 BOI mortgages, i have 10 buy to lets thankfully only one being a BOI mortage and personally if they were all with BOI that would bankrupt me! One think worth remembering though if you do refuse to pay the extra then it will go down on your credit file as arrears and missed payments etc... so be carefull.

Hi Rob. just checked my other three mortgages taken out in 2006/7. The mortgage terms are different to my 2003 mortgage. Says on the more recent ones that it will track the base rate at 1.75% above base for the term and that the differential cannot be changed by reference to the mortgage conditions. That is why they told me that I had only one letter coming - it was the only one they could do it to - or think they can. The further advance on this particular property also has the "better terms" within it. Again- that's why they could not increase it.

If you have that more recent condition then I do not think they can implement an increase..

Been on to NLA helpline - said it will be referred to their policy committee.

Letter of complaint on page four and still going. Probably be the finished article over the weekend and then off to The Office For Fair Trading, FSA, Financial Ombudsman, my MP, oh - and Bank of Ireland Complaints Department.

Thanks for that Rob. Ive just contacted the Financial Ombudsman Tel 0800 0234567 or see the correct complaint procedure here,

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

They say they are getting quite a few calls on this (I bet they are) & it seems that even if BoI are allowed to do this rise it has to be deemed fair, which it aint! & also im looking more at the fact of getting those offers back on the table with 12 month to decide. As i said before, i'd consider moving the mortgage or selling, utilising the cash incentive to sell quicker, cheaper & not loose too much equity. As it is now im not going to move or sell 8 properties in 8 weeks!

Everyone email Sky News & Watchdog too.

I have just sent this tweet to the Financial Ombudsman

@financialombuds - please can you offer any guidance on this thread? >>> property118.com/index.php/bank… <<<

— Mark Alexander (@iAmALandlord) March 1, 2013

Clearly this is outrageous, and quite possibly illegal. It's a new low for an industry it seemed couldn't go any lower...

Has anyone heard a word from politicians about this ?

I do not have any boi mortgages, but am worried other lenders may see this as an opportunity to try it on also.

My approach would be to Refuse any increase, cancel dd's and setup fixed amount standing orders to continue payments. I may simply cancel the dd's and refuse to pay them another penny until they rescind this attempted ripoff.

Yes, credit rating would likely be affected until all was resolved... but does anyone here really want a loan to buy another property ? I'd be out of this awful business tomorrow if all my rental houses weren't already in negative equity... But I won't allow them to go into negative cashflow also...

Ideally this should be a 'class action' where every single borrower refuses the increase and cancels their dd's. A Solicitor firm would happily represent a case of this type. And of course we have our landlord associations, such as NLA who I pay money to every year... Not a word from them so far...

@Neil

Thanks for your post.

NLA were the first landlords association to leave a comment here, scroll up a bit.

From conversations I've had with lots of professional bodies they are and taking legal advice before committing themselves. There’s lots more going on below the surface than you might think here.