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Contra proferentem mortgage conditions Advice, Buy to Let News, Cautionary Tales, Commercial Finance, Financial Advice, Landlord News, Landlords Stories, Latest Articles, Mortgage News, Property Investment News, Property Investment Strategies, Property News, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Unless you are a qualified contracts lawyer who has also studied Latin you will probably not have a clue as to how contra proferentem mortgage conditions affect you. I have spent the last two weeks getting my head around it as it was a key point in the barristers opinion for the Bank of Ireland Tracker Mortgage Class Action which has stalled due to all funds raised for that campaign having been exhausted. Therefore, for the benefit of everybody with a tracker mortgage who may be affected by a hike in their tracker mortgage margin at some point, and in particular to those affected by the decisions of West Bromwich Mortgage Company and the Bank of Ireland I offer this laymans interpretation and my thoughts on how we should progress.

Very simply, the contra proferentum law is created to enable judges to decide which conditions apply if contractual conditions are in conflict. In other words, if the contract has two or more conditions and they don’t all say the same thing one of the conditions will apply and the others will not.

The relevance of this is that West Bromwich and Bank of Ireland have conditions in their mortgage documentation and some conditions contradict others.

The law goes on to say that the judges interpretation of what the contract means will be the condition(s) which are in favour of the person to whom the contract was presented. To put it another way, if your mortgage conditions were presented by West Bromwich or Bank of Ireland the judge will rule against them because they wrote the contract and the most favourable of the conditions will be applied to you. 🙂

There are, of course, several more legal arguments our lawyers could throw at the enemy, however, in my opinion the contra preferentem argument is without any shadow of doubt our best shot

Other legal arguments will only suit some of our Class Action Group. For example, there appears to be no legal definitions of a sophisticated landlord but West Bromwich think it is anybody with more than three properties. Let’s say we win that battle and the Court decides it’s six – anybody with seven or more isn’t going be too happy are they? I will be one of them! Also, what good would that do for those affected by Bank of Ireland or by any other lender who tries this on? Remember, Bank of Ireland has a different criteria and is not using the sophisticated borrower argument. Other lenders will no doubt make up their own excuses too. What we need is a win which will affect ALL mortgage lenders.

Many people are arguing that they didn’t receive the Mortgage Conditions from their lenders. Well sorry folks, maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but I can assure you that you signed a piece of paper before your mortgage completed to say that you did. The Mortgage Deed I signed for my West Bromwich mortgage states “By signing this Mortgage you confirm the terms of the Standard Conditions of Offer, the Special Conditions and the Mortgage Conditions”.

There are many more arguments which I could play devils advocate with which have been raised on our forums. With a bit of thought I reckon I could win most of the arguments and I’m not even a qualified solicitor. I am, however, in the same boat as you so please don’t shoot the messenger. I’m also affected by these increases and I’m doing everything I can to make sure we win this fight. In my case that’s been 18 hour working days for the last three weeks and a lot more time on the Bank of Ireland case since it reared its ugly head earlier this year.

That’s why I would like Justin and the barrister to lead with what I believe is our best shot – contra proferentem mortgage conditions.

If we ask our lawyers to look into every legal argument we have presented on our forums we will run out of money before we get to first base. What I would prefer is that we fight the one universal truth which is that our mortgage terms are contra proferentem. If we lose and we still have some money left there’s nothing to stop us appealing on other grounds as well.

For the above reasons, do you agree that we should ask our legal advisers to focus on contra proferentem mortgage conditions?

There are lots of other things we can do as a group to be a thorn in the side of these lenders in the meantime. For example, I love the PR campaigns and lobbying we are sharing ideas on. We must continue to win the hearts and minds of the media and every centre of influence we can think of. I also applaud the tactics being used to make these lenders lives a misery, for example the Subject Access Requests. Perhaps the most important thing we can do whilst we wait for the legal bods to advise us is to spread the word. We need to get every borrower we can find with a tracker mortgage to sign up. There are also plenty of other landlord groups who can help us to do this and it’s in all of our interests to put as much pressure on them as possible to get involved and spread the word amongst their members.

Contra proferentum mortgage conditions as I see it

I owned a substantial number of buy to let properties at the time of my mortgage application and still do. The chances of me proving that I was not a sophisticated landlord are very slim but I do have an argument to suggest that property investment was not my line of business at the time I took the mortgage. All of my properties were professionally managed in order to allow me to focus on my career as a commercial finance broker. I did not consider myself to be a professional investor at the time I took out this mortgage, the purpose of investing into a property portfolio was to provide for my retirement. I don’t want Justin or the barrister to push that angle though, I think it’s a waste of money as everybody’s situation will be very different.

Neither my mortgage broker nor my solicitor were aware of the rights of West Bromwich Mortgage Company to increase the premium they charge on my tracker mortgage rate. I did read the Mortgage Conditions brochure at the time  and at the time I sincerely believed that section 5 of the Mortgage Conditions was not applicable. Note that I am also a qualified mortgage adviser and IFA. I believed that section 5 of the mortgage conditions booklet was only relevant to mortgages written on the building society’s standard variable rates, which do not track the Bank of England base rate. This was supported by the marketing materials being used by the West Bromwich to promote their tracker mortgages. Also, there was no mention of such a vital clause in either their KFI document or their offer letter. Clearly my solicitor was mislead too. I suspect everybody who was affected by the Bank of Ireland rate hike would also say the same thing.Contra proferentem mortgage conditions

So having established that I read the booklet and I signed to agree to all of their terms, including those in their Mortgage Condition booklet, what makes me believe West Bromwich are still in the wrong?

  1. Their website said, and to this day still continues to say “Tracker mortgages give you the certainty of knowing that the rate you pay will move in line with Bank Base Rates.”
  2. My offer letters states “After 30th June 2010 your loan reverts to a variable rate which is the same as the Bank of England Base Rate, currently 5%, with a premium of 1.99%, until the term end”

Logic tells me the above are in conflict with Section 5 of the Mortgage Conditions booklet which I signed and received. On the basis that West Bromwich produced the booklet, their website, and the Mortgage Deed I believe there is a clear case of conflicting conditions and ambiguity, hence the conditions they are relying upon are contra proferentem. On that basis, a judge MUST rule against West Bromwich as they are the originators of the documentation. It’s not like we are asking for the mortgages to be written off, all we want is the terms and conditions we believed we had signed up for.

We MUST win a Court Case before even more lenders follow suit.

The deadline for submission of instructions has now expired. However, it may still be possible to join the representative action subject to paying Court fees and an additional cost to cover associated administration. For details please email : carla@cotswoldbarristers.co.uk

Marketing Fund for our Class Actions against tracker mortgage margin increases Buy to Let News, Landlord News, Latest Articles, Mortgage News, Property Investment News, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Several people have left comments on our forums or emailed me personally to say that they are not affected by any of the tracker mortgage rate rises at the moment but want to contribute to a fund to help discourage other lenders from following suit.

I am concerned that the Class Action against BoI appears to have stalled and I am keen to get this re-started at the earliest possible opportunity.

The starting point for this is to promote what we are trying to achieve in order to reach the remaining 12,300 borrowers affected by the BoI increases.

We need to put a lot more pressure on the FCA to seek their own advice based on our barristers opinion and the defence presented to them by the BoI.

We believe the FCA’s response was a whitewash.  They have simply used the BoI response to our case as a reason not to pursue it.  They have not obtained their own independent advice so the FCA is not acting as an independent arbitrator.  The BoI response is a note from their barrister who they asked to find ways round our argument.  It is not an independent review of the actions of BOI. The FCA has not given us a chance to respond to the BOI arguments. They have simply taken their version and gone with it.  Much of their arguments are shaky to say the least.

I am confident the announcements from West Bromwich Building Society and the outrage from borrowers and associated press coverage will strengthen our case to FCA to reconsider their position but I also feel we must press on with matters ourselves and recruit more support from the industry by reaching out to more affected BoI borrowers.

To raise the game I would like to post a letter to every mortgage broker in the UK to let them know about our Class Action campaigns against West Bromwich Building Society and the Bank of Ireland. I can rent a database mailing list of all their names and addresses from Experian or Equifax and I have an established relationship with a company which will mail-merge and print the letters, put them into envelopes and post them for 39 pence each including postage. There are thousands of brokers, I will find out exactly how many tomorrow when I hear back from Experian/Equifax.

Most mortgage brokers will have received telephone calls from concerned clients but may not know about our Class Action campaigns. The best most of them will have been able to do is advise their clients on the viability of remortgaging and in most cases this will not be justifiable even with the rate hike to the tracker margins.

Having been a mortgage broker myself I know the value of being helpful to clients in distress as it results in goodwill and referrals. Brokers will also be concerned about loss of credibility and the potential of losing business and income if they are not seen to be able to help. If brokers know about our campaigns they will refer their clients to us.PR Fighting Fund for our Class Actions against tracker mortgage margin increases

Once we have a lot more people signed up a new plan of action will be formulated and details of costs to take part will be distributed. The Class Action funding for the West Brom case has been costed out to ÂŁ240 per property. To keep things fair to all those who have contributed so far, existing contributions will be deducted from the amount due at the next round of fund-raising.

Ideally I’m hoping that you will donate ÂŁ50 to the marketing fund mentioned above, less is fine if you can’t stretch to that, more is obviously much better.

Would you be prepared to help fund this?

If so please PLEASE CLICK HERE

Tracker Mortgage Class Action Update Latest Articles, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Tracker Mortgage Class Action Update

630 people have completed our Tracker Rate Class Action Registration Form as I type this update. 

Of those, 300 had signed up to the Bank of Ireland Class Action campaign which we started in early March 2013. The remaining 330 have signed up in the last week since the announcement from the West Bromwich Building Society that 6,700 landlords will have their tracker margins increased by 2% on 1st December 2013.

Our campaigns were referenced in The Telegraph on Saturday and The Sunday Times yesterday. We have also been referenced in several blogs and Facebook groups.

I came in this morning to a very full inbox and whilst I have endeavoured to reply to everybody, please excuse the brevity of my responses if you are one of the people who contacted me, I’m sure you will understand.

The complaint letter template has been well received and I’m hoping that West Brom will have a very heavy mailbag this morning and for the foreseeable future.

On Twitter, a hashtag is being used to drive interest, it is #MortgageMugging – I didn’t create the hashtag but it does explain how we many of us feel to let’s all use it. We are asking Twitter users to visit the hashtag regularly and to re-tweet all relevant tweets posted by others.

I had a long telephone conversation with Justin Selig this morning in which I explained that we have gained some momentum but my fear is that we could lose that if people don’t have clear direction and a very good reason to sign up and pay up now.

My biggest question at the moment is this;

What is the “early bird” incentive for people to commit to fund raising?

If all affected borrowers benefit equally, whether they have contributed or not, then human nature will more often than not be to do nothing. I suspect this is what the lenders are relying upon and it is my biggest fear.

Litigation isn’t going to be cheap and it appears I may well have significantly under-estimated costs when I predicted that we will need to raise around ÂŁ100,000. The cases have similarities but they are not the same, therefore we could be fighting two separate Class Action cases. It is still unclear whether one test case case against each lender is the way to go or whether we should bring one case against each bank to represent all affected members of each Class Action.

The reality is, we need further advice from Counsel, however, bearing in mind that only ÂŁ10,000 was raised to fund the initial campaign we have made very good progress so far.

We have a barristers opinion on the BoI case and we also know where we stand with the FCA having placed Counsels 32 page report in front of them outlining the legal bases of our grievances. We have not yet had a response from the FOS but I don’t think we should be holding our breath on that one.

During our conversation Justin and I agreed that we should seek further advice from Counsel on what we should do next. As I expected, Justin was a step ahead of me and reported that a QC in the same chambers as our barrister has agreed to provide further opinion free of charge! I have no idea how Justin pulled that one off but we all owe them both a debt of gratitude for that.

Once we have the responses from Counsel Justin will be in a position to seek quotes for legal fees insurance. That will give us a much clearer indication as to how much money we will need to raise.

I have also asked Justin;

Is there a way to ensure that only those who contribute to the fundraising will benefit? If so, could the fund raising be phased to give ‘early birds’ an incentive, e.g. first 300 in pay X, next 300 in pay Y, everybody after that pays Z?

We don’t know how much we need to raise because we don’t yet know what we are going to do next. We need to be clear about this before we recommence fund raising. What we do know is that we need to obtain Counsels opinion on the West Bromwich Building Society case and advice from the barrister on how to proceed, this will cost around £4,000.

Specifically in relation to the West Bromwich case we need to know,

  • What is counsels opinion of the legality of the proposed actions by West Bromwich BS?
  • What constitutes a professional investor? The case of the OFT vs Foxtons was unclear but West Bromwich have decided that it is anybody with three or more mortgages. What is the legal relevance of this?
  • Can we get an injunction to delay the increase pending a Court Case? If so what’s the cost?
  • Can/should affected borrowers use the Small Claims Court to make claims for breach of contract? If so, what do they need to do? Could an advice pack be created and sold to raise funds?
  • Should affected borrowers write to their solicitors asking them to comment on the advice (or lack of it) they provided at the time at the time of arranging the mortgage(s). Should these solicitors be advised to put their PI insurers on notice? If so we need letter templates. Could these be included in the same advice pack?

I am also concerned about what happens if we have a further round of fund raising for either case and we don’t raise enough money to take the case through to its final conclusion. What should we do about getting started and/or refunding money paid? It’s a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario because logic suggests that more people will join the fight once it gets started properly and media coverage increases, but to what extent? Do we commence proceedings against Bank of Ireland and/or west Bromwich BS and effectively gamble on more people signing up? If they don’t, and we exhaust all of the funds raised, what then?

Do we use new money raised to put more pressure on the FCA? For example, we could instruct Justin to engage Counsel with a view to writing a response to the FCA expressing our concerns that firstly they are not taking an impartial view of this and secondly, contrary to what they reported earlier in the year to Andrew Tyrie MP, this is not an isolated incident and could potentially cause carnage if other larger lenders follow suit. My opinion is that the FCA’s response is a whitewash.  They have simply used the BoI response to our case as a reason not to pursue it.  They have not obtained their own independent advice so the FCA is not acting as an independent arbitrator.  The BoI response is a note from their barrister who they asked to find ways round our argument.  It is not an independent review of the actions of BoI. The FCA has not given us a chance to respond to the BOI arguments. They have simply taken the BoI version and gone with it.  My own gut feeling is that we should press this issue and seek support from Andrew Tyrie MP because he clearly thinks the actions of BoI were unfair and is therefore likely to feel the same way about the actions of West Bromwich BS.

The above really is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the many questions and concerns I have at this stage. However, it is important for everybody to know what we are up to behind the scenes.

The bottom line is that we are going to need a lot more support whatever happens. Therefore, I am asking everybody who has registered to date to persuade at least two more people to register for the Class Action in the next week and then get them to do the same. By the time that’s done, Justin should have more answers for us from Counsel and the direction we need to head in should be far more clear to us all.

The deadline for submission of instructions has now expired. However, it may still be possible to join the representative action subject to paying Court fees and an additional cost to cover associated administration. For details please email : carla@cotswoldbarristers.co.uk

Will Mortgage Express copy BoI and West Brom and raise their rates? Latest Articles, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Is there a trend? First the Bank of Ireland raised their Tracker rates and now West Bromwich Building Society have followed suit, will Mortgage Express copy and raise their rates?

We borrowed a tidy sum from Mortgage Express and have been enjoying the “Product Variable Rate” of 1.75% above the Bank of England Base Rate. The rate seemed secure but West Bromwich Building Society’s recent move to increase their tracker rates worries me.

If West Bromwich BS get away with this, then will Mortgage Express have a punt as well? Their reputation these days is of doing all they possibly can, fair or foul, to get borrowers to re-mortgage to other banks.

I’ve looked back at my mortgage offers from Mortgage Express and it looks hopeful for us. The mortgages started as either discount or fixed rates and then reverted to the “Product Variable Rate”. The first one we took out in 2001 and then we renewed the deal with various extra drawdown loans and new discount rates etc. On first impression, the renewals all seem to refer back the original contract rather than start new ones. The key phrase in the original 2001 agreement was straight: “the interest rate will be 1.75% above base rate”. I trust it still stands.

Another Mortgage Express mortgage offer (2004) states “a variable rate of 6.5% (which is 1.75% above the Bank of England Base rate – currently 4.75%)” and later it states that the rate “will revert to the variable rate …. for the remainder of the term”. The separate “Conditions 2004” booklet did contain a section on Mortgage Express’s rights to change the interest rate but it started “If the interest rate is one which we can vary at our discretion …”. So again this looks good.

However, I hear from Property118 that West Bromwich have no clauses in their offer letters referring to their rights to increase their tracker margin. Also they didn’t refer to their special conditions booklet (which presumably did have some text providing for when and how the tracker margin might be changed). Finally, they ignored the October 2004 mortgage regulations cut off date.

Property118 also reports that Bank of Ireland did keep to those 3 rules and they seem to be getting away with it. So, now West Bromwich have gone further than Bank of Ireland and we all wait to see if they’ll get away with it.

Mortgage Express would need to push the boundaries further still, I guess. I suppose they are first waiting on the outcome of the West Bromwich’s move. Will Mortgage Express copy BoI and West Brom and raise their rates

Are you worried as well?

EDITORS NOTE

Property118 is leading a Class Action group to fight back by taking a test case to Court if necessary to prove once and for all that amending the margin on a tracker rate mortgage is breach of contract. If you are worrying whether your mortgage lender will follow the lead of Bank of Ireland or West Brom please READ THIS and complete the form below to support this campaign.

The deadline for submission of instructions has now expired. However, it may still be possible to join the representative action subject to paying Court fees and an additional cost to cover associated administration. For details please email : carla@cotswoldbarristers.co.uk

ACT NOW to protect the margin on your YOUR tracker mortgage Advice, Buy to Let News, Cautionary Tales, Financial Advice, GOOD Landlords Campaign Sponsors, Landlord News, Landlords Stories, Latest Articles, Legal, Press, Property Market News, Property News, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Help us to protect YOUR tracker marginsIf you have a tracker mortgage you may be forgiven for thinking that your mortgage payments will only change when the base rate changes. 

Just suppose you open your post one day to find that your mortgage lender has decided to increase the tracker margin by a couple of percent!

Sounds unimaginable doesn’t it?

Well it isn’t, and you could be next!

This shocking news was recently delivered to 6,700 customers of the West Bromwich Building Society. What’s more, this is not something new, 13,500 Bristol & West and Bank of Ireland Mortgages customers received exactly the same treatment in February 2013.

Outraged? Their customers certainly were!

Could you be next???

West Brom stand to make an extra 19 million pounds a year if they get away with this. How much will your mortgage lender stand to make when they decide to do the same thing? It’s a big incentive for them isn’t it, especially if they think they are unlikely to be challenged due to the inability of landlords to raise the required funds to put up a fight.

If a group of named landlords decides to fight this in Court the claims will typically be for the value of the increase over the remaining term of the mortgage. By way of example, if your mortgage increases by ÂŁ150 a month and you have 18 years to run on your mortgage your claim for damages would be ÂŁ32,400.

We need to raise awareness if we are to raise the money to fight the test case

There are 6,700 affected borrowers with West Bromwich Building Society and a further 13,300 affected by bank of Ireland already. However, that doesn’t mean raising the required level of funding will be an easy task to achieve. Many of these people will never get to hear about this campaign and that’s where you come in. You may or may not be affected today but what about next week, next month or next year? To discourage your lender to follow the lead of WBBS and BoI and increasing your tracker margins we need to convince them they will have a fight on their hands if they do! Knowledge of our intentions will also act as a deterrent to other mortgage lenders due to the huge commercial risks associated with the potential for thousands of compensation claims running into hundreds of millions.

YOU can make a difference

Whether you are directly affected now or not, we urge you to help promote this campaign. The sooner we can raise enough interest, the sooner we can raise the money to commence litigation and stop this profiteering in its tracks. Please talk to your friends about this campaign and ask them to sign up. Please email a link to this discussion, share it on your Facebook, Tweet it, blog about it, post links on forums – SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

Your wealth is at risk if you choose to ignore this message!

Please get involved and support this campaign by completing the form below.

The deadline for submission of instructions has now expired. However, it may still be possible to join the representative action subject to paying Court fees and an additional cost to cover associated administration. For details please email : carla@cotswoldbarristers.co.uk

Bank of Ireland Tracker Mortgage Class Action Update Buy to Let News, Guest Articles, Guest Columns, Landlord Action, Landlord News, Latest Articles, Legal, Mortgage News, Property Investment News, Property News

Yesterday the Treasury Committee published a letter sent to Andrew Tyrie MP from Martin Wheatley, Chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority dated 20 May 2013 regarding the Bank of Ireland’s recent move to increase the margin differential on its lifetime tracker mortgages.

The letter looks at various aspects of the banks conduct and the FCA broadly came to the conclusion that in some instances, the bank was legally entitled to increase the differential. Continue reading Bank of Ireland Tracker Mortgage Class Action Update →

The latest on the BOI Tracker rate scandal Latest Articles, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

The latest on the BOI Tracker rate scandalBank of Ireland issued the following press release and wrote to 1,200 borrowers today:-

“In February this year Bank of Ireland UK wrote to 13,500 mortgage customers to advise that their base rate tracking differential would increase on 1st May.  This increase is permitted by a specific clause in these mortgage contracts, which allows an increase in the interest rate differential after the guarantee period (after 31 December 2006).  This change reflects the significant increase in the cost of funding these mortgages since 2008 and the need for banks to maintain greater levels of capital.

In line with the Bank’s commitment to treat all customers fairly and as part of our ongoing management of customer complaints we have identified two groups of customers where we will not be applying the increase to their base rate tracker mortgage.  We have written to these customers and the Financial Conduct Authority has been informed of our decision and is supportive of our approach in excluding these customers.

The first group specifically relates to 1,000 Flexible mortgage customers who were actively using the flexible facilities on their mortgage account.  These customers received a specific administrative letter linked to their transactions that might have caused some customers to believe the differential was for the term of their mortgage.  The Bank has decided that anyone who has received this administrative letter will not have the increase in differential applied.

The second group of c. 200 customers are those that switched their mortgage product to a base rate tracker mortgage.  These customers received documentation detailing that the differential on their mortgage was variable, but the mortgage conditions they received did not detail the circumstances under which the differential could be changed.  As a result we are also removing these customers from the pool.

Des Crowley, Chief Executive, Bank of Ireland UK, commented: “We have said from the outset that we will review all customer complaints individually and that we are committed to treating customers fairly throughout the process, it is on this basis that we have removed these customers.”

Bank of Ireland UK will waive all early repayment charges for those customers to whom the differential increase applies and who wish to refinance their mortgage elsewhere.”

What are your thoughts?

Please comment on our main thread – see THIS LINK

At the time of writing this post over 20,000 people have read our original forum thread over on Property118 and nearly 700 comments have been left.

Affected borrowers were outraged when we first released the news of the Bank of Irelands intentions and many others with tracker rate mortgages became fearful that if Bank of Ireland get away with this other mortgage lenders will follow suit.

Our article was picked by Google News very quickly and this sparked massive media interest. We are very grateful for the Press coverage, especially the BBC, The Times and several mortgage magazines who have worked very closely with us and used the Property118 forum to engage with affected borrowers to add a human element to their reports.

As the thread progressed Property118 contacted Landlord Action and Paul Shamplina put us in touch with his new business partner, Julstin Selig at The Law Department for advice advice on starting a Class Action.

Funds from The GOOD Landlords Campaign (administered by Property118) were used to underwrite Counsels opinion which amounted to over 40 pages of legal advice from one of London’s leading banking barristers at 11 Stone Buildings.

Contributions to the Class Action fighting fund of £100 + VAT per affected borrower now amount to nearly £10,000. This money has paid for legal advice to both residential and BTL borrowers who have signed up and a case has also been prepared by barristers for submission to the OFT, FOS and the FCA to demonstrate why the BOI’s actions are illegal and should be challenged in Court by regulators in the public interest. If the OFT can be persuaded to fund the case at litigation this will avoid the need to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund costs and will also negate the risks of the Class Action being ordered to pay the BOI’s legal costs in the event of losing the case.

I issued the following statement to the Press yesterday “Clearly there is only so much legal advice that the funds raised to date can purchase so it is imperative for more affected borrowers to join the Class Action. The legal steps to date could be described as “Gorilla Warfare” against the Bank of Ireland and the submission to the OFT is effectively a call to bring in the Cavalry. Some affected borrowers have questioned why a Court Injunction has not been applied for to defer any rate rise until a legal case has been heard by the Courts. The reality of the situation is that a lot more funding would be necessary for such action. Hopefully this is the action the OFT will take but in the meantime it is vitally important that thousands more affected borrowers join in. Far too many affected borrowers seem to be hoping to take a free ride on the back of others’ commitment and I would urge those people to reconsider their position in order to accelerate progress.

If you are affected by the BOI Tracker Rate Differential change please sign up to the Class Action (see the link below).

http://www.property118.com/?p=39733

DO NOT allow Bank of Ireland to get away with this.

If you are not directly affected, but you are concerned about the potential ramifications and the possibility of other lenders following the lead of the Bank of Ireland please show your support by recommending and becoming a member of The GOOD Landlords Campaign

The deadline for submission of instructions has now expired. However, it may still be possible to join the representative action subject to paying Court fees and an additional cost to cover associated administration. For details please email : carla@cotswoldbarristers.co.uk

Justin Selig – Legal advice to affected BOI tracker borrowers Landlord News, Latest Articles, Property News, UK Property Forum for Buy to Let Landlords

Justin Selig - Legal advice to affected BOI tracker borrowersWe appointed Justin Selig to advise thousands of landlords and residential mortgage borrowers across the UK on the day that news broke of the Bank of Ireland intentions to increase the differential on tracker rate mortgages to 4.49%. For some borrowers this means an increase in monthly payments of over 200% starting from today.

Over 16,000 people have read our forum page at the time of writing this article and press including the BBC have used the forum to make contact with affected borrowers.

Property118 used funds raised through The GOOD Landlords Campaign to underwrite the costs associated with Justin Selig obtaining legal opinion on the Bank of Ireland plans from a high profile banking barrister. Thanks to the number of borrowers who have signed up to obtain professional advice as a group from Justin Selig, our commitment to underwrite the costs of the legal advice has now been released. The GOOD Landlords Campaign funds can now be deployed elsewhere for the purpose of sharing best practice amongst landlords and letting agents. Continue reading Justin Selig – Legal advice to affected BOI tracker borrowers →

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