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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Comments

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

13:15 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Some information will be shared confidentially by email with paid up members only.

For obvious reasons we will not wish to publicise everything to the enemy! 🙂

Devon Landlords

13:29 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "05/10/2013 - 11:27":

Hi Mark,
We got that same as letter as you - worded exactly the same, but from Holly OSullivan. This letter was dated 25th September and was a response to our initial complaint letter to them dated 23rd September (which wasn't done with your template as we did this letter before that was done). We then got our main two sided A4 response letter (again, from Holly OSullivan) a week later - dated 2nd October. This is the letter we talked about a few days ago on this Discussion Thread, in which they re-iterated Section 5 from T&Cs (interest rate can be varied to reflect market conditions, for efficiency and prudence, blah, blah) and then brought up the new threat about the Section 14 clause - repaying loan in full within one month. With this letter we were sent copies of our Acceptance Offers for both mortgages (signed by ourselves), a copy of their Terms & Conditions Booklet and a leaflet re. the Financial Ombudsman Service. So I think you will probably get a similar letter (if not the exact same one within a week or so!)......

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

13:45 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

HELP!

Lots of new people are coming to the forum as a result of mentions in the mainstream media and via Google searches as we now rank of page one for several keywords and phrases which are being used by the press.

Many of these new visitors are not reading through all 300+ comments which is to be expected I suppose.

We are getting a lot of duplicate questions and whilst I am trying to answer them all I am getting very tired and need to take a break.

Therefore I am going offline (if I can resist the temptation) until Monday afternoon as I have meetings, I have meeting on Monday morning.

This is how you can help ....

If a new person asks a question which has already been asked and answered please politely refer them to the relevant pages of this discussion thread.

Thanks in advance for your support 🙂
.

jonney

18:13 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

I received a response from the WB to my letter of complaint today. My main concern was that they were relying on a clause in a document that I had never been sent nor seen.

In their response they state 'having reviewed your mortgage application it has been noted that the terms and conditions were received, read and agreed to and you had completed a supplementary declaration. This confirmed that the Company has the right to vary the rates of interest and monthly payments in accordance with the terms of the Mortgage Condition'.

This has boosted my belief in that we can succeed in group litigation against them because in the docs they have sent me does nowhere state that I have received, read and agreed to the terms and conditions. This is plainly wrong and if they are relying on the fact that they can prove I have seen or agreed to any such conditions then they are in trouble.

The majority of people commenting on here seem to be saying that they never received these general terms and conditions that WB are now relying on to change the product that they sold us. This appears crucial because WB are arguing that we have received them - in my case at least this is wrong.

I now have another set of photocopying to do but with a smile on my face because their argument appears weaker than I thought.

Annette Stone

20:39 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Colin's comment about the accounts is quite interesting. a 60% buy to let exposure is quite high and their losses are not encouraging. In order to continue trading West Brom would have to have some considerable cash reserves which they build up from people saving with them. After the banking crisis these reserves were increased. I wonder if anyone can tell us what would happen If people withdrew their savings in disgust at what is going on and west broms reserves diminished. At what stage would they become unable to trade and what would happen to the mortgages. Anyone with less than £85K saved there would be covered by the Government's guarantee but I certainly would not keep any funds in a bank/building society who behaved like this as a point of principle.

Katy Coleshaw

22:05 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Annette Stone" at "05/10/2013 - 20:39":

Hi have read most of the comments here and seems you are all referring to the same mortgage product being affected lifetime tracker. May I enlighten you,my product was a BTL fixed at 5.5% for 5 years which reverted to a tracker in January 2013. I possess only 2 rental properties one of which is with WB and I have received the same letter, double whammy stuck in a fixed deal when rates plummeted and just when finally transfer to a competitive rate they do this! Typical bankers want it all ways. Thought they would have learnt by all the other mis selling scandals! Definitely signing up to your campaign.

Richard Adams

22:40 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Jon Bourne" at "05/10/2013 - 18:13":

Actually Jon quite a lot of us did receive the T&C's. A small A5 booklet and there was a reference to it in the WBBS mortgage offer letter.
It absolutely amazes me that in your case, and a few others saying likewise, that you never got the booklet or even any mention in small print anywhere about the interest rate hike bombshell?? If so then you are home and dry now. But it doesn't matter either way. With or without we'll all be OK in court.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

23:23 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Hi Katy, sounds like you were on the same deal as me. Mine was a 5 year fix which I took in 2008, it only reverted to being a tracker a few months ago so like you say, it's been a double whammy for us. Triple whammy perhaps as my tracker rate is BBR plus 2.49% and will be BBR plus 4.49% as of December.

jonney

23:38 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Hi Richard
I'm not sure how relevant it is as to whether they did put their booklet in the envelope with the mortgage offer or not - I have many booklets of sneaky conditions from all the other lenders but never received one of theirs - it's a legal issue how either side proves it one way or another - if many say they didn't then I guess that doesn't hep WB.

Even if received I think one of the main arguments Is that how can one of the clauses in a general terms booklet overrule the actual name of the product or reversion rate that we bought into - ie lifetime base rate tracker/tracker for term. Again its down to the legal opinion - I/we need to wait for counsels' opinion.

Richard Adams

23:42 PM, 5th October 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Jon Bourne" at "05/10/2013 - 23:38":

Exactly Jon. Main job of counsel will be opining on this.

Look at Mark's post couple of days back. Gives the Latin name for law that basically says hiding stuff away in small print will not cut it for WBBS. Sleep easy.

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