#WestBromTracker

#WestBromTracker

20:21 PM, 19th January 2015, About 9 years ago 124

Text Size

#WestBromTrackerMark Smith, Head of Chambers at Cotswold Barristers will be representing landlords at the Commercial Court at Rolls Building, Fetter Lane, London this Wednesday in the UK’s largest ever direct access legal case. #WestBromTracker

We will be tweeting under hashtag #WestBromTracker so please feel to join in the discussion on Twitter and re-tweet. You may also wish to use hashtags such as #mortgage #news and #media but #WestBromTracker is the essential one.

Please wish us luck because this really is a David and Goliath fight. The people affected by these tracker rate margin hikes trusted their mortgage lenders to treat them fairly. Via Property118 a group has managed to raise over £500,000 to have a case against the West Bromwich Mortgage Company (a wholy owned subsidiary of West Bromwich Building Society) tested in Court. The funds raised to fight the case have not come from the super rich, they’ve been contributed by hard working folk who chose to invest their hard earned savings into providing much needed rental property. They trusted the building society to honour the mortgage deal they signed up to but sadly this trust has been broken. 

The Bank of Ireland, Manchester Building Society, Skipton Building Society and their wholly owned subsidiary AmberHomeloans have previously got away with similar rate-hike shenanigans but it is not too late for affected borrowers to take action. Hopefully a win on Wednesday 21st January will discourage other mortgage lenders from tinkering with tracker rate mortgage margins in the future and will also inspire borrowers affected by similar rate hikes to fund legal action against those mortgage lenders too.

Trading Standards, the Advertising Standards Association and the FCA all refused to get involved in the dispute. The Financial Ombudsman Service appear to have chosen to ignore all contractual legal arguments and to make very strange decisions in all complaints regarding actions of mortgage lenders in respect of hiking interest rates when their sales pitch clearly linked rates to a transparent pricing structure.

Watch this space and please feel free to post comments.

NOTES FOR JOURNALISTS

  • Before the credit crunch tracker mortgages were incredibly popular, there are an estimated 1 million tracker rate mortgages in the UK, many of which are secured against peoples own homes
  • Tracker rate mortgages are intended to provide transparent pricing. The rate of interest is directly linked to the Bank of England base rate plus an agreed margin for an agreed period of time, in many cases for the lifetime of the loan.
  • Some unscrupulous lenders have increased the margin charged over the base rate and this has been the basis of our legal argument against the West Bromwich Building Society, i.e. the contract did not allow for this to happen.
  • Some peoples mortgage payments have more than doubled despite the base rate not having moved for nearly six years.
  • Hikes in tracker rate margins haven’t only affected landlords
  • In 2013 Bank of Ireland increased the margins on over 15,000 tracker rate mortgages, those affected were both homeowners and people who had taken buy to let mortgages in order to buy properties as investments to provide for their retirement. To date, insufficient funds have been raised to take this case to Court.
  • People naturally tighten their purse strings when their mortgage costs increase and many have expected regulators to step in and help them. Sadly the regulators’ appetite to take on the banks and building societies who have breached their mortgage terms by increasing their tracker rate mortgage margins has been none existent. That’s why Court action has been so necessary.
  • If every affected person had committed just £500 to fight for their rights in Court this sharp practice from mortgage lenders would have been nipped in the bud a long time ago.
  • In 2010 Skipton Building Society and their wholly owned subsidiary Amber Homeloans removed a contracted interest rate cap from their mortgages which had a similar effect of massively increasing the mortgage payments of a reported 80,000 borrowers. The interest rate cap, which was linked to the bank base rate, was removed despite public announcements from their CEO less than a year before that contractual arrangements would be honoured. A case has never been taken to Court due to lack of financial commitment from affected borrowers. more about the Skipton Building Society rate hike and links to source information here >>> http://www.property118.com/skipton-building-society-legal-action/64751/
  • Both Property118 and Cotswold Barristers are keen to pursue legal action against Skipton Building Society and the Bank of Ireland if public interest in doing so is sufficiently high and subject to the required level of funding being attained.
  • The required level of financial commitment to take on the other offending lenders would be circa 2,000 borrowers each committing around £500.

Share This Article


Comments

Dean

11:18 AM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Andy Bell" at "21/01/2015 - 11:13":

Cheers Andy

Im not a twitter person so if you hear anything let me know please.

Dean

PS you still have nails left ????

Ever Hopeful Landlord

11:22 AM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "21/01/2015 - 10:50":

yes quite i think the other side has had more than its fair share of luck!

Onslow Clough

11:26 AM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

On tenterhooks here...drinking too much coffee and unable to concentrate on anything else....anyone know what time judges eat their packed lunch? Might get some news then...

Andy Bell

11:34 AM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "21/01/2015 - 11:18":

I'm a stickler for detailed planning so have grown them long in anticipation. One and a half now perfectly manicured 8.5 to go.

Andy Bell

13:09 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Was hoping for a one o'clock lunch break - no tweets yet!!!

Colin Dartnell

13:20 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Any news?

Andy Bell

13:34 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Just in from Mark
#westbromtracker Judge has been tough on both sides so far, we reconvene at 2pm for round 2

Dean

13:37 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Cheers Andy. Did it not expand on what the judge said ?

Andy Bell

13:38 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Dean " at "21/01/2015 - 13:37":

No that's it.

Craig Holmes

13:39 PM, 21st January 2015, About 9 years ago

No, short and sweet... Must be a big queue at Pret ha !!

Leave Comments

In order to post comments you will need to Sign In or Sign Up for a FREE Membership

or

Don't have an account? Sign Up

Landlord Tax Planning Book Now