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We have recently received a warning from one landlord warning and highlighting landlords about the recent decision of the West Bromich Building Society to recind their buy-to-let tracker rate mortgage rates. In their own words:
"There
are now plenty of angry borrowers out there, 6,700 in clients of the West
Bromwich Building Society and a further 12,200 clients of Bank of Ireland are
already affected. These lenders have decided to increase their profit margin by
increasing the interest rates regardless of the fact that the Bank of England
base rate has not changed. They are relying on ambiguous small print in their
contracts, which is in conflict with their promotional materials and offer
letters.
It
appears a strong possibility that other lenders may follow suit and many now
feel that this unethical practice should be stopped before other lenders make
their decisions.
A Class Action group has formed to fight back. Those already affected are
confident that the law is on their side, in particular due to established legal
precedent that ambiguous or self-contradicting contracts must be interpreted in
a way that benefits the customer (termed “contra proferentem”).
The
Class Action is receiving support from many tracker mortgage borrowers in
addition to affected customers of the West Bromwich Building Society and the
Bank of Ireland.
People
affected by the West Browmwich Mortgage Company decision are buy to let
landlords, however, Bank of Irelands increases also apply to residential
mortgage borrowers.
If you have a view or have been affected then please post your thoughts below.
Read more on the West Brom BS situation from the BBC
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2 comments:
I have B2L mortgages with Bank of Ireland; in February 2013 it sought to rely on a term in the mortgage deed that referred to its Residential Mortgage Conditions which permitted a change of differential if market conditions warranted it, but these conditions were not provided at the time and it was not then supposed that they would be any more onerous or disadvantageous than the B2L conditions.
It back tracked in May, not because the condition was in a document not provided at the time the mortgages were executed, but because other correspondence implied that the differential was fixed not variable.
Maybe I got off by the skin of my teeth!
So? Happened to me when a couple of lenders did this a few years ago. Get over it.
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