Is Your Lender About To Sc@w You?!
I don’t know whether you’ve picked up on the Bank of Ireland/West Bromwich Building Society controversy. Long story short, both lenders have found, allegedly, small print in their Buy to Let mortgage contracts to allow them to add another couple of percent to rates payable on existing mortgages even though, on the face of it, the borrower thought they had a tracker at a fixed margin over base rate.
The FSA/FCA etc aren’t interested at the moment because Buy to Let mortgages aren’t ‘regulated’ which gives the feeling the banks can do what they want.
The concern is that if BoI and/or West Brom get away with this, other lenders could and will follow suit and we’ll all get stuffed.
In fact, of great concern is that apparently the FCA have now been approached by other lenders notifying them that they are thinking of doing the same.
Mark Alexander, previously of The Money Centre, now of www.Property118.com, is organising a ‘class action’, trying to gather as many affected AND unaffected borrowers together as he can to take the banks on in a legal challenge and head this off before the precedent is set and the other lenders follow suit.
So far he has over 1000 borrowers and interested parties who have signed up, myself being one, who have contributed £100 each towards the legal costs. I don’t have a btl mortgage with either BoI or WB but I’m more than willing to contribute £100 if it pre-empts similar behaviour from my lenders.
The reality is that there are many, many more borrowers who are already affected (because they have mortgages with BoI and WB) and many hundreds of thousands who will be affected if other lenders try it on, but of the possible 100,000’s only 1000 (still not a bad number) have joined Mark’s campaign.
I think this is potentially a massive threat to btl investors and we need to get the word out there for as many property investors as possible to join, and/or fund, the class action as possible.
There’s a post on property118 with ‘an expression of interest’ form for the class action which investors can fill in. The link is too long to print here so please go to www.property118.com and look for articles on Bank of Ireland and West Brom, and you’ll find how to provide your details and contribute to the fund.
I have no links or financial or other interest in property118, and I wouldn’t normally suggest visiting a 3rd party website, but just think they are doing a great job of rallying the investing community at time when we are under great threat and yet it seems very few know about it and even fewer are prepared to do anything about it.
So please, if you have Bank or Ireland or West Brom Buy to Let mortgages, join the class action today, now.
If you don’t have a BoI or WB btl mortgage don’t assume you are safe, you probably aren’t. So please, please consider contributing to the fighting fund.