MSE News: Mortgage blow as building society hikes SVR

sarahbennett

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Dentist
You are living in a strange world if you imagine that parties seeking to rely on their contractual terms are required to give a full legal case to the other party to the contract. If there is any need for such chapter and verse it will be given to the FSA and/or the courts, not to thousands of borrowers 99.9% of whom will not understand it.

You are living in a strange world if you imagine mortgage customers seeking to enforce the guarantee in their contracts are required to give a full legal case to the Skipton. If there is any need for chapter and verse it will be given to the FSA and/or courts, not a small number of intellectually challenged, nevertheless overfed Skipton executives who have no chance of understanding it... So all mortgage customers out there, do not be tempted to give chapter and verse of your case against the Skipton to the Skipton, but do challenge them in your letters of complaint to:

(1) lay out their case in further detail (as much detail as they can)
(2) not exclude anything that they may later rely on in court
(3) provide a final answer to your complaint by return of mail, with the words "final response" or similar on the letter
(4) state that if you have not had their "final response" letter within 8 weeks of your complaint you will assume that they do not wish to answer your complaint and will seek resolution from the ombudsman
(5) do NOT forget to state that any interest paid above the 3.5% that you feel is due will only be PAID UNDER PROTEST

In their template complaints response letter Skipton say if they have not heard from you for 8 weeks they will assume you no longer wish to progress your complaint.

Two can play at this game. Or that game. Two can play at both games...

Apparently 99.9% of us will not understand, this leaves it to 0.1% of us who will understand, to make a case for the 99.9%, who, according to Mark, won't, LOL. So let's not try to make too full a case to the Building Society for fear we may make errors, all we need to say is we think it's unfair and leave the talking all to THEM, let them spell out their entire case to us slowly and carefully...

As for them quoting verse and chapter to the FSA and courts, there is no IF, they most certainly will, in the near future. They are not required to give their full reasons to borrowers, but it does show a certain contempt (as your post did) if with the explicit request to share "any reasons they may later rely on in court" they are not a little more forthcoming...

sarahbennett

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Sarah
If your actions make Skipton go bust (and they weren't rescued by someone else - which of course will inevitably be the case) you won't get anything out of it. The savers would be repaid by the FSCS or the government. Other creditors would get nothing. That's what happens in most liquidations.

Incidentally Mark, what I get out of it is not my motivation here. I REALLY DON'T CARE IF I GET NOTHING OUT OF IT. I think their action is despicable and they will not get away with it. Have you noticed, they've even been caught trying to delete the controversies section on their wikipedia page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Skipton_Building_Society

How pathetic... how dare you defend these degenerates? And what interest can you possibly have in doing so?

The only thing that will stop me now is them telling us they have reconsidered their position and will put the new conditions on new borrowers contracts, whereas the existing borrowers will have their terms (ie., guarantees) unchanged...

I'm the worst kind of enemy to make. I fear nothing. They're messing with the wrong girl.

sarahbennett

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

FSA must (whatever Sarah reckons) have approved this in advance, because without it, Skipton would go bust.

Yes Mark, if this is the case, then yes they will, they will go bust... It's not the first time and it won't be the last... however, what you are saying is not strictly true, Skipton has other options before going bust, they could demutualise, turn into a bank, float on the stock exchange, get bought, how many times have I had to spell these other options out on this thread?...

And if the legal actions don't kill them, the bad press most certainly will... How dare they renege on their guarantees to poor hard working families struggling to keep a roof over their heads, balancing an impossibly tight budget, while at the same time paying their departing CEO over £1.24 million in his last year and a £2.3 million pension?

VIGILANT22

sarahbennett wrote: »

... How dare they renege on their guarantees to poor hard working families struggling to keep a roof over their heads, balancing an impossibly tight budget,



while at the same time paying their departing CEO over £1.24 million in his last year and a £2.3 million pension?

You probably haven't enjoyed such low rates since taking a mortgage

Hardly excessive if comparing to others in the same position......

MarkyMarkD

I'm glad to see that you are formulating your arguments more clearly now, Sarah, whether it's a result of this thread's discussion or not.

Your FSA IF example is not the best one for your case ... the reason they were unhappy with that clause was that it gave the right to vary terms without specifying what reasons would be required and without giving the option to exit freely. Skipton have, of course, given the option to exit freely. I accept that the first part of the argument appears to match up with the IF case.

I absolutely realise that organisations go bust because they make guarantees/commitments which they cannot fulfil. That is the nature of business.

Your argument that Skipton could demutualise doesn't hold a lot of water. The effective value for a society with an onerous commitment to a ridiculously low SVR is nothing. How would that help anyone? They are too small to demutualise and remain independent. They could be sold to another bank ... in which case most of the staff would lose their jobs, just like if they went bust. All your "alternatives" are nonsense alternatives which do not benefit competition or the Skipton group staff.

You dilute your case with weak arguments about "poor hard working families" and ex-CEOs' salaries. You are paying 4.95% for goodness' sake - significantly less than when you took out your mortgage, significantly less than many, many borrowers on fixed rates or other lenders' SVRs. How is it "impossibly tight" to balance a budget with a mortgage rate of 4.95% when the same borrowers were paying 6% or more less than 18 months ago?

You may think that it is contemptuous not to set out the arguments which you may later rely on in court, but that's simply how court cases work. Have you never been involved in one? You don't give the opposition your arguments in advance. That would be stupid.

sarahbennett

VIGILANT22 wrote: »

You probably haven't enjoyed such low rates since taking a mortgage

Hardly excessive if comparing to others in the same position......

Sometimes I am staggered by your comments, the bank of England base rates are low for a reason... has that occurred to you, at all?

sarahbennett

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I accept that the first part of the argument appears to match up with the IF case. They could be sold to another bank ... in which case most of the staff would lose their jobs. All your "alternatives" are nonsense alternatives which do not benefit ...the Skipton group staff....

You are paying 4.95% for goodness' sake - significantly less than when you took out your mortgage. How is it "impossibly tight" to balance a budget with a mortgage rate of 4.95% when the same borrowers were paying 6% or more less than 18 months ago?

Because these families had a guarantee that their mortgage would not go up by more than 3% above the Base Rate (remembering that the Base Rate is actually set with economic circumstances such as theirs in mind), and have made their budgets on that basis... Also you are right, they were probably paying significantly more when the Base Rate was higher, but that was in the reasonable expectation that their agreement would enable them to benefit from times when the Base Rate went down... at a guaranteed maximum rate above the Base Rate... Your let them eat cake argument does not stack up, "oh 4.95% is perfectly reasonable, let them pay that..." for one thing, by reneging on their guaranteed 3% ceiling what's to stop the Skipton raising their SVR to 12%? 20%? 50%? for those borrowers unable to move because of a low amount of equity or other personal circumstances, surely a worry...

And for another thing, it's like me signing an agreement with someone to pay them £90 to clean my windows, when most people are only getting £60, how does the argument that the market norm is £60 in any way entitle me to renege on my promise to pay them £90. Your point, if we can call it a point, that 4.95% is reasonable is no more valid than if I were to say £60 is reasonable to the window cleaner. His point that I promised him £90 and not £60 and he has made up his budget on the basis of that is entirely justified...

Finally, I am NOT paying 4.95% NOR WILL I. Not until the Base Rate goes up to 1.95% that is, because I will hold the Skipton to their guarantee...

sarahbennett

VIGILANT22 wrote: »

You probably haven't enjoyed such low rates since taking a mortgage

Hardly excessive if comparing to others in the same position......

"A guarantee with vague exceptions like Skiptons is worthless and the mention of the word guarantee in the original agreement was only to decieve the members of the public who read and signed the agreement. It is clearly unfair and I think the FSA or someone should come down hard on Skipton as a warning to the other lenders. Otherwise it will be Tracker mtges next having their tracking margin altered because of the exceptional circumstances and some very well hidden small print. I wonder if Skiptons senior managers and directors have had exceptional pay cuts to reflect and mitigate the exceptional conditions that they are in and the exceptional mistakes that they made? If not I'd argue that the circumstances aren't that exceptional...."

sarahbennett

This thread... with its "borrowers are evil and should be punished" overtones and "let-them-eat-cake" arguments, is getting tedious. A guarantee is a guarantee.

For what it's worth, I don't think Skipton will win this one... Even if they do, the damage by the media fallout will end them, and they are not helping themselves by all their data security breaches either (On top of this I've heard that, out of desperation to put forward their arguments, as case studies have come forward to complain about the SVR hike, they have been pulling confidential information out of individual mortgage customer's files about their income and circumstances that they were not authorised to share, and discussing these with the media, the potential fallout from this will be massive). I've pulled my savings out of the Skipton (all but £1 that is) on account that, whatever rate they offer, they may withdraw at a later date, because they essentially have shown they can't be trusted...

-
JOIN:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=mf&gid=309129390147
Sign the Petition:
http://petition.zedbox.com/

---

sarahbennett

It's also not an onerously low SVR, the average guaranteed rate above base rate is around 1.5-2%, not 3%...

The hard working family were paying 6% when the base rate was 3% because economic conditions were different then, the base rate is 0.5% to help families such as these....