Landlord group to take action against trio of lenders

On Wednesday, Property 118 won a Court of Appeal case against West Bromwich Building Society after it increased rates on its buy-to-let tracker.

Property 118 said that "the Bank of Ireland case is likely to be one of the first we will seek to fund on behalf of our members, providing a sufficient number of affected borrowers become members of Property118 Action Group of course".

In a statement on Property 118's website, leader Mark Alexander said: "This ruling sends a clear message to other lenders who have acted in a similar manner, and to those who might have been considering following suit. There are thought to be in the region of one million tracker buy-to-let mortgages which could have been affected in this case had gone the wrong way."

But Skipton Building Society has defended the removal of a 'standard variable rate ceiling' that applied to some of its residential mortgages.

In a statement, Skipton said: “We note that the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the Alexander v West Bromwich Mortgage Company Ltd case was very fact specific to the offer letter and terms and conditions of business used by that society at the relevant time and is not of any wider application.

“Skipton remains firmly of the opinion that under the terms and conditions of its mortgage offer it lawfully had the right to remove the standard variable rate ceiling that applied until 1 March 2010 to the majority of its borrowers with SVR-linked accounts.

“The decision, taken over six years ago, to exercise the society’s right to remove the SVR ceiling was permissible because of the exceptional circumstances provision in its mortgage offer.”