Some borrowers have only themselves to blame for losing their trackers

I started with a 25 year tracker with Aib

In the offer letter there was an option to fix for a fee of €63

I was 100% certain that by fixing I was pausing the tracker.

And at the end of the fix period I would revert to the exact same tracker.

I know what happened: the economy crashed, the banks were bailed out.

Decency went out the window.

The banks clung to anything that would help their balance sheets.

Disregard the customer.

Now the customer is looking to get justice.

But who is prepared to help?

Yes FF. Yes Sinn Fein.

Not the government.

Not the central bank.

The central bank inadvertently brought on the original crash and they want to protect the bank balance sheets, not support the customer.
 
mister32 said:
I was 100% certain that by fixing I was pausing the tracker.
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Presumably that was on the basis of your contract wording - right?

If you are 100% certain that you have a contractual right to a particular rate then why don't you sue AIB to enforce that right?

Talk is cheap...
 
Quote!
This strikes me as odd as it was absolutely obvious to me from reading other threads at that time that there was a clear understanding of the differences between trackers and other variable rate mortgages. The famous Central Bank ad seems to have worked!
Unquote!

No it didn't! That's rubbish!

My tracker contract never mentioned the word tracker only "variable".

My fixed rate roll off (months later not years) had the same definition of variable as the original variable (tracker).

Where is the clarity!

perhaps the more savvy back in 2006/7 was using this forum! But thousands didn't!
 
Firstly, I have never sued anyone before.

My resources don't match the bank.

I have raised the issue with ombudsman.

I am awaiting the outcome of the central bank review.

If the above two don't work for me then yes I will sue.

If the Irish courts don't give me the result I want then I will go to European court.

So it is an ongoing process

My first reaction was disbelief.

Then the ombudsman failed to act quickly.

Then when I asked a few solicitors they dismissed the idea without even looking at the documentation.

At the time when it happened I had financial difficulties and spending money on solicitor fees was one expense too far.
 
@Lightening

There were literally dozens of threads back in 2006/07 on switching to a tracker from a variable rate. Look back at the threads from that time yourself if you don't believe me.

I'm afraid I can't help it if you didn't understand what a tracker was. There was certainly a considerable public information campaign at the time to educate consumers.

And I'm sorry but I just don't buy the argument that anybody would really have thought that a reference to a variable rate in a contract with no mention of the applicable margin over an underlying reference rate actually referred to a tracker.

You are obviously free to hold a different view.
 
what if the customer new exactly what was in their contract I.e. on expiry of fixed term a tracker rate to apply. The bank agreed to expire the fixed term prematurely but didn't apply the proper rate as per contract. The bank broke contract. Very simple. Also in some contacts it doesn't mention tracker mortgage. It just says <.8% over ECB. If banks fully understood the contracts then we wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe customers who broke early knew that they should roll on to tracker rate and that's why the broke. Maybe they were the clever ones
 
joe351980 said:
what if the customer new exactly what was in their contract I.e. on expiry of fixed term a tracker rate to apply.
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If any bank failed to honour it's contractual obligations to a customer to apply a particular rate on the expiry of a fixed-term, then the customer is entitled to be put on that rate ASAp and to receive appropriate compensation.

No doubt about it.
 
@Sarenco For years you have been telling people they don't qualify for restoration to tracker.

Against odds 11,500 customers have been restored.

And now you're finally saying they should be restored!
 
The original contract stated 2 conditions: tracker and fixed.

End of fixed would revert to tracker
 
mister32 said:
@Sarenco For years you have been telling people they don't qualify for restoration to tracker.
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Huh?

There were thousands of borrowers across practically all our lenders that were contractually entitled to default to or had an option to convert to a tracker on the expiry of a fixed-rate period. I have never suggested otherwise and I actually assisted a number of such borrowers that were wrongfully denied their contractual rights.

However, the notion that every borrower that ever had a tracker should be entitled to revert to that tracker, regardless of what their contract actually says, is wrong-headed. As I have said repeatedly - the actual contract wording is critical.
 
There was no contract to fix.

Simply a letter availing of the already defined option to fix.

That was what the original contract defined.

That plus a cheque for €63
 
@mister32

Ok, what did the letter say would happen on expiry of the fixed-term? Or did the letter refer to separate T&Cs contained elsewhere? Or perhaps it referred back to the T&Cs contained within the original documentation?

If the terms of the fix genuinely provided you would revert to a tracker or expiry of the fixed-term then that's what you are entitled to. No question.
 
I can only comment on my own personal situation where I have had a tracker since 2004. We took out a new mortgage in 07 on a new house and that was also a tracker. We did look at fixing around 08 at the time the crisis was starting to get some momentum but in the end, we decided not to, simply because it was blatently and clearly obvious that at the end of the period we may not be allowed to return to a tracker rate and even if we were, it may not be at the same rate we were originally on (0.75% above ECB).

Our situation was perhaps slightly different from other people in that me and my better half at that time had over 40 years banking experience between us, both within banks and also outsourced providers, we knew how to read mortgage documentation and knew how banks behaved.

Nobody mis-sold me a fixed rate because we knew what we were dealing with. It is probable that some people were mis-sold fixed rate mortgages and to me it also seems the clause preventing people from returning to their original tracker rate was an unfair clause and it is has been deemed so by the courts.

However, when I read cases on here and in the papers I also have to say that for some people, (and I fully accept everyone is different so please don't jump down my throat here) got into financial difficulties not because of their loss of a tracker but because they were carrying far to much debt and frankly made a mess of their own finances. It's not always "someone else's fault"
 
This was my experience of a tracker with BOI. Traded up in 2008(!), rates were on the rise, was offered a number of rates including tracker and ECB rates were actually rising so I decided to fix for 2 years so I would know what my repayments would be. I think there was 1 rate rise after I drewdown the mortgage and then the ECB rate started falling. I remember threads on here - there were people trying to break out of their fixed rates and I think it was PTSB that was allowing this with no penalty - well we all know what happened there. I rang BOI to break out of my fixed rate but I was facing a large penalty so I stayed on the fixed. After the 2 years was offered a number of rates including tracker - which I picked and sent the letter back. I wonder how many didn't bother replying to the letter as I think I would have defaulted to variable if I did not pick tracker. But I was offered tracker. Never got any correspondance/phone calls from bank to move from tracker.
I am not a bank supporter in any way - this is just my experience.
 
Like Pinkie123 we were offered the tracker when we went to break the fixed rate and the break out was too high at the time. At the second attempt the bank said the tracker was no longer available. We have since discovered they were still giving out trackers during this time but denied us this rate. It was called a "variable rate" mortgage. The bank should have in their contracts differentiated between the variable terms i.e.
Tracker variable
Standard Variable Rate
Home loan rate Etc.

To say the contracts were ambiguous is an understatement!

but "The devil is in the detail"
 
@Lightening

Could you tell us exactly what your contract said would happen at the end of the fixed-rate period? If there were any capitalised terms used in the relevant clause, we would also need to see the definitions used in the contract.

It is certainly true that some contracts were ambiguous on this point but the vast majority were actually pretty clear.
 
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