BOI Tracker Rate - Advise on appealing to High Court

nonie

Registered User
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Hi all,

We have just received a ruling in our favour from the Ombudsman in relation to BOI not reinstating a Tracker rate on our old home loan. The Ombudsman states that the "Bank did act wrongfully, and in breach of duty, when it failed to offer the Complainants the option of switching mortgage acc XXXX back to the original tracker rate of interest on expiry of the fixed term in XXXX.... The complaint has been substantiated".

The home loan in question is now closed and a new home loan account opened in 2012 which is costing us substantially more in interest payments.

The Ombudsman has ruled that the Bank need only repay the difference in interest until the account closed and a minimal "compensation" in lieu of our tracker rate of a couple of thousand euro.......

We are now taking advise on how to progress the case to the High Court.
Does anyone have any advise or can recommend any legal counsel to take the case forward?

The ruling is in our favour but the compensation amount is completely inequitable in comparison to the interest payable on our new rate with BOI.

Thanks in advance.
 
The home loan in question is now closed and a new home loan account opened in 2012 which is costing us substantially more in interest payments.

Hi nonie

In what circumstances did you close the home loan account and open a new one?
 
Hi Brendan.
We closed the previous home loan after being told repeatedly by BOI that we were not entitled to a tracker. The ombudsman found that we were entitled to the tracker.... but they only concluded this after we closed our old home loan account. We were approved a new home loan as we decided to move as we thought we had nothing to lose because we were repeatedly told by the bank we had no tracker. They eagerly closed the account (our tracker) and opened a brand new home loan. The old account was also in negative equity. .. which we were advised to clear from our savings.
In summary the Bank closed our tracker without admitting it was a tracker. Advised us to clear the negative equity ourselves and Opened a new home loan on current high rates.
The are getting away with just reimbursing us the overpaid interest, breakage fee and a token compensation. ... In fact we have lost out on savings of several hundred thousand. We obviously would never have moved hone if we thought we had a valuable tracker rate.
Any chance I could talk to you about this?
 
Nonie;

Suggest take the Ombudsmans judgment to a trusted solicitor; if Ombudsman decreed you were entitled to tracker yet did not tell boi to re-instate it there may well be some legal catch to granting you a (new) tracker.

Sounds like you have been done by Boi and Ombudsmans reparation seems odd ?

Take trusted solicitors advice and if you have to drop case then sadly so be it.
 
I will thanks. And yes it is criminal what BOI has been allowed to get away with.
The ombudsman appeared to be saying that because we had savings ( saved over the year instead of buying fancy cars) and were able to get another mortgage that we don't deserve the tracker back. If we were in arrears I'm sure they would have told them to reinstate it.
Anyone any suggestions for good financial solicitor?
 
You wouldn't be entitled to the tracker back for the new loan. The tracker mortgage product was never portable so once you move house - even if you still were on the tracker - you would have lost it by redeeming the mortgage.
 
We were approved a new home loan as we decided to move as we thought we had nothing to lose because we were repeatedly told by the bank we had no tracker.

Sorry nonie, it seems to me that you have virtually no case.

If you have switched your loan from Bank of Ireland to AIB, then I think you would have a case.

But up until relatively recently, when people traded up, they lost their tracker.

Sure you have been treated badly in that they denied you were entitled to a tracker.

For you to win your case, you would have to prove that you would not have moved home if you had been on a tracker.

I would strongly advise against appealing to the High Court. I would even advise against going to a solicitor. There is a significant risk that the solicitor might share your outrage and start a legal process which would cost you a lot of money.

Key Post Appealing an Ombudsman's decision to the High Court

[FONT=&quot]To succeed on this appeal the Plaintiff must establish as a matter of probability that, taking the adjudicative process as a whole, the decision reached was vitiated by a serious and significant error or a series of such errors.[/FONT]

I think that only one or two consumers have managed to win a High Court appeal.

It doesn't seem to me, from what you have outlined, to be a serious and significant error.

If, by some miracle, you managed to convince the judge to overturn the decision, all the judge can do is to refer it back to the Ombudsman to rehear the case.




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The ombudsman states that they are "satisfied that the Bank did act wrongfully, and in breach of futy".... and that the complaint is substantiated". They awarded compensation but it is only a fraction of what we have lost out on in terms of interest saving.
How can they uphold the complaint but not rectify the financial loss?
 
I would even advise against going to a solicitor. There is a significant risk that the solicitor might share your outrage and start a legal process which would cost you a lot of money.

Brendan,

How can a solicitor start a legal process, and create a liability for their client, without the client's specific authorisation to do so?
 
Brendan,

How can a solicitor start a legal process, and create a liability for their client, without the client's specific authorisation to do so?


Hi Tommy

They can't start it without the client's authorisation.

That is not the point though. Many solicitors have very poor knowledge of financial issues. Many solicitors have very poor knowledge of the Ombudsman. Many solicitors will acknowledge this lack of expertise and refer them on. But some solicitors will think that they can handle it themselves and encourage the client down a dangerous and expensive path.

A good solicitor, on the other hand, will point out early on that the client has little chance of success.
 
We suffered a huge loss. I.e the savings in interest payable over the term of the loan V's the new loan they gave us. The point here is that if they told us we had a tracker loan while it was active (we asked repeatedly) rather than after they had closed it (convenient ly) we would never have moved home. We had no necessity and moved within the locale to another 3bed. In fact to a property needing a complete overhaul V's our old home.
 
We suffered a huge loss. I.e the savings in interest payable over the term of the loan V's the new loan they gave us. The point here is that if they told us we had a tracker loan while it was active (we asked repeatedly) rather than after they had closed it (convenient ly) we would never have moved home. We had no necessity and moved within the locale to another 3bed. In fact to a property needing a complete overhaul V's our old home.

It's easy to say this.

The obvious counter argument in court will be can you prove you would never have moved?

Moving house is a huge step for anyone and yet you have more or less said it was an inconvenience to move. So why then did you move.
Obviously if you were on a tracker it would have come into your thinking to stay put but you can't prove anything. You moving was not a direct consequence of not having a tracker. There would be a lot of other things to consider.

Very easy for the bank to defend.
 
Agree with peno.

And agree with the Ombudsman's decision.

It's very tough on you that the Bank repeatedly refused that you were entitled to a tracker. But you should have made your complaint and got your tracker back before you moved.

Brendan
 
Sorry but no one would move home and risk losing their tracker surely? There is no way we would have if we had ours in place.
We did ask And complain about the rate while the account was open.... just it took the Bank years to admit it and that happened after the account closed.
The Bank is obviously allowed to delay telling the truth until it is too late so as to benefit their customers.

Thanks for all heads up.
 
Try a FOI request on your file and see will it reveal anything. I appreciate that in recent times there is a lot of stuff not kept on file because of FOI but you never know. Have you a written record of any of the correspondence yourself. You will need to word your request well in order to cover everything.
 
Sorry but no one would move home and risk losing their tracker surely? There is no way we would have if we had ours in place.
We did ask And complain about the rate while the account was open.... just it took the Bank years to admit it and that happened after the account closed.
The Bank is obviously allowed to delay telling the truth until it is too late so as to benefit their customers.

Thanks for all heads up.

Sure they would, if they wanted to move to a nicer house. The world doesn't revolve around tracker mortgages.

You were hard done by by the bank but your mistake was moving house when you thought you lost the tracker and thereby ending that contract and starting a new one. If you continued with the old contract, you would have been compensated up to the date of judgement.

Will you be able to prove in the HC that the only reason you moved home was because you lost your tracker?

Unless you have written correspondence to the bank stating that, you will lose a HC case and owe hundreds of thousands in legal fees. Bank of Ireland can afford to fight you in court, can you risk your future on a very thin case?

The bank were appalling, you won but the compensation made it feel like a defeat. Lick your wounds and move on. To fight it will probably ruin you.

Steven
 
Bank of Ireland can afford to fight you in court, can you risk your future on a very thin case?

As he will be appealing the Ombudsman's decision, his case will be against the Ombudsman and not Bank of Ireland. And the Ombudsman does seek costs and does pursue them.
 
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