Please forgive the long nature of this post but we want to set out all the facts and we welcome any feedback from members.
1. We are two professionals that bought an apartment in 2006. We were offered tracker by BOI on 9 May but a 12 month reduced interest rate instead of a 24 month (as had been agreed to by the bank ) was included in this offer letter.
2. We promptly notified the branch of this.
3. The bank issued a new offer letter on 11 May (just two days later and apparently on foot of an oral direction from the branch given on 9 May) including the agreed reduced 24 month rate- but also unilaterally and without any notice (written or oral) to us removing the tracker rate included in the offer letter of 9 May.
4. At no point had it being represented or made in any way clear to us that the application of the agreed 24 month reduced rate was going to lead to the removal of the tracker rate. We would have been idiots to surrender the tracker offered to us for an additional reduced rate of 24 months over 12 and reiterated that this scenario had never been raised by the relevant representative of the Bank with either of us.
The bank orally responded that
1. The rate with the 24 month discount was a different rate from the tracker and you could not be offered both.
2. The Bank accepted that they offered us the tracker but that a named individual from the branch rang them on 9 May asked them to apply the 24 month reduced rate. We asked if the named individual also asked them to disapply the tracker. It seems no such note was received from the named individual from the branch on this count.
3. We were then told " and sure you would have received a letter in November 2008 giving you the option of the different rates available to you including the tracker". No such letter being sent. The bank has since told us this is because trackers were removed in October 2008. The bank insisted that the tracker was open to us at anytime to take up. When put to the bank that they never communicated this to us (either in the letter of 11 May 2006, on the two year anniversary of the initial payment in November 2008 or any other time) the bank's reply was "well it was publically known at the time".
4. We subsequently received a final letter from the Bank essentially saying that we just victims of bad look that tracker mortgages were withdrawn October 2008 and our initial 24 month reduced rate ran out in early November 2008- they invited us to submit our case to the Financial Ombudsman.
We cannot recall the exact date that we discovered that we were not on a tracker but was probably in late 2010. We subsequently fixed our mortage in March 2011 for 3 years. We are now on SVR.
The banks second letter issued 2 days after offering the tracker did contain the usual warning that this superceded the offer letter.
We have asked the bank for our application form to see if it mentioned a tracker but the bank claim that it was "manually keyed" and that they have no record.
We would appreciate any of the members views on our case and in particular:
1. It it our own fault that we did not read in detail the second offer letter which removed the tracker (which the bank were happy to offer us just two days before) and the bank are entitled to rely on the contract?
2. Alternatively do we have a case that the bank should have drawn our attention to the removal of the tracker and that given our intention was to sign up to a tracker this should be reinstated. In short we think this was very sharp practice by the bank.
3. Should the contract be rectified to include the key tracker rate term as we entered into the contract on a fundamental mistake.
4. As the contract was made in November 2006 (though we did not discover till much later) are we within the time limit for applying to the FO?
5. If we go down the legal route are we within the statute of limitation periods.
Thanks in advance.
Jburn
1. We are two professionals that bought an apartment in 2006. We were offered tracker by BOI on 9 May but a 12 month reduced interest rate instead of a 24 month (as had been agreed to by the bank ) was included in this offer letter.
2. We promptly notified the branch of this.
3. The bank issued a new offer letter on 11 May (just two days later and apparently on foot of an oral direction from the branch given on 9 May) including the agreed reduced 24 month rate- but also unilaterally and without any notice (written or oral) to us removing the tracker rate included in the offer letter of 9 May.
4. At no point had it being represented or made in any way clear to us that the application of the agreed 24 month reduced rate was going to lead to the removal of the tracker rate. We would have been idiots to surrender the tracker offered to us for an additional reduced rate of 24 months over 12 and reiterated that this scenario had never been raised by the relevant representative of the Bank with either of us.
The bank orally responded that
1. The rate with the 24 month discount was a different rate from the tracker and you could not be offered both.
2. The Bank accepted that they offered us the tracker but that a named individual from the branch rang them on 9 May asked them to apply the 24 month reduced rate. We asked if the named individual also asked them to disapply the tracker. It seems no such note was received from the named individual from the branch on this count.
3. We were then told " and sure you would have received a letter in November 2008 giving you the option of the different rates available to you including the tracker". No such letter being sent. The bank has since told us this is because trackers were removed in October 2008. The bank insisted that the tracker was open to us at anytime to take up. When put to the bank that they never communicated this to us (either in the letter of 11 May 2006, on the two year anniversary of the initial payment in November 2008 or any other time) the bank's reply was "well it was publically known at the time".
4. We subsequently received a final letter from the Bank essentially saying that we just victims of bad look that tracker mortgages were withdrawn October 2008 and our initial 24 month reduced rate ran out in early November 2008- they invited us to submit our case to the Financial Ombudsman.
We cannot recall the exact date that we discovered that we were not on a tracker but was probably in late 2010. We subsequently fixed our mortage in March 2011 for 3 years. We are now on SVR.
The banks second letter issued 2 days after offering the tracker did contain the usual warning that this superceded the offer letter.
We have asked the bank for our application form to see if it mentioned a tracker but the bank claim that it was "manually keyed" and that they have no record.
We would appreciate any of the members views on our case and in particular:
1. It it our own fault that we did not read in detail the second offer letter which removed the tracker (which the bank were happy to offer us just two days before) and the bank are entitled to rely on the contract?
2. Alternatively do we have a case that the bank should have drawn our attention to the removal of the tracker and that given our intention was to sign up to a tracker this should be reinstated. In short we think this was very sharp practice by the bank.
3. Should the contract be rectified to include the key tracker rate term as we entered into the contract on a fundamental mistake.
4. As the contract was made in November 2006 (though we did not discover till much later) are we within the time limit for applying to the FO?
5. If we go down the legal route are we within the statute of limitation periods.
Thanks in advance.
Jburn
