In addition, any legal action would be fought on strict legal terms and therefore such case would be lost as speaking strictly from a legal perspective KBC did not do wrong.
This is a very valid point that people seem to constantly forget. No mortgage contract that has been redressed here ever said the mortgage holder would roll onto a tracker when the fixed period expired. If it did, the banks would have given the tracker back years ago.
At best some of the terms are grey - but in a lot of cases they clearly state the customer is going onto a variable mortgage. How the central bank managed to convince KBC to return all customer applied during the flyer window is a mystery to me. It would have impacted some customers yes, but I am guessing we are talking about a fraction at the time. If each of the 650 customer had a lie detector test put on and asked if they had seen or discussed the flyer with their broker and that was a major consideration in going for the mortgage, I genuinely do not know how many would pass?
Under strict legal interpretation of the terms of the mortgage agreement very very few customers would be back on the trackers at this point.
What needs to change is for the FSO to move away from taking a court approach and genuinely taking a fairness approach in their assessments. They need to look at how would 'Joe Bloggs' on the street understand what is being said/written down, not a senior council in the law court or the legal team at the financial institution. Only then will we see a material change
And I will say this again, Irish people need to be more financially aware and understand what they are signing and not blindly sign documents without reading and understanding them. In general, as a nation we are generally financially illiterate and very poor at things like budgeting, financial planning etc. If I hear another person tell me they spoke to the independent financial adviser at the bank, I will scream !!!
its simply down to two people - Padraic Kissane and Philip Lane who realised that whilst a very strict legal interpretation protected the banks, that simple fairness was not applied and that, in their opinion, was wrong and they set about correcting it
Absolutely 100% ...
And that's why the Central bank review is and was the only game in town
And this is why I have genuine empathy for those who have not got their trackers back at this point. I don't believe they will get them in a court case. If you look at the 'EBS variable base rate' thread, you will see people who genuinely believe they have a case - but I am genuinely fearful for the outcome of it. I feel there will be a lot of disappointed people left at the end of it !