There was victory for a group of mortgage borrowers last week when Court of Appeal judges ruled West Bromwich Building Society had wrongly upped interest rates for about 6,000 customers.
However, despite the legal wrangle being described as a ‘David and Goliath’ type duel, not everyone was pleased for the little people winners.
That’s because the borrowers concerned were landlords, a group which is fast becoming one of the most vilified sectors of society.
But if the buy-to-let critics could put their prejudices aside for a moment they’d see that a victory for landlords this time is a win for consumers everywhere.
The court case came about after a controversial decision by West Brom back in 2013. It had flogged ‘tracker’ mortgages to the landlords. These are home loans which, as the name suggests, track a particular rate – in this case the Bank of England base rate. If the base rate goes up so does the mortgage rate, if it goes down, so does the mortgage rate.
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