# AIB tracker approved in 2008 and when we went to draw down it was rejected



## Emlyn C (19 Feb 2020)

Hi Brendan,

So I am part of the 6000 and I mentioned to you that I had received the unsuccessful letter from BDO the day the AIB announcement happened.
I have sent a letter back rejecting the decision and when the dust settles will go to the ombudsman with it.
During the appeals, there was no consideration given to the other issue which I outlined and was when I wanted to actually draw down my mortgage in March 2008, the bank advised my broker over the phone that the Tracker was no longer being offered and that I had to fax them a letter stating that I wanted a different rate. I took this in good faith and did it, even though I had the tracker offer. AIB didn't officially discontinue until November 2008.
The response from the bank was that I had faxed what I wanted and the offer was no longer valid based on my fax, but this fax was sent on the incorrect advise of the bank themselves.
I can get a written statement from my broker if needed but do you think there is a case?


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## tnegun (19 Feb 2020)

I had similar a tracker offer withdrawn in the summer of 2008 and had to reapply for our mortgage but can't find a paper trail for it now. What are you hoping for from it to go back to the tracker rate on offer in March 2008 plus additional redress if the ombudsman finds in our favour?


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## Emlyn C (19 Feb 2020)

tnegun said:


> I had similar a tracker offer withdrawn in the summer of 2008 and had to reapply for our mortgage but can't find a paper trail for it now. What are you hoping for from it to go back to the tracker rate on offer in March 2008 plus additional redress if the ombudsman finds in our favour?


The first thing I would like to find out is if this is acceptable practice. If not, and I looks like I should have been on the Tracker from 2008 I’ll want questions answered and further redress. I, like many was in serious difficulty with my mortgage and had I been on the Tracker like I requested and was offered, it would have never happened.


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## Brendan Burgess (19 Feb 2020)

AIB was never under any obligation to offer any new customer a tracker. 

I don't know if they were entitled to withdraw the offer.   Did you seek to draw down the mortgage within the period for which the offer was valid? 

If a bank refused anyone a tracker, the customer could take their business elsewhere. 

If you have a case, you should take it to the Ombudsman as it would be a separate issue from the Prevailing Rate issue. 

And Emlyn, you had a broker who was working for you. What do they say now? 

Brendan


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## Emlyn C (19 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> AIB was never under any obligation to offer any new customer a tracker.
> 
> I don't know if they were entitled to withdraw the offer.   Did you seek to draw down the mortgage within the period for which the offer was valid?
> 
> ...


i wasn’t a new customer, I was upsizing and waiting on the sale of my previous house. Got mortgage approval in March with offer of Tracker as requested. Sale of old house completed end April and that’s when AIB were contacted to finalise. At that point my broker contacted the bank who told him the Tracker Mortgages were being reviewed internally and it was no longer available to me and I needed to fax them with the rate I wanted instead. 
I have all my docs, requested through SAR with all the proof but AIB have no phone records.
My broker agrees and is willing to stand by us in any case


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## Brendan Burgess (21 Feb 2020)

Hi Emlyn

Sorry, I shouldn't have said "new". That is irrelevant. 

You paid off one mortgage. 

You took out another. You were not tied to AIB.  As AIB refused you a tracker, your broker should have switched you to a different lender. 

If you got an offer of a tracker in March it should have been open for 6 months.  Even when they officially withdrew trackers in October 2008, they honoured existing offers as long as they were withdrawn within the period of the offer. 

I haven't heard your scenario before.  You have nothing in writing from AIB withdrawing the offer?  All you have is that the broker told you that they had withdrawn your tracker.   I have to say that it sounds a bit odd. 

Brendan


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## TrackerThieves (21 Feb 2020)

Emlyn C said:


> I have all my docs, requested through SAR with all the proof but AIB have no phone records.
> My broker agrees and is willing to stand by us in any case


Did you receive a log of correspondence as part of your data request?
If not make a request for this with the sars team.
I have a tracker case where I was offered a tracker mortgage on the very day they stopped offering trackers. I was then told a few days later over the phone by the branch manager it was no longer valid as trackers had been pulled from the market(we now this this was not true and the offer should have stood for 14 days). They claim this call never took place as they have no record of this call. 

Having taken a separate ombudsmans case against both AIB and EBS where I have experienced huge issues over missing recordings and records and been through numerous internal complaints with the bank and a separate data protection case to get hold of missing data. I firmly believe they will hold back information when it suits them in situations like this


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## TrackerThieves (21 Feb 2020)

tnegun said:


> I had similar a tracker offer withdrawn in the summer of 2008 and had to reapply for our mortgage but can't find a paper trail for it now


When you say you can't find a paper trail for it now, do you mean you have made data requests and data relating to the tracker offer is now unavailable?


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## RedOnion (21 Feb 2020)

Emlyn C said:


> Got mortgage *approval* in March





Brendan Burgess said:


> If you got an offer of a tracker in March it should have been open for 6 months. Even when they officially withdrew trackers in October 2008, they honoured *existing offers as long as they were withdrawn within the period of the offer.*


This is where the exact document that a borrower had becomes important. There's a difference between a loan approval and a loan offer, so people need to be clear on what exactly they had and when.

Although AIB didn't fully withdraw trackers for new business until Oct 2008, they made some changes during the year. The only one I'm aware if around the timeline in this case was they withdrew discounted tracker rates on 21 April. 

I'm not sure if they made any changes to qualification criteria along the way as well that might have affected eligibility to a tracker (other banks were withdrawing 100% mortgages at the time).

You need to gather as much information as you can, be clear on exactly what documents you had and the small print in then, and then go to your local library and hi through the Irish Times archives for March / April and see all the criteria around the product you had approval for.


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## Brendan Burgess (21 Feb 2020)

Very good point from Red. 

Did you have an actual offer in writing of a tracker mortgage at a specific rate? 

Brendan


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## Emlyn C (21 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Emlyn
> 
> Sorry, I shouldn't have said "new". That is irrelevant.
> 
> ...



To summarize my last post

Technically we could have switched but we were too far gone on the sale of the old house and had to be out quickly with nowhere to go
My broker was my father in law who worked for a company that have left Ireland and was ex AIB and like us, took AIB at their word
We decided to continue out of loyalty to AIB who had as we thought been good to us in the past


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## KarenFitz (24 Feb 2020)

Emlyn C said:


> Hi Brendan,
> 
> So I am part of the 6000 and I mentioned to you that I had received the unsuccessful letter from BDO the day the AIB announcement happened.
> I have sent a letter back rejecting the decision and when the dust settles will go to the ombudsman with it.
> ...


Hi, the same thing happened to my husband & I, when the banker turned up at our home to sign the mortgage he had no option for a tracker for us. We had been pursed by AIB to change our business & personal loans to them. We had started retrofitting our home & agreed refinancing with AIB so we’re paying builders from our credit cards & savings that month. We were told that if we didn’t take the revised non tracker offer & wanted to go back to Bank with Ulster we would incur legal costs for a new mortgage we were stuck with 5 kids, so after arguing for a few weeks with AIB they said they’d organize a tracker for us after a year, when things “calmed down” & that we were after being offered a good rate.. our banker has a flare for the theater. We got a compensation Cheque recently but AIB said we have not lost out by not being offered a tracker after our fixed rate of 3 years was up. 
We trusted AIB but they were dishonest


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## Brianios (25 Feb 2020)

Hi there,
My wife worked in AIB for 17years or so. We drew down our mortgage in September 2008. We were never offered a tracker. Should we have been? Is this what the €1600 is in relation to here? To pursue this with the ombaudsman? If we had have been offered a tracker we would have saved thousands over the past 11.5 years  

Or am I way off the mark? Apologies.

Brian


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Feb 2020)

Hi Bianios

You had no right to be offered a tracker when you took out your mortgage. You could have turned down the offer and sought a better offer from another lender.

The fixed rate contract you did have said that at the end of the fixed rate, you would be offered a tracker. You were not, which is why you got the €1,615.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (26 Feb 2020)

KarenFitz said:


> after arguing for a few weeks with AIB they said they’d organize a tracker for us after a year, when things “calmed down”



Have you any proof of that?  For example, an email saying that you would be offered a tracker after a year?  

Without some written evidence, you would not be able to convince the Ombudsman that this happened. 



KarenFitz said:


> AIB said we have not lost out by not being offered a tracker after our fixed rate of 3 years was up.



Why did you fix for three years when you were to be put on a tracker after a year?  



Brendan


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