EBS What does an EBS "Variable Base Rate" mortgage mean?

EBS MORTGAGE MASTERS 2019 January - variable rates

so thanks to everyone writing on this EBS variable base rate issue - I am been following quietly for a longtime and didn't feel i had anything worthwhile to add as my situation was never really clear to me as everything never made sense and I never felt I grasped what was going on, however now i do so I would like to share as it maybe helpful and also shed some light on what was going on in EBS in relation to my experience in 2008 and what we experienced. Here goes ....

i went to an EBS branch just before the summer in 2008 and met with a member of staff who advised us that the best option for us was a tracker mortgage. He gave us a homeloan application ( note not the one that is posted up on this earlier thread ) it required all our details to be filled in and then you had to ticked what product you wanted and we ticked the tracker option, the form was long and required us to fill in a LOT of details.

We returned to EBS with our application completed very soon after our initial visit - and was told by the same person in ebs that Trackers were no longer available - he said the next best thing would be to go for a two year fixed.
He gave us a 2 page document to fill out - it required little else but our names to be added to this so i am assuming they used our already filled out homeloan application to process our loan offer - the one where we selected tracker?

Needless to say we went onto a SVR 2 years later.

Fast forward to 1.5 years ago - I requested all my documents as I then had become aware that tracker mortgages where actually still available until october 2008.

Heres what I discovered,

the two page fixed rate doument was actaully part of the large homeloan application that was posted on this website - with the tracker application as part of the document to be filled out if we wished to indicate reverting to the tracker once the fixed rate period had expired

it is a condition of our loan agreement that a tracker application be completed - we did complete a homeloan tracker application.

Despite this we are deemed non compliant ????????

they actually told us that the condition of our loan agreement being dependant upon a tracker application being completed was a 'mistake'

I have to say I am stunned.

EBS the mortgage masters of Ireland - ?
of course after the fixed period expired we were to move to the wonderful
EBS Variable rate / ebs variable base rate / variable rate - there was some conflicting defination of this in our documentation and we would have believed at that time that the EBS term for a tracker product was variable rate.
 
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Not surprised at all by your story. That application pack you mention outlines the interest rate options on offer at the time including tracker & fixed rate but there is no mention of a standard variable rate so I don’t know how the variable basis of the fixed rate loans could be SVR.

What were the conflicting variable base rate definitions that you saw?
 
- when we requested all our information there was a tracker loan offer included in the foi - in this document there was included the defination of what the tracker was and it refered to it as a variable rate.
In the fixed loan to variable base rate loan offer there was no product defination of what a variable base rate was?
 
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EBS THE MORTGAGE MASTERS

so last week i went back to the ebs branch to speak to the person(s) that organised my mortgage - to try to get some answers.
I met one of them - who is now the Branch Manager ( the other one is also a manager in another branch and noted online as a mortgage master by EBS? ) and asked why, they had only given me 2 pages out of the homeloan application - the two pages referring to the fixed rate and left out the rest of the document which included the tracker rate application part of the form - his answer was ...
'well thats all that was required'


Funny that ?


even better the other person ( now the manager in another EBS branch and noted online as a mortgage master by EBS) had told me and my husband back in 2008 that the tracker mortgage was simply the best option for us - and so we duly completed a homeloan ebs mortgage application form where we opted for a tracker...... only to be told when returing the form back to the branch ( this happened mid 2008 ) that the tracker was no longer available - (even though I subsequently found out in 2017 that they were actually available until october 2008) - and this all happened with an ebs mortgage master and now and EBS branch manager?

and then upon telling us that the tracker product was no longer available he then offered us a fixed rate form only 2 pages long - strangely missing the next 2 pages containing the form where we would fill in the ' tracker application form ' and also missing the second page which include the reference to the tracker. Weird indeed.

EBS THE MORTGAGE MASTERS.... really?
 
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We took out or mortgage in 2006 .. we were advised by the guy in the EBS to go on fixed .. so we fixed for 5 years and were then told we were going on the variable base rate (4.25 .. which at that time was 3% ecb and 1.25% ) .
It says this on our application..

We were put back onto the svr then ..
do I need to contact someone regarding this .

Thanks
 
Your the same as me. if you read back through some of threads you will see ebs are denying variable base rate was a tracker even though it was ecb + 1.25%
 
Exactly what i said in my initial contribution here, the only thing is my partners loan offer had it as a condition on her letter of offer that she had to go on a 3 year fixed rate and would then roll onto the famous VBR at a rate that directly co-incided with ECB +1.25%. I like you googled the ECB rate and my partner started her mortgage in 2007. When she got a letter telling her she wasnt affected from EBS they told her she didnt apply for a tracker initially and never filled out the tracker application form after telling her in her letter of offer she had to go on a 3 year fixed rate as a condition of getting the mortgage. They also told her trackers were widely advertised and available back then, maybe they were but she never heard of a tracker until i told her approx 2 years ago as i had been active in the Fair mortgage rates campaign, v ambiguous and strange to say the least.
 
Yep and I feel that a variable base offer at the time was referring to a tracker .. the standard variable at the time was a different rate altogether so we should be put on the tracker .
We’ve been on the wrong rate for years .
 
Magsodf you should put in a complaint immediately to EBS - so far the central bank of ireland seem to be letting this issue slide - take a look at your contract - most likely it does not even define what a variable base rate is - check other contracts at the time like AIB - they give full definations of the products you are signing up for - i.e. the ebs contract is joke

check your contract and the application you signed for
in the contract you will most likely find lots of questionable issues like references to terms and conditions that are not actually included in the contract.
on the application form I recently discovered I was only given 2 pages of what was an 8 page application form - the ebs person never even showed me the full document with the tracker application form?

I am meeting my local councillers and tds on my mortgage contract and the application process i went through, which is simply a mess - my situation is so bad that i recently had my solicitor checking that my house was actually in my name
-
At the end of the days I feel the CBI is not going to take this varaible rate issue on / unfit for purpose loan contracts and are not going to make EBS do the right thing - these are ambigous and misleading contracts to say the least and to get this sorted I think people need to start making noise
 
Agree with a lot of this. It has transpired that EBS are now admitting that they do not have my application form for my mortgage on file and are now blaming broker & saying he should have it. Seems to be a lot of documentation suddenly disappearing with the variable base group. Will be interested to see how the ombudsman sees cases like this where documentation cannot be found.
 
b26354 - I am keeping the pressure on EBS - also they can't blame the brokers thats pure nonesense - I have a freind in the bank she says it the banks job to keep the doumentation and the Regulator rules would also back this up, the broker does not have tokeep this doumentation after a certain number of years but the bank certainly does.
EBS have labelled me non impacted and said i must go to the ombudman- however i have gone back to them five times since thats - as i am educating my self more and more on this - I think I am almost an expert at this point - i can see how absolutely dreadful and unprofessional the behavour of ebs was at the time -

not to mention the people I dealt with have been seriously promoted within the ebs organisation since my dealings with them- so they were rewarded for their sloppy work while i suffered personally ( and I am being kind when I say sloppy - i have to hope it was not a planned, underhand harm done to me to make me suffer both financially and healthwise for 10years)
 
one more thing
this is obviously mis information i.e. that ebs now blaming broker & saying he should have it.
i think ebs are purposly mis-informaing people in the hope this will disuade them frm taking matters any further
An individual must have said that and maybe we should all start asking for a transcript of our phone calls

- my friend dealing with PTSB did that recently after talking to someone who pretty senior who was feeding him a load of rubbish - they guy from PTSB was surprie and told him he would need to 'call in' to get it

I think keeping individiual accountable in all this is more lilely to get results and stop being told fairy stories
 
How do you find out what the EBS svr was in 2006? We all know what the tracker rate was ?
 
Magsodf said:
How do you find out what the EBS svr was in 2006? We all know what the tracker rate was ?
Click to expand...
All of this info is on this thread.

The advertised EBS SVR was the same as the advertised tracker until mid 2008 when they started to differ. EBS subsidiary Haven advertised a SVR that was different to their advertised tracker rate. This is important as posters on here have “variable base” contracts where the rate is the same as advertised tracker rate and differs to the advertised SVR yet these customers were moved onto a SVR after their fixed period ended.

There is also evidence that EBS advertised a SVR but customers were not actually given the option of starting on an SVR and an SVR did not exist on their IT system. The EBS application forms at the time did not include a SVR rate. The only rates on the application form was fixed(to variable base) or tracker. So the argument goes that the variable basis for ALL EBS mortgages between 2004-2008 is tracker and is typically ECB +1.25%.
 
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Here’s advertised rates from 2006.
 

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Ok thanks a million ,I’m a fixed to variable base rate .. I contacted the EBS and they said the 4.25 was the standard variable..so I was just checking had I missed the standard variable rate . im gonna send the details to Padraig Kissane and see am I affected
 
Danske has identified 61 of the cases related to instances where borrowers were put on the wrong “margin” over the ECB rate as a result of “the bank’s error”, the spokeswoman said.

It has acknowledged that a further 54 customers “who may have had a reasonable expectation of a tracker rate on expiry of their fixed-rate mortgage, but where that option was not offered or made clear to the customer”, she said.

I see the above in all the recent coverage in papers re tracker scandal .Surely aib et all can't keep towing this lie and will have to give in eventually
 
To counter the variable base rate is ambiguous & the “reasonable expectation” argument you reference, I think EBS are now saying that customers with variable base loan offers must have completed a tracker application form to be deemed impacted. This is something of a change from their insistence that the variable base rate is a SVR.

Variable base customers who have evidence that they signed this seem to be getting redress (see Trackmans posts). EBS are telling me that I did not sign this form but they have no evidence that I signed any loan application form at all so can’t understand the logic behind their argument in my case.

Perhaps EBS are willing to take the hit on the small number of VBR customers who have the tracker application form completed even though all of the loan offers have the same rate wording i.e. the mortgage reverts to or starts on the variable base rate.

What’s gobsmacking is that there are now EBS customers with variable base rate contracts who have been deemed impacted & there are now others with the exact same contract wording who are still on a SVR & not deemed impacted. Must be a first in the sorry mess that is the tracker scandal!
 
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