SAFE - Struggle Against Financial Exploitation Ltd. - Barclays, HBOS face GBP 850m law suit

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Barclays, HBOS face GBP 850m law suit

Ben Mohinsky - "THE LAWYER" 3rd October 2008

Barclays, HBOS face £850m law suit Ben Moshinsky 3-Oct-2008 Barclays and HBOS are about to be hit by mortgage litigation costing a possible £850m, following changes to the rules on consumer loans.

Hilary Messer, a partner at South East firm RWP Solicitors, is drawing up plans to sue the two major banks on behalf of the 8,500 people who took out zero interest housing loans in the 1990s.

HBOS and Barclays launched mortgage products called shared appreciation mortgages, which saw the banks take up to 75 per cent of the appreciation in value of a property in return for providing a zero or fixed-interest loan.

Some homes have appreciated £300,000 in the 10 years since the loans were made, meaning the homeowners have had to pay more than £200,000 on loans as low as £25,000.

Messer says that the terms were too harsh and changes to the law could mean that the homeowners are in a position to renegotiate the terms in court.

She said: "We've taken advice from eminent leading counsel that homeowners should take action and take action quickly. We want to take on the banks and we have 100 people committed to going forward already."

Messer added that if all 8,500 homeowners came forward, cutting an average of £100,000 off each of their repayments, the banks could lose hundreds of millions of pounds in expected revenue. Some properties have seen more than £1m added to their value.

The firm has set up a website, www.samgroupaction, to encourage people to sign up to the litigation. Messer is waiting for more homeowners to come forward and has not yet instructed counsel or informed the banks.

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Barclays, HBOS face £850m law suit

Date: 7-Oct-2008 @ 12:48PM
From: Robert Owen Director SAFE

Confusion regarding the Shared Appreciation Mortgages (SAMs), and the relationship between SAFE and Hillary Messer of RWP Solicitors.

SAFE, (Struggle Against Financial Exploitation Ltd), has worked closely with Hillary Messer/RWP Solicitors for several years on a number of matters. Hilary Messer attended and advised at the SAMs meeting SAFE arranged in Westminster, (SAFE is the Secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Financial Exploitation, and also negotiated the SAMs Hardship Scheme with Barclays Bank Plc).

More recently in harmony with SAMAG a legal opinion was commissioned, by SAFE, via RWP, to investigate the opportunity of potential legal redress for the invidious situation the SAM holders find themselves in.

Many of you will know from our news letter and website www.safe-online.org the Opinion was very positive and is the catalyst for the potential ‘CLASS ACTION’ against HBOS & Barclays using a leading QC with Hilary Messer/RWP as the instructing Solicitors.

In order to give as many SAM holders as possible an opportunity to be represented in the Action all avenues are being promoted to inform the several thousand SAM holders who may want to be represented.

SAFE is arranging regional meetings around the country and another in the Palace of Westminster shortly, where we will be happy to meet with interested parties.

Robert Owen ~ Director SAFE

Barclays, HBOS face £850m law suit

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Date: 6-Oct-2008 @ 17:56PM
From: Jan Cooper

I understood SAFE, (Struggle Against Financial Exploitation), the All Party Pariamentary Group Secretariat is, and has been for some years representing holder of SAMs, indeed I some time ago I attended a meeting in Westminster which they set up. SAFE web site shows a link/connection to this Class Action but there is not one related to the story. Before I subscribe to the Class action can somebody clear what the situation is ?

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