Their ts and cs always used to allow 10% of the balance to be paid off each year as additional capital repayments - however, what they agreed with you as part of the shortfall settlement when you sold the property I do not know. Without confusing issues and bringing other contractual elements into this, just be clear about what we are saying and what we feel you should be approaching them to do. 1 the court ruling in the case in question, deemed the clause that controls the ability to "vary" the APR to be widely read and unfair. 2 in such a case, the reality is to disallow the clause from the contract thus removing any ability for the lender to vary the APR 3 as the rate at inception was deemed to be acceptable, as you contracted to it, then that has been promoted as the rate the contract revert to 4 we would be encouraging people to look at whether this position benefits them - if you are paying a higher APR than inception then it likely would as I cannot see anything happening going forward for APRs to reduce as we are at the bottom of the interest rate cycle, they are only going one way..... 5 ask them to remove the clause as per the court ruling, revert your loan to its initial APR and calculate the overpayments you have made since then and refund those monies to you. YOU CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR ACTUAL APR, YOU CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE INTEREST RATE. YOUR COMPLAINT IS ABOUT THE CLAUSE THAT ALLOWS THEM TO VARY THE INTEREST RATE / APR ON YOUR CONTRACT. DONT GET THE 2 MIXED UP.

Had to create a new profile but anyhow back on CAG - yep Halifax is right. We have gone through 5 years of torture to get to where we are today. We have been on the Politics Show, Money Box, done written media and EVERY compliance expert says "you have a valid case" - however, funding that case has been the issue, they all advice that it could run into 10s of £000s. That said, there does appear to be a sea change - overdraft charges, LIBOR rigging, interest hedging products, PPI to name but 4 have shown the lengths banks have gone to in order to maximise their earning potential at the expense of the consumer and by doing so, breach regulation and law. The irony we have with this recent judgement is that this is exactly the point we presented to BFP in the first place as being unfair re UTCCR 5 (1). "We have done nothing wrong", "your house price has fallen we cannot move your rate", " we dont just use BBR, we use other rates like LIBOR (yes they said that)", "our funding costs have actually increased since 2009 you are lucky your APR has not gone up", "we have to run our business prudently, efficiently and competitively" - oh really - you missold PPI massively, your loans were a means to an end to sell a worthless PPI product that was 40% of your income, your own funding with Barclays is linked to BBR so since 2008, you have had the benefit of a £500m fall in interest cost a nd NOT PASSED ONE PENNY ONTO CUSTOMERS. We really are at the point now where, thankfully, a judge has seen through it all and said the clause is unfair. The resolution meant that the removal of the variation clause from the contract would revert the loan back to its incepted APR - common sense makes me think it is a logical resolution - it could have been far far worse for Barclays and maybe a skilled lawyer would have been able to influence that but that is not what this is about really. It was about, for our own sakes, knowing and believing we were right and being proven so in court. Personally, they now have a letter and a bill for £15k from me, requesting my loan be reverted to its incepted APR (started 9.4% now 12.1%, over £100 per month in payment change). Whilst BBR remains low, this is not the disaster it could have been for BFP and they could save a lot of face by applying it across the board - yeah it will lose them some more money but the risk of a £2bn loan book being declared unenforceable would be far worse. The removal of the variation clause would make ALL loans fixed rate, so consumers would be protected for the future and as their loan book is diminishing, there will be a fair chance of many remortgaging or moving away (as they sell their houses) prior to serious increases in BBR. Their commercial situation is one for them and their shareholders to deal with as it is their mess not ours and they have already had US pay £500m to their bailout and now that they could squeeze no more out of us Barcalys put £342m in last year - something they should have done in the first place. Anyone with a First Plus loan wanting any level of background or assistance just needs to shout.