Commbank & Fees and Charges seem big

Which State are you referring to ?

Even though i would not use CBA even if they were the last lender in the world mainly because of x collateralise issues the fees seem about right.

Remember the majority (with a couple variations) of these are State Govt costs and not Bank fees.

Boshy, there really are cross securitisation issues with any lender that does such – often without asking you. Avoid it unless you have too. If you are plannign to never sell, or buy more than 2 properties, there is not really such an issue when it biols down to it, but otherwise………..

Hi Boshy

Maybe this helps…

We have moved through the CBA system over the years.  First we started with 5 loans at once via the regular "retail" route.  Well, I guess it wasn't quite "regular" in that  a friend who is a mortgage broker introduced us to the bank manager and suggested he write up the 5 loans for us… which he did.

We stayed with the man when he moved to a different branch.  Then when he took the Golden Handshake (and became a broker!) we stayed with CBA, but this time we were with a sort of "mobile 'ender" who was at several different branches.  Then he left, and we were back in the "standard retail" scenario.  The lady who was trying to cope with our loans (about ten by this time) suggested we move to "business banking"

This was a great step, because we got into an area where we didn't have to explain ourselves from the beginning every time.  (e.g. No more explaining what a "wrap" or a "Lease option" is and why they should give us money for it!)  We had one specific person who understood our situation thoroughly.  For a payment of $300/yr we also qualified for their "Wealth Pack" which has a lot of benefits including no account-keeping fees on any accounts.  As we had about 20 accounts including 17 loans at this time, this was a saving of over $200/month in itself. 

And this year we moved to a Portfolio Loan, which gives us great flexibility, easy to add and remove properties, and are generally happy with it.  It does not cross-collateralise if you stipulate that is how you want it.  Make sure your wishes are understood.

Now the point for you is, during all this time, we kept a careful eye on the charges. 

> "they won't actually charge me for all of them but if they aren't on the letter of offer they can't later charge them if they need to.  Doesn't sit well so let's hope they are trustworthy."

We also in the beginning were a bit concerned over the list of charges presented, and we got the same explanation as you did.  We have now had over 30 loans with CBA and in our experience that explanation has turned out to be true.

Sometimes there would be charges applied that were not really relevant.  It seemed to us that this was not deliberate, but a "feature" of banking's "tick the box" mentality.  Since we generally operate outside the box from the standpoint of a regular homebuyer or buy-and-hold investor, erroneous charges do creep in.  Especially, it seems, at the time you pay out a loan.   And often we were slapped with a $35 overdraw charge when funds were advanced from our cheque account.  However, this is a charge that is automatically applied by the computers controlling the accounting.  In EVERY case we were able to easily get the fees reversed by a phone call or email to our business banker. 

We have found that the further up the levels you go with CBA, the more flexibility the bank person you are dealing with has.  Even at branch level however, they can have a little discretion in the charges – especially if you are borrowing a substantial amount of money.  Ask, ask, ask.  Ask for explanations of the charges, ask for refunds of those you believe they levy in error. If you don't get joy, be polite with the person you are dealing with (to keep their job they must abide by the set of rules for their level) and go higher.  BTW we have never had to do this (go higher) with CBA although we have with other banks.

As I said above, we have found the CBA to readily refund any charge that is in error.  In fact, our business banker keeps an eye on it and does it for us automatically now, since she knows I will ask her to anyway.   

Hope this is of some assistance…