Lender Woes-Big Bank Via Broker

Saphphire101 maybe we should wear a special badge of honour for having survived the ordeal without bursting a blood vessel or screaming out loud.  LOL.    Real life education…

After many fruitless calls … I did find out how things worked, where our money is, what has to happen and what is happening next from a lovely lady who went the extra mile late in the afternoon.  (An absolute angel.)

At least now, we can relax a bit and enjoy the Australia Day long weekend!!!

It all started when we went to the bank and asked what the penalty fee would be if we got out or our fixed loan.  At that time, it was no penalty.  Checked a month later and was told it was still nothing.  We asked what it would be if the rates went below the current fixed rate – we actually laboured over this point to ensure they understood what we were asking.  They emphatically insisted $0.  We couldn't figure it out – how could that be?  Were the banks that desperate for cash???  Checked again and still same answer.  Put house up for sale and after a week checked again and was told nasty news of tens of thousands of dollars penalty fees.  We were really angry because we were either lied to, or the two people who gave us the information previously were mind blowingly incompetent.  Ok.  So…. we keep loans but thankfully they are portable (small grace).  Penalty fees we understand but not the misinformation.

Find buyers to buy house and their lender (same as ours) takes ages and was also a frustrating experience for buyers.

We settled on Monday with part of the proceeds (security amount) being paid into the bank, part by cheque (as requested)  to us.  We banked the cheque the following day and fully expected to see the funds for the security deposit somewhere in our account as well. Nope.  Bank branch had no idea where it was. Broker didn't know either. Phoned loan hotline – they didn't know either and acted worried.  Nothing on our account file to indicate it was in the works anywhere.  Broker assured us it would turn up even though they didn't know where it was exactly.

Two working days later, lender hotline personnel still didn't know where it was. Still not showing in bank.  Checked with conveyancer who the cheque was made out to, who it given to and when it was banked. Bank phoned us and they wanted to put OUR surplus $ into fixed term which I refused to do and they got confused.

Turns out that $ had been banked into a pool or 'holding' account of the banks. They said it only settled yesterday despite the real estate being settled 5 working days prior.  (The bank cheque they were given was drawn and cashed by the same bank – not sure about branch – from my understanding.) 

There were also other snarly details that cause anxiety but I won't expand on those.  I complained about the interest we had lost over the week and now over the weekend since I found out the term deposit was scheduled to be set up Friday. 

Why the funds kicked around for so long and why the trail of where the process was up to, was not visible to personnel in the lending centre is still a mystery.  We had no idea that the bank was so compartmentalised that different sections could only 'bits' of information and even the branch staff didn't appear to know this.  Better communication and transparency of process would have prevented a lot of the angst.  In previously non-bank dealings money banked had simultaneously appeared in the account it was deposited to, even if it couldn't be accessed few a days till it was cleared.  Broker did not had sufficient knowledge of the process either.

Like I said before, maybe our reaction was too strong but selling, moving, buying etc is already stressful enough with having to wonder where the hell a very large chunk of your money is.