Expenses

I was impressed by a local car service workshop I had been going to.  I had some trouble with an old car while driving on the highway. The car barely made it home.  I found a repairer and the problem was quickly fixed.  It struck me that the guy seeing the interstate number plates could have fleeced me, but he didn't.  So, I developed a favourable impression of the workshop and staff, and that lasted until recently.  It lasted until noises, clunks, and a vibration started coming from the back of the car each time the brakes were applied.

I had taken the car to this workshop based on my previous experience with them. I was genuinely impressed with the place; the guy who ran it seemed genuine too. Well that was until the brakes gave trouble. There were no horrible accidents caused by brake failure, just a horrible bill.

We’d come to Canberra from Melbourne and the car had to have a vehicle roadworthiness inspection prior to being registered in the ACT. It passed the roadworthy without incident, but there was a sound from the rear you could hear when the brakes were applied. My enquiry to the mechanic about the noise was that it was dust and nothing to worry about.

The noise did sound like dust in brake drums, because I know that sound. This car had disks all round. The months passed and the noise got worse. Before the car was taken to a brake specialist there were clunking noises and a noisy scraping sound that reverberated through the whole car. The brake pads had worn down to the extent that there was no pad left on one of the wheels. The noise was the sound of metal on metal, and the wear had been such that one of the callipers was damaged. If the brakes had been inspected property during the roadworthy check the $1000 expense of replacing disks and callipers may not have been required. During such checks, mechanics often check one side of the vehicle during their inspection and assume the other side to be the same. That may have been the problem, but I have to wonder if any brake check was done at all. The mechanic might take offence at that suggestion, but the bottom line is that the noise couldn’t have been dust and they missed picking up the brake problem.

Getting the finance for this property was a bit touch-and-go at one point. The last straw on camel’s back that nearly brought things to a halt was the solicitor’s fee. I was expecting them to bill me, oh, sometime later. No, they wanted their fee included in the settlement cheques. I didn’t really account for that and consequently had to use credit card money to help cover the cheques.

Banks have a killer interest rate on cash advances from credit cards. It’s not that borrowing on the card maxed out the card, but it came close. Then there were other expenses that did max out the card. As a consequence I’m having trouble getting the card’s debt cleared. I’ve had the property for about a year and I still have the credit card debt, and the way banks operate the cash advance interest will remain until all debt on the card has gone.  A banking policy of kicking you when you're down; making things hard for you when you can least afford it.

So just when I wanted a steady uninterrupted flow of money to help pay off these debts we were asked by our tenant if we could fit new screen doors to the property.  I don't know why we were so soft.

A bizarre conversation with my solicitor

Things begin to fall into place. Finance was approved. The real estate agent had the deposit and contracts were exchanged. A settlement date was set. I’ve always been so curious about the process involved in settlement, and at some stage would like to be present when it takes place.

I imagine a darkish, sombre room. The room might be wall-panelled, perhaps a glassed book case stands against a wall, a mahogany table dominates the room, everything reeking of conservatism and money; perhaps it would be the office of a bank. On opposite sides of the table the solicitors or conveyancers are seated, representing me and the vendor. The real estate agent might be present, and perhaps a couple of bankers representing the financial organisations. The very stern solicitors would study the contract of sale, check the sale price, ensure the cheques were just so, and then various documents would be slid across the table.

Though, probably a brightly lit office tended by clerks and junior legal staff manage one settlement after the other, and the coffee stained table is strewn with snack wrappers. It would have to be this way given the lack of care some conveyancers and solicitors demonstrate.

I was curious about this particular settlement, given that it was almost 200km distant from Canberra. I wondered that one or other of the legal teams would travel to the other city, or meet somewhere between the two locations. Neither of these options were considered, when I enquired. My solicitor would contract someone to act on his behalf, or if no one could be found, the vendor’s solicitor would be asked to handle everything. Did I mishear something: the vendor’s solicitor would do everything. Sounds like a potential conflict of interests. It’s done all the time, he said.

My job

The one thing I didn’t mention to my lender was my employment situation. Well, not in as much detail as I could have done. I answered all the questions that were put to me in the application form. I answered completely and truthfully. However, there were certain things happening in my life that the form didn’t ask. So I didn’t tell them.

I had been in the same job for about 4 years. I expect lending institutions like to know that you are in a steady job. It helps keep the repayments coming. The application form asked questions about my employment history and I responded with exact dates and salary. They asked about my personal finances and I responded accurately and completely.

What they didn’t know was that the company I worked for was in the middle of a restructure. This restructure had been on the go for some time, and my job had been targeted as one that had to go. I had managed to procure an alternative job; I then sought permission to quit my current job early, and start the new job the day after the old one finished; which was nice. My separation package made up a substantial proportion of the deposit for the property I wanted to buy. So, redundancy was a good thing for me. Though I have to say, I did enjoy the job very much, I knew it well and did it well, and I knew I was going to miss it. That’s life I guess. Apart from my annoyance with my employer of what was going on, because I thought management were making some bad decisions, the payout was going to help buy me a property. So, to some extent, I have to thank them for providing the means of purchasing my second property. It wouldn’t have been possible without the separation package.

Restructure: that’s a term more and more people are becoming familiar with. I’ve met with restructure experiences more times than I would have preferred. This restructure was an on- and off- and on-again experience that was really pissing me off. More than a year previously there had been a staff announcement about an intended restructure. Jobs were to go. Then notice came that my job was safe; it wasn’t going to be targeted. The restructure wouldn’t affect me. Then about six months or so later it was on again and my job was to go. Then once again they changed their mind; my job was safe. Then there was a new development and my job was to go, and it was definite this time.

It makes it difficult to plan your life when the crowd you work for can’t make a decision and stick to it. It makes you wonder about the calibre of the management. I was determined not to let their sloppiness upset my life. Though, their decision had upset my life. There is no getting away from that.

I used to live in Melbourne. I left Victoria, selling my house to move to the ACT and a new job. This job. And here I was being retrenched from it. Yes, I felt put out. My house in Melbourne didn’t sell for as much as I would have liked, the new house was purchased in Canberra for more money than I would cared to have parted with, and it was a smaller house than my Melbourne place.

Anyway, the new job had a better salary, which always helps, but the job was only a six months contract, with the possibility that it would be made ongoing. My intended lender didn’t ask me if I had plans of quitting my current job, or if I was considering changing jobs, or whether the new job was in a more or less stable environment. They didn’t ask. So, I didn’t tell them. Well, why would they? They would have had no idea. They probably assume people wouldn’t be asking for a loan unless you have a job that enables you to make the repayments.

I felt relatively sure I would keep the new job. I didn’t want to jeopardise my chances of not being approved for the loan. So, I didn’t say a word.

I suppose at some point the lender could have contacted my employer to check me out. Perhaps they did. Wary of not being approved for the loan, I kept quiet about it. Each time I received an email or phone call from the lender I felt on edge. I was always expecting a question on my employment situation that would have given the game away. Fortunately, it never happened.

Westpac stuffs up

My funds to cover the deposit were held in two accounts. A Westpac savings account had the payout from my previous employer. I had just changed jobs while in the middle of a real estate deal. The money was from the termination payout. The remainder of the deposit was held in an offset account linked to my existing home loan, which had a cheque account facility. I wanted to write a cheque, but there were insufficient funds in the cheque account to cover the deposit. It was about $10,000 short. So, I needed to transfer some money to make up the difference.  That shouldn't be too difficult.  Surely.

That evening after work I rang Westpac telephone banking. I explained that I wanted to transfer some funds, mentioning that I wanted the funds transferred quickly. The person on the phone said there would be no trouble in transferring the funds, but advised that it might take a few days, and added that if I wanted to transfer the money quickly it would be best to visit a branch and speak to a teller. This person emphasized that the process would be much quicker through a teller at a branch of the bank. So, a visit to the bank was required. I thanked him, and made that my first priority in the morning. I was up early and waiting at the front door of my local bank branch at opening time.

There was plenty of money in the Westpac account. I asked for $10,000 to be transferred, and I provided the account details. How long would it take, I asked. Usually overnight, the teller said, but she explained that as the funds were to be transferred to another bank, they couldn’t tell me exactly how long it might take, but probably the day after next. This was remarkably similar to what I had been told by the online banking person on the previous evening. And I mentioned my recent experience of the evening before. The young teller I was speaking to admitted to being inexperienced and sought advice from her supervisor, who turned out to be a nasty piece of work.

I explained my request and passed on the advice I received from Westpac telephone banking. That’s wrong, the supervisor said, it is much faster for telephone banking to have done it for you. She added that telephone banking is always saying that. And they’re wrong, she snapped at me. She then directed me to a telephone in the corner of the bank that I could use to contact their telephone banking service if I wished.

I wonder if there was no phone in the corner of the bank and had the closest public telephone been down the street somewhere whether she would have directed me to the pubic telephone box.

I was in a bank and a supposedly experienced banking officer was offering the use of telephone banking services when there was a teller sitting across the counter from me. I found this experience bizarre. I didn’t know what to say. The stupidity was bewildering, but what really offended me was the aggressive and offhand manner of this person. This was a Westpac experience; I’d like people to know that. I suspect the funds would be transferred equally fast or slowly by either method. I declined the use of their telephone and asked the teller to continue with the transfer. I was getting fed up.

With the funds now on their way to my cheque account I wrote the cheque for the property deposit and took it to my solicitor explaining what I had done, and asked him to hold it for a while. This was on a Tuesday. The solicitor agreed not to post the cheque and contract until Friday, which would be more than ample time for my funds to be transferred and cover the cheque.

On the weekend I saw the $10,000 appear in my account. The cogs in the financial machinery were turning. The funds took longer than expected to be transferred but the money was in my account. The cheque was covered. The transfer took about four days rather than the estimated two that Westpac advised. I doubted the mail service would be very fast in getting mail to a regional area meaning the cheque wouldn’t have reached the real estate office before Tuesday. Everything was working out. Wrong!

I got a call from the real estate agent early in the week to say the cheque had been dishonoured. I apologised and said I couldn’t understand why that would have occurred saying I would look into it. I was panicked.

How could this be? Had I made a mistake? Had I misread my account statement? I was beginning to doubt myself. I felt a sinking feeling as various possibilities for what went wrong began circling my mind. I skipped work and went home where I could try and come to grips with this.

At home I checked my account again. The $10,000 was definitely there. The account total balance had gone up. The total balance was greater than the cheque I had written. No home loan payments had taken place. But a new entry had appeared: a $40 dishonour fee. How could this be?

I rang both financial institutions. Neither of them helped. Though, in speaking to some informed staff from both I got to the bottom of it. The cheque had been dishonoured because the $10,000 was forwarded with a note from Westpac instructing that a 7 day hold be placed on the release of the funds, which caused my cheque to bounce. The $10,000 had been transferred as though it had been a cheque, in which a certain time has to pass before access to the funds was allowed. The staff where my cheque account was held, very reasonably asked if the $10,000 was a cheque deposit. I said no, and they couldn’t understand why this request was made.

The staff at the Westpac telephone banking were helpful and courteous, and in particular a woman I spoke to. She was a supervisor at telephone banking. She confirmed that the funds had been transferred as though it had been a cheque. She could see from my account that the money was available and should have been transferred without a hold. She could not explain what had happened. To her credit, she deposited into my account $40 in lieu of the dishonour fee that I was penalised by the other financial institution. This was nice, but it didn’t help me pay the deposit.

The real estate agent needed the deposit without delay. Ironically, I was advised that if the cheque were to be presented again on the next business day it would have been okay. Had the real estate agent not have been so quick off the mark to bank the cheque the funds would have been available. But the agent couldn’t present the cheque again as it was still in the hands of the bank and wouldn’t be returned for a week or so. Another urgent visit to the bank was required.

I rang the real estate agent and explained what had happened. Though I doubt they would have had much interest, and may have been wondering if I were some sort of charlatan. I asked for my cheque to be returned when they got it, and requested their bank account details and made a cash deposit. It was a different bank but fortunately only a short walk from my own. My pockets were stuffed with two envelopes bulging with $100 notes to cover the $30,000 deposit. It’s surprising how much space money occupies. I was a target waiting to be robbed. Fortunately, within a short time the deposit was safely in the real estate agent’s trust account. Perhaps I should have done this first time around, but money transfers are supposed to make things easy, not difficult. I hate Westpac.

The Westpac stuff up had enraged me. On my visit to the Westpac branch I was itching to catch the eye of the supervisor who botched this. I wanted a word with her. I wanted to tell her what I thought of her and Westpac. She would have got an earful of abuse. She wasn’t on duty. And unfortunately the teller who dealt with me that morning had to wear my grumpiness. I had him count the money several times; when he finished weighing the notes on his machine (which I didn’t trust), I got him to do it again manually in a private bank office. He was irritated by my request. I didn’t care. Stuff them.

Request from the lender

The lender eventually requested identification documents to be forwarded, or rather, demanded documentation. Some grumpy person rang me. Rather than a pleasant greeting the caller snapped at me. Where is my identification material, he demanded. I explained that no one had asked for anything.

Had I not doubted my chances of being approved I would have grumped right back. Despite the grumpiness, this was a positive step. When I enquired about doing this at an earlier stage I was advised not to trouble myself. Then I got this demand as to where the material was, as though they were waiting for me and I was dragging my feet. The documents had to be copies endorsed by a JP and posted to them.

I guess that’s the trouble when the lender doesn’t have an office and everything is done by phone or by email, and with different people dealing with you. In fact the original person I was working with took some recreation leave and I had to work with someone else, then the original bloke came back for a time and then he got sick and was off work again. I don’t know if these breaks and different people were to my disadvantage, but it would have slowed things.

You could put a case that this is where these institutions fall down. Banks fall over themselves trying to demonstrate that online banks can’t provide a good service. They say they disadvantage themselves by not having a shop front. To some extent that’s true, but I’d rather have the lower interest rates than the good service. In my experience that good service is sometimes difficult to find amongst the shop front banks even when you look for it, despite what they say. My experience of the average financial institution with a shop front leaves a lot to be desired. The only thing I dislike about the online services is the risk of fraud associated with financial dealings when using your home computer with the various viruses, worms, Trojans and the like.

The last thing they requested of me was proof of my ability to pay the deposit. They wanted bank statements. I immediately obliged and took a lunch time trip to my bank (yes, a Westpac shop front) to get the documentation they requested. I couldn’t give them a statement, as I didn’t have one yet. My payout money had only been in the bank a few weeks. I doubt they’d be interested in the slip of paper teller machines print out.

I wondered if this was where things were going to get difficult. I had just changed jobs, and I wondered whether I might be questioned on this subject at some point. It was something I thought might cause everything to come crashing to halt. At that precise point in time I was working for a different company than I had been when I applied for finance only a few weeks before. I provided all sorts of information when I applied, everything related to the old employer: payslips, group certificates, but nothing for my current employer. Well, when I completed the application form I didn’t have the new job. What else was I to do? I had only just started the new job and it was too early to even have my first payslip.

Anyway I was at the bank. I told the teller what I wanted: a statement showing my balance. I explained that it was a request from a financial institution where I was applying for a home loan. I expected the bank would print it on some sort of official looking lettered headed paper. But no, it was a printout on a plain sheet of paper that was stamped using an inked rubber stamp with the bank’s name, and dated. It looked pretty ordinary. I was unimpressed, and I said so. The teller said she knew what was required and it would be acceptable.

The teller reminded me that they have a loans officer who could discuss the bank’s home loan options. This was a Westpac bank, and I have black-listed them. Westpac’s staff had given me some really poor treatment in the past so I have decided not to use Westpac other than a simple transaction account. I listened to the teller and politely declined. At that point in time I was quite happy to pursue my current application, if they’d have me.

I had just finished with the teller by a few seconds when my mobile rang. I was actually pushing my way through the door of the bank when it rang. The caller was a guy from the lender reminding me that a bank statement was required. An email and now a phone call. How much notice do they think I need. It was a different voice on the phone. Not the grump I had spoken with earlier. Anyway, I told him I was at the bank at that very moment doing exactly what was requested. He seemed pleased. I told him I had the statement in my hand, and that I’d send it to him today. Then a thought occurred to me.

I considered it would do no harm to give them some encouragement in processing my application. I dangled a carrot in front of them. I mentioned that while at the bank I was asked by the teller why I wanted the statement. I related how I mentioned I was looking for a home loan and the statement was required as part of my application. I then went on to say that the bank officer began to put a sales pitch to me and sell their home loan services and explain the benefits of getting a home loan through Westpac rather than the company I had my application with. This is a very reasonable scenario because it happens. You do get badgered. However, none of this took place, other than a short chat. A loans officer was there and could have spent time with me, but I declined. Instead, I embellished the experience. I wanted to give the impression to the guy I had on the phone at that moment that Westpac was seriously after my custom. It was all a bluff, but it may have helped, because a few days later my application was approved.

The next few days proved awkward because at the time I had no idea of how my loan application was progressing. I didn’t know how close the application was to being approved; they didn’t communicate anything of this nature.

They want the solicitor’s details

When the agent rang to say our offer had been accepted she also asked for my solicitor’s contact information. What solicitor?  Oops, was I supposed to have one already.  I agreed to forward the information, but until I had finance organised I quietly ignored this request.

Within a remarkably short time, the vendor’s agent rang again asking me to provide details of my solicitor, and in the days following (or was it weeks) I was continually asked for this information.

I was dragging my feet. I didn’t want to proceed until my finances had been worked out. It was getting embarrassing.  But there was no way anyone was going to find out my real situation.

Unhappy with the response from my current lender, I was now shopping for a home loan elsewhere. I should have done all of this a lot earlier. I was beginning to get a bit anxious.

As a first step in financing the new property I scanned the web for a suitable lender. There are so many banks and other financial institutions that the task of filtering them becomes overwhelming. There are even web sites that do the filtering for you.

If you search using the phrase “home loan comparison” you get almost two million results. The phrase “home loan guide” returns 26,000 results.  And the last thing I wanted was it to be presented with was tons of pictures of smiling people on web pages with them sipping wine or carrying meaningless symbols when you are feeling stressed.

It gets confusing. Information overload. In the end, I opted to ignore the pretty web sites with pictures of happy smiling faces in favour of talking to people I knew seeking their experiences. This doesn’t say much for my web based solution.  I had already checked out the organisation that was currently financing my home, and that had ended abruptly. The search continues.

The existing lender

As soon as I could, I contacted the lender that was financing my current home. From the information I provided on the phone, the rep said I would probably be approved, and he asked me to submit an application. This actually took a few days to prepare. It’s a painful process completing these multi-page application forms.

After considering our finances and commitments the deal seemed to be a no go. That was disappointing. They could help me, but only under certain conditions. Their assessment also took more time than expected. In fact, I had to get on the phone to them, rather than being contacted by the lender. Time was pressing.

They wanted me to jump through too many hoops. But I did have a very interesting conversation that had a favourable effect my interest rate. On my existing home loan, that is.

They took issue with my credit card limit. I couldn’t quite see the point of the credit card issue when it was raised, as I always cleared the debt before the due date each month. But I can see their point now. The point is that there might be debt, which might make it difficult to make the home loan repayments if the card debt builds up too high. They also wanted me to have a larger deposit for the property. This wasn’t going to happen. At the time of these conversations I had an offer on a property. I had no interest in saving for a larger deposit. I’d lose the property to someone else, and I wanted to avoid that.

The interesting thing that occurred during my enquiry to this lender was related to my current interest rate. Without my asking, the rep offered me a discount on my current rate. I’d never heard of a discount before. At least, not during a conversation such as this. I was almost dumbstruck, but not so dumb as to say that’d be very nice. So, the way this works is that whatever the going flexible rate is at any particular time that this company has set for people’s home loans, for the life of my home loan, the interest rate I will be charged will be 10% less than everyone else. I asked if he’d confirm that in writing, and sure enough an email came through to say just that. To say I was amazed is an understatement. There has to be a lesson here for everyone. Perhaps everyone should try for a discount. What have you got to lose? It’s possible they wanted to ensure they kept me as a customer. Perhaps they thought along the lines that here’s a client who’s shopping around, if I don’t get satisfaction with them they may have feared I’d walk off and refinance everything with some other company, and so lose my business. I don’t know. I never asked them.

These enquiries were at about the time the Australian Government had put out its offer of guaranteeing the big banks. My home loan wasn’t with one of the larger Australian banks. Perhaps they were losing customers and just wanted to hang on to me and this was the inducement. It worked.

I was speaking to a rep form another lending institution. Well, I was shopping around, after all. The rep asked who my home loan was currently financed with. I told him. His response surprised me. He said he didn’t know they were still in business. Comments like that do nothing for your confidence in your financial situation. Is it practice for these people to put fear into people’s minds?

The importance of tick boxes

I received a telephone call from the Macquarie bank. They said I was behind in my repayments. And we all know what that means. If you don’t keep up with the repayments for something it gets taken away from you.

It’s Macquarie Bank that funds my home loan for Virgin Money. I wonder why Virgin doesn’t fund its own loans. I would have thought Virgin was big enough. Anyway, the person from Macquarie rang to say that I was behind in my repayments by $1339.13. I recall that amount being flagged as my first repayment in an email that had been sent to me.

This was disappointing news, and disturbing. I had thought the repayments would have been the least of my worries. I had a job, I could afford the repayments, and salary deductions had been set up. So what was going on?

In my previous home loan I was aware of the importance of making as many early repayments as possible. A lesson from a few years previously sprang to mind. I’d taken out a small loan with a Tasmanian cooperative building society. The loan was only for a few thousand dollars. The person setting up the loan asked if I would like to delay the repayments by a few weeks, or was it months. I can’t remember. It sounded like a generous offer, and I never questioned it. I only thought how generous it seemed. That was my mistake. Financial organisations aren’t generous. I didn’t enquire further, and I was stung.

When the loans officer had made the offer, I had assumed she had meant:

• we can put a freeze on the repayments and interest charges,
• you can have this loan now,
• make no repayments for x amount of time, and
• you will be no worse off than had you started making your repayments straight away.
  

The loans offer should have said:

• we’ll allow you to skip the first few repayments for x amount of time, but
• interest will accrue and add to your principal based on our current charges.
  

The principal grew much higher than I thought reasonable, and it took me a long time to get it below the amount I’d borrowed in the first place. Had I known what was about to take place from the inception I would have declined the offer. The loans officer was did not fully explain the ‘offer’ and I didn’t pursue the details.

With that lesson in mind, when I went along to Westpac for a home loan I was adamant about when my first repayment would begin. I had things worked out in my mind such that when the loan took effect (settlement), I had my first repayment going into my account on the very next business day. There’s not a lot of interest that can accumulate in one day, but my first repayment dropped the principal more than would have happened had I waited for a fortnight or so before the first repayment was made.

So, when Macquarie rang to tell me that nothing was being paid off my home loan I was astonished. I explained to the disinterested person who rang that I had about $90,000 in an offset to the loan. I believe the way this works is that if I make repayments greater than the minimum my offset is increased by the difference. If I make repayments that are less than I should, or presumably if I don’t make any repayments the offset amount is reduced, but the loan keeps getting repaid. Actually, I don’t make repayments to the home loan account, but make deposits into the offset account. Presumably, funds flow on a periodic basis from my offset account to the home loan account. So, what was going on?

After some telephone calls, lots of people checking on things, it got fixed. It turned out that when the loan was being set up (was that by Virgin or Macquarie; who knows) someone forgot to start the automatic transfer of funds system. Some tick box on some computer screen somewhere had been left un-ticked. Was that some form I had forgotten to complete and send away, I enquired? No, it was something that gets done their end, and someone just forgot to do it.

I was reassured that everything would be okay in the future. But I wondered how much my principal had increased because no repayments have been made. They say they will look into that aspect. And I thought the problems were over. Thankfully, I had deposited my tax return into the account not so long ago, which would have helped. Though, it makes you wonder about the people who run the financial world.

Stupidity, incompetence, and lies

At settlement I had a couple of cheques issued in my name, the larger of which was in the region of $90,000. The cheque was not drawn at my request and was done due to absent mindedness, error in judgment, or incompetence by the people undertaking settlement on my behalf.

I had rang David, from Virgin Money when I first got wind of it as I was concerned I hadn’t completed all the various forms exactly as required. He telephoned to say I had completed everything correctly. So why did the Virgin agent and my solicitor go making decisions on their own and fowling things up? My solicitor had said she was advised by Virgin to draw the $90,000 cheque. It could have been that the Virgin agent knew little about banking, nor how to conduct a property settlement. It could have been that the solicitor had little regard for my interests. I don’t know what it was, but someone had goofed. No one sought advice from me. If there was any doubt they should have contacted me and asked.

I rang Wridgways to find out when our furniture would be delivered. It would be delivered on the 4th July. Now that’s curious, considering Wridgways in Melbourne said our things would be delivered definitely before July. It sounds as though Mark De Lacy, the Melbourne Wridgways guy, was making things up when he said our furniture would be delivered before the end of the month.

Is that the technique? Whenever there is a problem, just open your mouth and tell the punters a whole heap of crap. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not just smooth the waters to get them out of your hair. Well, it fitted with the whole Wridgways experience.

A duty of carelessness

The solicitor rang. She said, “Settlement went through without a problem.” This was really good to hear. And then she dropped a bombshell. She mentioned, in what seemed like a passing comment that there was a cheque for about $90,000 in my name. The cheque was in her office and ready to pick up.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

This was dumb to write a cheque. This amount was to remain in my home loan offset. I didn’t need this money as a cheque, cash, or anything else. This was an amount that was built into my home loan should I need cash for something in the future, but at the home loan interest rates.

The home loan interest is calculated on the amount that is borrowed. I had no intension of borrowing the full amount available to me, but now that a cheque has been issued the interest that will be calculated will be based on the full amount, rather than just the cost of the house. While these funds remained in the offset I would not be charged interest on them.

This offset amount was never actually intended to be borrowed. It was money for a rainy day; a kind of nest egg. However, now that a cheque has been issued I will be paying interest on an additional $90,000 that I have no need for. She said she “…was instructed by Virgin’s agent to draw all funds.” I find that difficult to believe. It was Virgin that had set up the offset. Surely, they knew what an offset was. Surely, they’d know they were going to send me a cheque book. Surely, they’d know I could write my own cheques whenever I wished. Whatever it was that happened between these two at settlement I’ll never know, but between the two of them they goofed badly, and stuffed me up into the bargain.

Put it back into the account, I said.
It can’t be done, the solicitor said.
Why not, I asked.
Because it’s in your name, she said.
I have no means to put it into my account, I said.
She said sorry.

Aggh!

Virgin Home Loans claim that one of the ways they keep their interest rates low is by having no shop front. With a bank you front up to one of their branch offices and carry out your business. With Virgin there is no branch office that you can visit to speak to someone from Virgin Money. Everything is done by phone, and if you want to make additional payments you go to your local Post Office with your special Virgin Home Loan ID card in hand and make the deposit, and your deposit gets directed into your account that’s encoded on the plastic card. This seems a simple process, and that’s how I would deposit the cheque into my home loan account. However, as a new customer Virgin Money hadn’t got around to sending this card. Without the card I can’t return the funds to my account. So, until the deposit card gets delivered I’m paying out more on interest than I need.

I think I just need to remind everyone about the people I’m dealing with: My home loan comes courtesy of Virgin Money who provided the cheque that I don’t need, and my solicitor who works with William Heague accepted this cheque without my instruction.

Both the lender and the solicitor appear to have shown little interest in my needs. Acted contrary to my wishes, in fact. You’d think with mobile phones someone might have spotted this whole situation as a bit odd, and thought, perhaps they should speak to me. But no, that was too difficult. Lazy sods. And to think these people bill for their services.

Don't trust the removalist

I rang to check how things were going with the removalist companies. I wasn’t aware of it when I started this, but it turned out that there was a contract between the company I worked and a particular removalist firm. I had no choice but to use them. I needn’t have got quotes from other companies. Wridgways was the preferred company.

I rang the Wridgways Canberra office to check on the quotation. They said they were busy “crunching the numbers.” That could mean they are working on a price, or it could have meant something along the lines of oops we’d better get on with that job.

An important point for me to check with the removalists was when they might want to be paid. This was an issue that was dear to my heart. I had a nasty experience when I was moving from Tasmania to Victoria a few years ago. Something I didn’t want to repeat. We had used Watkins Removals in that shift. I was at work in my new job on the day our furniture arrived, and S rang to say the removalist truck had arrived at our new place. She said the men were refusing to unload our furniture until they were paid. I found this an unexpected event, particularly as it hadn’t been raised with us beforehand. It was a tricky situation, made worse by the fact that there wasn’t much in the way of cash in my bank account at that time. I got out of it by sweet talking my boss, who faxed a note to the company indicating they would be assisting with expenses, and to bill them. I didn’t want to be in that situation again, and put it to Wridgways. They assured me that this situation would not occur, and they said they would probably bill the company. Anyway, it’s as well to commit people to arrangements, and then you can argue with them later from solid ground.

I noticed on the documentation I’d received from my solicitor there was reference to something about Perpetual Limited. It sounded like the name of an insurance company. Apparently it is the organisation that will be funding my home loan, along with a little note I almost missed which said that if this name did not appear on my insurance policy, settlement may be delayed. I’m glad I spotted it. I would have thought such an important issue would have been emphasized by all concerned.

I spoke with David at Virgin Home Loans, and he explained something of the background, much of which I didn’t understand. So, if I get this wrong, I’m sorry. However, it would seem that Virgin Money operates under something called a ‘scrutinized program’. An organisation called Perpetual Limited, which is affiliated with Reserve Bank managed investment bonds of the Macquarie Bank. The consequence of this is that Perpetual Limited is an interested party in our home loan. If the house burns down they want their cut. Hell, I thought I was borrowing Virgin Money funds.

I had promised Fay, our Warrandyte conveyancer, some information regarding the trouble we had been put to in getting the deposit, and emailed this along with a proposal for her to put to Melody, through her solicitor, that we deal directly with Melody, rather than giving her solicitor a $300 set up fee to rent the Warrandyte house. I’m annoyed at the whole thing. I’m not feeling too kindly to paying $650 for about a week’s stay.

Pat the Warrandyte neighbour has been coming down making a nuisance of herself. It’s not our fault that her cat would rather sleep in our place than live in a cage at Pat’s house. No wonder it escapes and seeks out a snugly warm place.

Settlement is settled

S spent a couple of hours running some tutorials. She said she was tough on the students, and it worked: no talking in class, and the latecomers copped it.

I was at a planning day at work. I really don’t know why managers keep having planning days. I’ve seldom seen anything useful emerge from them. I think most of the people who were there saw it more of a social get together than anything constructive. Though, the talk by our leader was inspiring. It was during this meeting that Vickie, the conveyancer, rang. She is helping me purchase the Flynn property. There had been a development.

Vickie said she had some information. The vendor’s solicitor contacted her regarding settlement day. They wanted the 16th June. They wanted what? Hold on a bit. It was only yesterday we received advice that the contract was signed with the 19th June as settlement. It sounds as though someone is telling fibs or generally making a hash of things. They want to put the 16th on the contract and do nothing until the 19th June. That was Vickie’s plan, yesterday. So, that’s it. Done. Presumably. Both legal eagles came up with the same idea independently.

S was wondering if this meant we could move into the place on the 16th June. Perhaps we could rent it from them.

Vickie also mentioned that our contact from Virgin Home Loans rang to say the valuation was in and approval of the loan may be mid-next week.

A fuzzy deal

Something always happens. Just about every day in this epic some new issue crops up, and here was another event filled day. You could say it makes the day interesting. On the other hand it’s stress I would rather do without.

First up, B rang to see if I could push ahead with the contract exchange. Not that such things are up to me, but it seemed a reasonable request. It would be a gesture of good will. After all, our vendors had exchanged on their new house, and they may be feeling vulnerable living in limbo. I gather they bought their new property at auction, and of course there’s no backing away from an auction sale.

So, I rang Vickie, my Canberra conveyancer, to ask what the delay was on the exchange. We had a short conversation about the merits of organising this settlement before settlement in Melbourne was locked in and finance confirmed. But it’ll be a sure thing. Surely it will? She promised to do the exchange today.

I rang David, my contact at Virgin Home Loans. Actually, I’d been phoning him every hour and hanging up when the answering machine clicked in; I wanted to speak to him, not a machine. Anyway, I got him eventually, and passed on the concerns of B. He said all the valuer really focuses on with private houses is to see if the building seems structurally sound and they look for evidence of pest damage, but they don’t crawl around under the floor or in the attic. He will phone me and a letter will go out, possibly tomorrow or Monday, when the loan application has been approved. I also mentioned the surprise email I got from Virgin.

An email arrived from Virgin with the following message: “In your hunt for a home loan you stopped by Virgin Money to see what you could borrow, but as yet we haven’t heard back from you…” What? David put that down to administrative error of no consequence. It was a discouraging experience in the procedures used by Virgin.

Apparently all the documents I had faxed to Virgin were okay. David said there had only been one outstanding issue, but it had been resolved. He said they were interested to know whether we actually owned our Melbourne property, and then they came to a determination which resolved the matter. Curiously, they didn’t get in touch with me to provide any evidence of ownership, in their determination. Apart from me telling them, that is. But that’s hardly evidence. They must have their own source of information. Interesting.

I organised insurance cover, protecting the building only, using GIO again. The last thing you’d want to happen would be to buy a property, have it burn down, and not be insured. I’ll insure the contents when we get actual contents into it.

Late in the day Vicki rang saying she was, “… trying to do the exchange.” Now, that was an interesting expression, I thought. Trying. Without appearing to appear rude, I asked, “What does that mean?” The owners of the Flynn house, through their solicitor, a mate of the owner, she added, want to change settlement to the 16th June, rather than the 19th, to match the settlement of their new house. It also transpired that contracts had not yet been exchanged, as B had said. Can you trust real estate agents? I told Vickie we couldn’t do this, as it would leave little time for moving. Besides that, the new settlement date was just about to be set, and we don’t want to change it again. How much of an idiot are we expected to be while pandering to other people’s whims?

This news had put me on edge. It was frustrating. I was wondering how to deal with it, and was on the verge of calling Vickie back, and putting a few ideas to her. I was wondering if a compromise could be made that might benefit me, like having the vendors pick up the bill for having our removalist pack our things, or have them pay for our truck rental, but she got to the phone first with a solution.

She will write our settlement as the 16th as requested, but do nothing until the 19th. I don’t understand that. That arrangement sounded somewhat illegal, and I said as much to her. No, it’s fine, apparently. She went on to explain that there is a 7-day lapse period that banks allow, to cover situations where funds or cheques are sent to the wrong place. (What? That sounded strangely familiar!) She also said there isn’t a penalty clause in the contract, saying this as though it were a significant point. I was missing something in the conversation. I wasn’t quite sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but in this particular circumstance it seemed to please her. Because of the 7-day fuzzy period, no one will be confronted for funds that are not forthcoming. We won’t be asked to get a bridging loan. No one will. So I asked, “Why don’t you write 16-19th in the contract?” No, apparently you can’t do that; it has to be a specific date.

So, to confirm this conversation, I repeated: you write the 16th which means nothing, and we sit on our hands until the 19th when the money comes through, and then we do the deal. “That’s right,” she replied. I was surprised and perplexed.

It was all happening a bit faster than I could cope, but it was kind of exciting too. I asked about the 3-day delay in funds transfer we were being forced to go through and whether the 7-day fuzziness could have taken care of it. I asked her if we should have just not troubled ourselves, just adopting a casual attitude. “Perhaps,” she replied.

On a more mundane note, it seems as though Abo, the cat, is giving us some trouble. Abo is a lovely Abyssinian, and from time to time comes wandering over to our property in Warrandyte, in much the way cats do. Our block is a block or two distant from Pat’s place. Abo belongs to Pat, one of our neighbours. The cat normally lives in a cage in Pat’s house. No wonder it keeps escaping and visiting us. Why would a cat want to live in a cage when it can saunter over to our place, steal some of our cats’ food, and have a nap on our bed? Pat was gruff, rude, and off-hand when she approached S about the cat’s whereabouts. I think she thought S was attempting to steal her cat. And this is another good reason to be shot of Melbourne, with such horrible neighbours.

S was to do a stint of teaching on the next day. Class was scheduled to start at 8.00am which means a 5.30am rise if she is to get there on time. It’s the traffic chaos in Melbourne, you see. I drove her to this place once. That was enough. At one section on the Springvale Road during peak hour, we didn’t get out of first gear for about 20 minutes, and much of that time we were stationary, waiting for the car in front to move. And this too is yet another good reason to leave Melbourne.

Some maintenance

It’s true: credit cards work wonders in cleaning the frost off the car windscreen, and there was so much frost it looked like piles of fluffy snow at the edges of the screen. The poor little starter motor in my EXA is also sounding as though it has a sore throat or a cold.

It was just a sort of administrative day today.

Vickie, of Willian Heague our Canberra conveyancer: I dropped off the contract, checked that she would note that work needed to be done to the three wardrobes in the house, the garden shed was noted (I didn’t want it removed), got her to mark S and myself as joint tenants, and handed over the deposit bond certificate. She will contact Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer, and have her send a cheque to cover Stamp Duty, which has to be paid promptly (on or before settlement, I think). We should have a final inspection too.

Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer: I rang Fay to advise her of the changed date for settlement, but in her unique manner, she really wanted to know about the insurance details first. Melody is contacting her solicitor today, apparently. So this should (hopefully) work out! Fay said the normal cost of setting up a contract to rent would be about $180-$200, but not required as it is us who are renting. I don’t quite understand that.

Virgin Money, our home loan lender: I rang Virgin to check that everything was proceeding okay. It turned out that, despite someone phoning S and getting the credit card number from her, in case we “should we back out of the loan” after making arrangements to do a valuation, the number wasn’t recorded, and a valuation check hasn’t yet been organised. So, I gave them the credit card number again, and accepted their advice that a valuation will be organised. I must keep checking on them. It puts you on edge when people fail to do things that they should.

B, the real estate agent from Flynn: I emailed B her and subsequently spoke with her to keep her in the picture with developments. The developments being the new settlement date, valuation needing to be done, contract with Vickie, expected delivery of our belongings.

Mal, Westpac loans officer: He emailed me hoping I had a nice stay in Melbourne, which was nice of him, and he reminded me that his offer was still open. Well, that story has been put to bed now. It’ll be a Virgin home loan. I still remember his attitude and can’t get over it. Westpac will remain my bank; I wonder if he’ll remember me when I walk in there.

And S buys a few gifts for the helpful Melbourne real estate agents and their staff.

While all these house issues are going on things are building at work. I have a major deadline within a week and then when that’s done I want to shoot off to Melbourne straightaway afterwards. I also have a new task to come to gips with at work. I can’t focus on studying it. I find I’m filing, tidying up, and cleaning the desk. It’s avoidance behaviour.

A loan organised, settlement stuffed

We visited Westpac at Eltham to talk to their loans officer about home loans and I went over my recent experiences with Mal at Belconnen. Who knows, a new enquiry with someone different might put something new on the plate for us to consider.

The loans officer we spoke with was hesitant to ‘step on his toes’ as she said, “he had progressed the loan,” which was interesting because I never said we’d be going with Westpac. In fact I had been open with Mal saying how I was shopping around, and would let him know my decision when I returned from Melbourne. The Eltham loans officer was very helpful, and explained the various options and how they might benefit or disadvantage us.

She couldn’t better or match Virgin’s rate, but came up with an alternative – a Premium Option loan. This loan did not have an offset facility but the extra amount beyond what we paid remained available for redraw; I presume this was the ‘limit’ that was available with our previous home loan.

It’s as well to confirm things. It does no harm and you might regret not checking later. We got word from Virgin Home Loans.

There was a letter waiting for us when we got back home after visiting the bank. It was from Virgin advising that a Rocket Repay Home Loan application had been approved. It was good to get it. We’ll go with Virgin rather than Westpac.

Later in the day, we also visited our conveyancer who was assisting in the sale of our Warrandyte property. There was some paperwork to be taken care of. Fay, our conveyancer, worked from her home and had set up an office there. Whatever works, I guess. Her office was on the way to one of our shopping centres, so it was convenient to call in there on the way.

Fay was an unusual person. She was quite an experience to work with. She seemed to know her job in so far as she always had an answer whenever requested, but we both found conversing with her to be an unusual experience. Most communication with her seldom flowed as a conversation does. Possibly, with her being in this industry for so long she had come across all or most questions people put to her. She had a disconcerting habit of not waiting until you had finished asking the question and would interrupt and begin offering you the answer before you had finished putting the question. On most occasions this okay, but sometimes she should have waited until the question was out there.

We passed across the documents she needed and sat waiting while she completed her work. I thought, given this opportunity, with the three of us together that I might ask about settlement. I was curious as to the procedures that might happen at settlement. I had various assumptions about what happens during these transactions. To me, settlement was when the deal is completed: the buyer (through their conveyancer) provides the money, and the seller (through their conveyancer) hands over the title and keys of the property, or something similar. I have a semi romantic image of people seated around a large mahogany table in a wood panelled room, with them carefully and systematically checking their documents and passing cheques around.

It’s probably nothing like that, but because the public seldom get to see what happens it has always been both a mystery and a curiosity to me. However, I didn’t get too far in my enquiry when we got side tracked onto a particular aspect of settlement. I’m glad I asked, and thank my lucky stars to have asked. My innocent little question was quite an eye opener, as it happened. I wonder why no one mentioned the problem to us.

It turned out that there will be a delay in transferring funds following the sale of our Warrandyte property to when they become available for the Canberra property. It seems that banks have set things up so that there is a three day delay in the funds transfer process. It doesn’t matter whether you have the cash in the bank, the technicalities of which are not clear to me, but the funds from the settlement of our Warrandyte house will not be available to purchase the Canberra house until three business days have passed. The settlement date of the Canberra house is the 19th June. The settlement date of the Warrandyte house was a few days earlier; insufficient time for the funds to be transferred.

Fay said this is not a problem when buying and selling within the same state because the bank cheque can be exchanged on the same day, but there is no way we can get the funds interstate during business hours, on the same day. She also said the funds could be deposited directly into our Canberra solicitor’s trust account, but they still wouldn’t have access to the money for three business days.

Apparently, funds sometime go astray during interstate transactions. Three days was considered by banks to be an appropriate time to ensure the funds went to the correct locations. If the funds went missing it could be investigated before settlement was scheduled. There is a certain cautious logic in that arrangement, but I wonder who gets the interest during those three days: oh, don’t tell me it’s the banks.

You would have thought the solicitors and conveyancers who were organising the sale and purchase for me would have been aware of this and attempted to avoid the problem. It wasn’t so long ago that the Canberra agent had asked if our Warrandyte settlement date could be shifted to match the Flynn settlement date, and this was done. This was no doubt at the Flynn owner’s request, the owner of Flynn is a solicitor who was doing his own conveyancing. Why didn't he know? So, how is this dilemma to be resolved?

One solution might be getting the settlement of the Canberra house put back a few days – I will ask B, our agent to make some enquiries to see if this can be done. Another solution may be to change settlement of the Warrandyte house forward three days. I don’t really want bridging money for some restriction the banks had imposed.

And I thought our problems were over when Deposit Power rang saying the Bond Certificate was in the mail.

I would have thought that a pair of conveyancers working for the same client would get together and work these things out. I would have thought that this was part of the service that I was paying them; to alleviate problems. They both knew I was buying/selling interstate. So why didn’t they offer advice that would help with the transaction rather than potentially stuffing it up. Aggh!

Conditional approval

I rang Virgin Home Loans to see how things were progressing with my loan application. They said it had been conditionally approved, and I was put through to someone else; to my customer relationships manager, and David from Virgin Home Loans was a very pleasant chap, and seemed good to work with. Actually, everyone I’d been dealing with at Virgin has been good. He wanted me to fax some documents before the approval was finalised; just some very simple tasks. He began to talk about getting a property valuation, but I asked for that to be put on hold for a few days, lest they charge me, and should I go with Westpac in the end. But, the loan seems to be in the bag. That’s a relief.

So, it was time to get the Bond Guarantee arranged. I rang Mal at Westpac. He apologised for not getting back to me. I asked if he’d read the material I sent that I got from Virgin. He said he had, but wouldn’t be able to beat their rate. It’s a different type of package, he said. Afterwards, I wondered what he had meant by that.

I asked him if I could have the Bond Guarantee back, as he had been holding it for me. I wanted to organise a replacement for the property I’m about to purchase. The bond has to indicate ‘Private Treaty’ instead of ‘Auction’ as on the current document. He was happy for me to call by.

So I called by at lunch time, and was invited into his office. I was expecting only the briefest meeting. Essentially, to be given the document and be on my way again, but he had prepared a letter for me. It was an offer of rate reduction. If I were to take up Westpac’s ‘Premier Advantage’ loan, which has an annual fee they offered a discount of 0.4% off the standard home loan rate. Mal’s deal was to offer me 0.5% off instead. And then while I was there in his office he made a call, presumably someone in the bank who was authorised to endorse special rates, and the word was that I can have the loan at a rate discounted by 0.6% below the standard rate. It was nice that he was actually doing things to encourage me to take out a loan with Westpac. But why so late in our relationship? Virgin’s rate was lower. No commitments were made.

I said to him that I would be going to Melbourne on the weekend and would be discussing the situation with S, but promised to get back to him. On the way out of the bank, with his letter, and bond certificate in hand, he said in parting that he only negotiates reduced rates only after the second knock back to try to keep a customer. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that he said that with a boast in his voice. I only negotiate reduced rates only after the second knock back to try to keep a customer. Perhaps had he been negotiating rates with me a lot earlier I wouldn’t have tried so hard with Westpac’s opposition. His comment floored me. As I walked back to the car park I found myself repeating his comment over and over.

His comment surprised me to say the least. I made no response. But upon thinking about it my interpretation of his comment went as follows: I don’t give a stuff about you. I’m only interested in my own commission. I’m not going to bother with you until I see you back here sometime later. If I think I’ll loose you to another bank I’ll throw you a crumb.
I wasn’t feeling happy with Mal, despite his better offer. Not happy at all with Mal. I felt insulted.

I started to organise the new Bond Guarantee. I telephoned Deposit Power to confirm the documents I needed. The property title was not required; just the two contracts and the loan approval. But they need both of our signatures. This involved a rush job by S to print the appropriate form, sign it, and fax it back to me. Things are difficult with me in Canberra and S in Melbourne. Of course, the person faxing it at her local chemist in Eltham goofed, and it had to be faxed again, which is kind of funny as the fax didn’t come through properly. One of the tick boxes got left off the fax. And then while looking through the Contract for Sale document for the property I noticed the amount shown for the deposit was not the agreed amount. When we put our offer to the real estate agent, I said, or rather, asked if I could use the existing bond certificate that I had (ie. 5% of purchase price), and she said that would be okay. So, here I am about to send this stuff to Deposit Power, and they’ll see that the amounts don’t match. B must have forgotten that little bit. Happy that I caught it in time and fixed it. I bundled it all up in an express post envelope and it was in the post, and out my hair.

More finance discussions

Mal the Westpac banker rang. A friendly chap on the surface, but he came across as a bit of a trickster. He may be defending his commission; I think he was trying to stop me shifting to Virgin for a home loan. With the hours he works, I assume he’s on commission. Anyway, I had rung the Westpac home loan help line asking about the bank’s home loan interest rates. Now, that was an illuminating experience.

It was only the day before that Mal made his best offer and made it sound as though he was offering me a special rate. Well, it turned out that his best offer was just the every day fixed rate they give to anyone. So much for the best he can do. That’s not a deal, that’s the bank’s standard rate. Discoveries like this are not helpful to good relations. The reassuring handshake, the gentle hand on shoulder, and friendly smile now seemed like deceit. Anyway, he rang saying he’d try and work something out, and we spoke about Virgin.

With experiences like that you feel like telling them where to go and dumping them, and going somewhere else. Okay, I am considering going somewhere else, but I also want to keep my options open while I find the best deal. He asked what I’d been offered from Virgin. I said there was nothing in writing but I could email him the details, and I also sent him some information from the Virgin web site.

B, the agent, rang. The only time she can set up a time to see the house to inspect the work done to the wardrobes etc was Thursday at 5.30pm. So much for my early departure for Melbourne. I was planning to get away from work early on Thursday afternoon to drive to Melbourne. Vicki the conveyancer is still waiting for information from the vendor’s solicitor. I thought we’d be the hold up with all the trouble with our buyer in Melbourne no paying the deposit on time.

About bloody time!

A busy day, the biggest event that took place was that the deposit came through; about $36,400 of it according to the real estate agent.

But it was frantic day before that news came though. B, the Canberra real estate agent, had already written to me with a copy of the Instructions of Sale saying exchange of contracts was to be tomorrow. She also said I could inspect the property this week. Which was nice, but I wanted to ward her off. I suggested I take the contract to Melbourne, so that both S and I could study it properly. My actual reasoning was that, perhaps the deposit would be through by then. I was just trying to buy myself some extra time. Anyway, as it turned out she couldn’t tee up a time to see the work, and was to contact me later, possibly the following day. So there I was talking about various arrangements, trying to appear nonchalant, and all the while I was fretting that we might get caught out. The things I said and the manner I said them bore little relation to what I was thinking, most of the time.

I got a call from William Heague. This is the company who will be doing my conveyancing for the Flynn property. It appears that my previous contact Abby will no longer be doing this and I’ll be working with Vicki. She seems okay, and recommended having the work written into the contract, which sounds like a good idea to me. Though, you wonder about passing work from one person to the next. I hate picking up the threads of someone else’s work. It’s so hard to do. I also spoke to her about changing finance from Westpac to Virgin, which wasn’t a problem, she said. I just have to keep her posted. However, there was a problem on the vendor’s side with a change in solicitor. It seems that the owner, who is a lawyer, was going to do everything himself, will now only do his own property. This may have been the reason B said the contract exchange will be next week. That’s a relief. That was absolutely great timing on their part.

As far as our Warrandyte real estate agent was concerned, in addition to asking him to contact the bank to check for possible hold ups, at S’s suggestion I pressed the idea that our buyer get a personal loan to cover the deposit, and that if the Canberra property fell foul because our buyer’s deposit wasn’t coming through that we cancel the sale and consider removing the property from the market. Within an hour he was on the phone saying he had the deposit in his trust account. At bloody last! Was that coincidence, or did my threat get him on the phone to his bank manager to hurry things along. Who knows.

I opened my little bottle of champagne, that I’d been keeping for the purpose. S didn’t want her’s. She was feeling so flat, and generally pissed off over the whole experience that she didn't have the appetite for it. I felt a bit like that too. The chance of revelling in the excitement of the purchase of our new house had been extinguished by the antics of our buyer. The worry she put us through was horrible. It just wasn’t fair.

I spent ages on the phone to Virgin Home Loans getting a loan application lodged. S didn’t like the experience either when she had to go through it with them too. Virgin have relatively low fees and their interest rate was better than Westpac could offer. I rang Mal at Westpac and told him of what Virgin could offer. I wanted to play one off against the other. He said he couldn’t better the rate, except to offer a fixed interest rate for 3 years, which was better than Virgin’s fixed 3-year rate.

I raised the issue of the Bond Certificate with Mal, and he said he was only doing that under the assumption the loan would be provided through Westpac. He implied that I’d have to go through a bank for another Bond Certificate. This was not true. I don’t think he likes Virgin. Well, it’s the opposition, and darned good competition too. I subsequently rang Deposit Power, and was advised that anyone with the appropriate documentation can apply for a certificate. However, they do make you run around gathering documentation: the Melbourne house contract for sale, the Melbourne house title, the Canberra house contract, finance approval or pre-approval statement.

Random musings

I wonder if B, the Flynn real estate agent, would have been so casual (no deposit requested, no contract signed) over the sale of the house, in this honour arrangement she seemed to have embarked upon, had we arrived at the property when we first inspected the place in my smoky old EXA rather than S’s sleek MR2 sports car (some refer to the MR2 as a baby Ferrari), and had she taken S’s name as Ms rather than Dr. Impressions can be influential.

Very early in our acquaintance B had asked if we were genuinely interested in buying, and I said yes. She confirmed again, orally I must emphasize, that if we might back out of the deal to say so, and I said we wouldn’t do that. From that point it was as though we were honour bound to go through with it.

I had checked out a few other lenders. Virgin seems better than Aussie. Virgin claims no fees, but there are some. They guy I had been speaking to at Westpac mentioned the annual fee, but didn’t say a word of the Application Fee. I only discovered this from the infochoice web site.

I find it difficult to compare the offerings as each institution tends to use different terminology. What is a ‘legal documentation fee’? Is this another name for an establishment fee? What’s the difference between an annual fee, a service fee, and a maintenance fee; all Westpac terms for different loan types. I’ll must talk to someone from Virgin tomorrow.

In Warrandyte, S noticed some dampness in one of the kitchen cabinets. Water from the skylight, not begin deflected by the plastic sheet we had removed from the top of the kitchen cupboards, had been running inside the cupboards. There was a sheet of plastic running along the top of the kitchen cabinets. It had been there since we bought the house, and not sure what it was there for. It was a bit untidy looking so we removed it.

It seems that the skylight above the kitchen leaks a little water. The plastic caught the occasional drip during rain storms, and allowing it to evaporate later. I guess the absence of the plastic sheet caused the water to get straight into the cabinets. It’s strange the things you discover about a place when you are about to leave.

A sinking feeling

I had an early meeting with Mal from Westpac. He was the loans officer I had been talking to earlier. The bond certificate had to be reissued. The current certificate was for an auction only, and could not be used to buy a non-auction property. However, it will be replaced without charge. I must also demonstrate that there are sufficient funds to back it up; in other words, documentation that the deposit will be paid on the Warrandyte property to be provided before a new certificate is issued. This is unhappy news.

It seems that the current certificate had been issued in error. Mal had assumed we already had the deposit. We thought we might have had the deposit too, last week, but that’s another issue. It would seem that Mal didn’t ask the right questions or didn’t check into everything. I was upfront with everyone.

So, now the problem expands. We can’t get the bond certificate until we get our own deposit. A sinking feeling developed in my stomach.

S blew up at one of our real estate agents and doesn’t want to deal with him anymore. He was adopting a business manner with her. As a consequence S was thinking of withdrawing the house from this agent in favour of an Eltham real estate agent, one that draws a different client base.

Before we came to Warrandyte we had been living in Hurstbridge, and Eltham is one of the main centres which is reasonably close to Hurstbridge. It was through an Eltham agent that we purchased the Warrandyte property. It was advertised in the real estate section of the local rag, which seldom covered many Warrandyte properties, dealing mostly with Hurstbridge, Eltham, Greensborough. In fact, most Warrandyte properties for sale appear in their own local newspaper, which we seldom got. It’s possible that with our current real estate agent not targeting their newspaper ads to the region where we lived prior to buying the property they were missing out on potential punters. After all, that’s where we used to live. Advertising locally, is a bit like preaching to the converted.

I emailed our agent, asking if we can get the buyer’s solicitor’s phone number, with a view to contacting them, or getting our conveyancer to contact them. It’s all very well of the buyer reassuring us, but that carries little weight. They may be engaged in a shonky; making more than one offer, and just biding their time. Perhaps they are willing to loose their $1000 partial deposit in favour of a better property. He agreed to contact her solicitor. He got back to me latter, with advice from her solicitor who told him that the UK property had settled yesterday, and £15,000 would be transferred as our deposit, and it would take about 24hrs to transfer, and this was in process.

This was excellent news, though S was only slightly impressed. It’s only one step. It’s still only words. We still need to see the deposit. But I’m definitely feeling a lot happier. The next couple days are going to be excruciating until the deposit has been paid. We could get a personal loan to cover our own deposit if required, and who knows, perhaps a bridging loan if we end up with two properties.