Hi,
First of all, apologies as this will be a very long post..
I am most of the time a lurker in this forum... I am active in reading few posts which eventually helped me in my building process...
But somehow, Ive realized that home building no matter what is not going to be a smooth sailing ride.. simply because there were just to many variables in the equation..
I have few issues with my builder, conveyancer and outside supplier thoroughout these journey but those were manageable.. But the only thing that really gives us too much frustration is our bank which is Westpac.
Here is my story:
I have a land which was settled through CBA, I would say that i didnt have major problem with them.. My land valuation came out ok...Land settlement occur as expected..
However, due to recent crisis when I was about to do my re-evaluation for my land and construction loan this is where things started to become problematic.. CBA valuation of our property is 45k less of actual price... The 26k fhog is still not enough to cover the difference.. And so, we have decided to shop around with other banks... And the 1st bank that we thought of going is westpac.. as we have our car loan with them... though their rates is not as good as CBA.. But we decided to give it a try as the home loan manager of westpac promises us during that time that he will counterpart whatever CBA is offering us.. (you bet.. this is just a promise made in the water...)
For us, as long as the valuation came out ok is more than enough reason for us to shift...
and so valuation came... and we were just delighted to know that it came out well above as CBA...though not as good as we expect them to be... - as we are suspecting that the value they based it upon is incorrect... but anyway, we let this matter passed.. as we thought that the FHOg could fully service the difference..
so, we have signed the contract to the bank.. they have given us the approval certificate and present it to the builder.. We have asked our home loan manager, if it is okay for us to start our building... and he said YES (Note, he is very very positive..).. and we also asked our builder if that loan certificate is ok... and our administrator said YES..
So we thought we have done everything... well almost..
few weeks after, we were advised that we need to fill up our FHOG form again as apparently there is some wrong information... ok, we have done that.. in the presence of our home loan manager... and confirm with him that everything is okay... and he said.. all good! This is our 2nd fill up of FHOG..
weeks passed, thinking that we have everything in control.. until one day we received again this phone call from our home loan manager.. asking if our building has commenced.. and we said yes... and he can expect the invoice very soon for the slab... and out of the blue.. he just said that the bank.. cannot release any funds... unless the property has been settled with CBA.. which we were entirely shocked! He did not advised us that from the beginning.. We have then demanded an explanation, why he didn't tell us from the beginning about it..? We definitely would not let our builder to commence building until such thing occur... He just answered that, he did not expect these things to occur... That settlement should occur prior to the 1st invoice..
And here comes another frustration, he just advise us over the phone that there IS still some correction need to be made on our FHOG form again???? as the phone number has a country code of +61??? And when he spoke to us.. he did not even mentioned that this form is the one that is holding up the settlement with CBA.. We thought that settlement can proceed with this minor issue with FHOG.. Luckily, I did not trust him this time around.. I have phone the mortgage dept of westpac.. after waiting for almost 30 minutes.. and find out exactly what is happening to our loan application.. And in there they confirmed that settlement booking will not occur until FHOG has been rectified... and to my surprise the FHOG form is still there in their vault...waiting... for some miracle???
I became really, really frustrated.. I have asked westpac the phone number of my home loan manager superior.. as I really need some help and assistance here.... I have spoken to this lady.. and promised us to look into this matter... in a weeks time.. the only thing that has occured was that the FHOG form has been rectified and sent back to adelaide .. and im now waiting for them to book an appointment with CBA.. I was advise yesterday by the new home loan mgr that they are about to make a booking..
And so I phoned westpac again.. just to confirm whether I am getting the correct information now... Your guess is as good as mine... No booking yet was made... and... again.. They said that I need to submit the council permit and builder's risk insurance, before they can even made the invoice payment.. but my builder has sent this to them few months back???
This is really becoming more and more frustrating for us...
I have now my builder's invoice which was sent to westpac as soon as i've received it... which eeds to be paid in a matter of days.. otherwise i might incur some penalties..
We have asked some extension from the builder.. I hope that this matter can be settled soon... I do not wish to have any more dealings with such home loan manager at all! in any future! The stress.. is just not so worth it...