Miscommunication blamed for loan offset flap

The objections of a WA adviser appear to have led Bank of Queensland (BOQ) to reverse a decision to scrap an offset facility for existing clients on a five-year fixed mortgage offered by its new WA subsidiary, Home Build_ing Society (HBS).

Taylor Financial Planning principal Graeme Taylor was “incorrectly informed” by HBS staff on the future sta_tus of its Absolute Home Loan Package product for existing clients, BOQ told Money Management last week.

BOQ corporate affairs head Caroline Dunworth said an “internal miscommunica_tion” had been sent to HBS staff on the status of the prod_uct following the integration of the two banks next month, which “is now being recti_fied”.

Dunworth said in a writ_ten statement that the offset facility would “continue to be offered to existing holders” from next month, but that the product as a whole would not be made available to new clients.

“Because of system require_ments in the lead-up to the integration (of the banks) from September 21, HBS and BOQ branches are no longer selling HBS products — only BOQ products,” she said.

Taylor, who had earlier told Money Management he was prepar_ing to go to the Trade Prac_tices Commission on behalf of clients he had placed in the product, was “surprised” by BOQ’s statement.

“It’s amazing that HBS staff told me over many weeks that they themselves (HBS staff), as well as HBS clients, were to lose the offset facility, so there seems to have been a fair amount of mis_communication going on.”

He added that it would have been “very easy for BOQ to correct previous mis_communications to me by HBS staff, but it hasn’t man_aged to do so as yet (at time of going to press)”.

Also a licensed mortgage broker, Taylor said he was “annoyed at having to explain to my clients that the rug was to have been pulled from under their feet”.

“This has caused a lot of unnecessary stress to my clients, who cannot see how (the bank) could tear away the fab_ric of a loan, which is in mid-course, and which was pre_viously offered and accepted by the borrower.”

Another of Taylor’s clients “applied for the product with_in the past six weeks and was accepted, and then later told by HBS that the offset facility was to be removed from next month”.

In this instance, Taylor said he “managed to get the rate lock fee refunded to the client, but not without a lot of stress for both myself and the client”.