FNB Home Loan, Don't Hold Your Breath

Obviously every financial Institution has criteria for granting home loan finance and our application was somewhat different from the norm, however having received an on line approval and a quotation for a loan it was surprising to have the application rejected some two months into the application process.

From the initial submission of the on line home loan application at the beginning of December 2020, we were subjected to staggeringly poor and tardy service from our "Home Relationship Consultant" who demonstrated no understanding whatsoever of the nature of the application and consistently frustrated us by requesting documents and information which had been previously submitted. In desperation I logged a complaint on the FNB complaints web page, and appealed to my RMB private banker for assistance. The only outcome of this was that we were advised that the application would be re-motivated which led to a further five weeks of requests for documentation most of which had been previously supp****. Eventually this culminated in the issue of a revised quotation for a bond, which our attorney advised would not be acceptable by the deeds office due to inconsistencies between the bond offer, the offer to purchase and the existing deeds all of which had been submitted with the application at the outset.. This was referred back to FNB credit department, via the Home Relationship Consultant and in due course a high-handed response was received advising that the bond offer could not be changed. By now almost four months has elapsed. We had anticipated that the property transfer would be completed by now and are significantly financially compromised by this unprecedented delay. Fortunately we have succeeded in securing bond finance from an alternative financial institution and hopefully now we can move forwards with the transfer.

It is not the failure of the application which is the issue, it is the manner in which the application has been handled and length of time that elapsed from initiation to decision. We are now battling with a cash flow crisis related specifically to this delay. It will be interesting to find out how accommodating our bankers at RMB will be when we ask for bridging finance as a direct result of their inefficiency, or will we end up having to look elsewhere for that as well.