Re-advance/Building Loan Neverending Nightmare

I have had to defend Standard Bank on numerous occasions to family and friends, who are customers of different banks, by saying that the customer service is amazing!! My husband even made the change to Standard Bank 16 years ago when I convinced him what a wonderful bank it is. 17 years later we both have cheque accounts, savings accounts, overdraft facilities, credit cards, RCPs, and share 2 home loans. I have had amazing service with this bank until January 2019.

We purchased our new house in September 2018 and have been paying a bond until today without ever spending a night in the house. We registered our bond for R2 000 000 when we purchased it with the intention of purchasing the house for R1 500 000 and using the extra R500 000 for renovations. We submitted a plan for approval and app**** to Standard Bank for a building loan as advised by the consultant in Claremont branch. This was my first experience of being ill-advised by my trusted bank. We found out later that we were supposed to apply for a re-advance which you'll read about later.

After numerous back and forth phone calls to the home loans department, proceeding through the security check questions and explaining the story to various consultants, submitting documents repeatedly, in March 2019 we received a notification that our building loan was approved. Yaghya Gamieldien was the assessor at this point.

We cashed in all investments, used our overdraft and RCPs to complete some building in order to submit our first progress payment. On submission of the first progress payment in July 2019, a new assessor Stephen Bam came to the property and said that we had not completed sufficient work for a payment. Additionally, we were informed via SMS that our building plan is not in place and will have to reapply. You can imagine our frustration at this point.

However, we followed the procedure and reapp**** for a re-advance this time. More paperwork submission, numerous phonecalls to Homeloans department to check that everything was received this time with security questions everytime. It was at this point we were informed that we were supposed to apply for the re-advance BEFORE starting the renovations. Now that we've used every available cent to do some building, we have to apply for a building loan. With numerous escalations of our queries we were eventually led to a gentleman named Zahir Abdul-Karrim, deal maker at Standard Bank. Going over and above to assist, with repeated phonecalls, emails, assessors being sent to the property and 3 weeks later we were informed that our re-advance has been approved with the R500 000 to be held on retention and we would need to submit progress payments to receive the funds. So basically a building loan.

Once again, we proceeded to Standard Bank Blue Route to sign the re-advance form with bank certified copies of our IDs and proof of residence. On advi*****t by the trusted Zahir and supported by Shireen, the helpful bank consultant, we submitted these documents along with the first progress payment for our approved re-advance with the approved plans, engineers appointment letter, and builder's insurance on Friday 13 September 2019. The assessor, Stephen Bam, visited the property once again on Tuesday 17 September 2019 and confirmed that 30% of the work has been completed. I followed up again with 2 more phonecalls to the Home Loans department during this week to confirm receipt of documents proceeding again with security questions. The first time, I was told yes all documents have been received, the matter is in process, it could take up to 7 working days to pay the funds into my account. The second time, I was told the approved building plans are outstanding. I patiently asked Pearl to please check again because I attached all the required documents (which I know very well by now) and she confirmed all documents were in fact received. Pearl once again escalated this matter which meant nothing to me by this time because it doesn't change the progress of my application in any way based on all previous experience.

When my husband got home on Friday 20 September 2019, he called Standard Bank Home Loans and asked to speak to a supervisor because we were done with dealing with consultants who could only do so much. Raeez Adams was very helpful and after being on the phone for 1 hour he learnt so much about our application by making a few phonecalls while we were on hold. We were informed that our progress payment has been processed but there are 2 conflicting notes on the system: one indicates that an NHBRC certificate is required, the other indicates that no NHBRC certificate is required. We were informed by Standard Bank consultants and assessors that a certificate is not required because we are not building a house from foundation up but merely enhancing the existing house we purchased and increasing its value with these renovations. Raeez tried calling two managers on their cellphones who had already left work for the day to no avail because apparently they were the only people who could approve the progress payment payout. He would call us back, which he did on Saturday morning to tell us that our matter will be dealt with on Monday by Sandra or Delmaine. We are assuming that these are the 2 managers he spoke to.

So now I don't know if "dealt with" means paid out or if it means investigated further on Monday which would take another 3 weeks to reach another impass, another application, more paperwork, more phonecalls, more escalations...

Now I can list each reference number I have received, each escalation I have requested, each recorded enquiry I have made from my cellphone, my home phone and my work phone and I am sure Standard Bank database is filled with lists of enquiries, application numbers and follow ups from both my husband and I. We have jumped through each and every hoop Standard Bank has listed, changed and provided with LOTS of patience, calmness and respect. Now we are done. My husband has contacted the Standard Bank complaints department which indicated that he will be contacted and the matter will be resolved by 20 September 2019 - yesterday. No contact received.

We simply need to be provided with service Standard Bank has promised as we have met all the requirements repeatedly and are still being ignored. Our contractors need to be paid as we carried over these promises from Standard Bank to them and now we sit with pie-covered faces with 3 weeks of no work done at our home and an outstanding balance of R150 000 to a foreman, builder, carpenter and bricklayer. The levels of stress, anxiety and insecurity we have experienced over these past 7 months cannot be emphasised and expressed enough. We are now ready to make the change of shifting all 12 of our products to a different financial services provider and rather start off with a clean slate from scratch. We would probably have been able to move into our beautiful home already had we processed our application elsewhere.

I'm not sure who receives and reads the messages on this forum but I have nowhere else to turn anymore. I don't think Standard Bank even knows how to process and resolve building loan issues.

Regards Yumna Sayed