Check Your Home Loans Offset accounts to see if they have changed

Wazowski on 23/05/2023 - 16:19
Last edited 23/05/2023 - 17:02 by 1 other user

Hi all,
Just a little heads up as a lot of people with home loans are now coming off low fixed interest home loans and it's switching to the default variable home loans.

I'm with CBA, started with a variable home loan with offset accounts, switched to a split loan (majority was fixed but some variable) paid off the variable component, and was left with just the fixed account. Now the fixed term has ended and my loan has defaulted to a variable loan which is expected. What they don't tell you is that your accounts are no longer offset accounts ( I assume because you can't offset a fixed loan). You need to go into your loan settings and change your accounts back to offset.

It can be very costly if you have money in saving and expect it to be offset. I have helped 3 people today who didn't realize their accounts didn't default back to offset. I was just lucky I checked only a few days after my loan changed.

Hope that helps some out.

Financial Home Loan

Comments

  • skid on 23/05/2023 - 16:34
    +2

    Yeh, had something similar at St George. Even though I specifically said to reset the account to offset, it wasn't actioned. Realised the first day, but the change-over takes another day. End result is that it was fixed a few days later, resulting in hundreds of dollars in interest. Complained to the bank which fell on deaf ears. Annoyed.

  • boomramada on 23/05/2023 - 16:34
    +1

    And make sure to visit or call cba and haggle or it will be default to base variable rates.

  • ariyan82 on 23/05/2023 - 16:36
    +1

    Yea it happened to me. My offset account was not linked to Homeloan account for almost 1.5 years. Had to fight hard to get interest adjusted. Didn’t get full interest back. Good heads-up for ppl.

    • Nousernamehere on 23/05/2023 - 16:39
      +1

      My offset account was not linked to Homeloan account for almost 1.5 years

      How would you not take notice of something like that for 18 months?

      I don’t know how other banks handle it, but with Bankwest it says on every interest debit “Debit interests after offset savings of $xxx.xx”. Also on every statement for the mortgage it lists every account that is linked as an offset as well.

      Does your bank not do something similar?

      • ariyan82 on 23/05/2023 - 16:47
        +5

        Well, I will blame myself for not understanding the system honestly. But I always thought my repayments were high and used to call them every month to check if all was setup correctly. After 18 months one of the agents told me about offset account linking issue. He then escalated to get it fixed. The agents are not fully trained in every aspect. I was lucky to get a really good agent who checked lot of things in my Homeloan account and found this issue.

        • Your Friend on 23/05/2023 - 19:38
          +5

          money in an offset doesn't affect your monthly repayment amount

  • Hardlyworkin on 23/05/2023 - 17:33
    +1

    Good adviceski, Cheers.

  • FoxJump on 23/05/2023 - 18:03

    thanks for reminder. I was meaning to do this, but had forgotten. Only 3 days have elapsed since switchover thankfully.

  • Stalker on 23/05/2023 - 18:50
    +1

    This is great reminder for people. The banks will obviously not make it a focus to make sure that people are maximising their interest saving potential. ;)

  • akyeeeahdude on 23/05/2023 - 22:24

    Good tip - thanks. Majority of my home loan is fixed and expiring in June with CBA and I didn't know this either.

    That being said, after 14.5 years with CBA, for our mortgage, we're switching to St George. Brokers can obtain 5.44% from St George (with offset) whilst my variable with CBA is 5.70% (with offset). Both figures are after the recent RBA rate rise and both have an annual package fee ($395 if I recall correctly). CBA wouldn't budget any further despite me pushing them, then being contacted proactively by 3 different staff members wanting to see if they could get me a better rate (they couldn't).

    • [Deactivated] on 23/05/2023 - 23:10

      That's strange they won't budge from that higher rate. I'm on 5.54% with Westpac, which was the rate they pro-actively offered when I came off my low fixed rate at the end of March. I usually find Westpac pretty crap at being competitive, but they actually seemed keen to retain my business this time around.

    • 88mph on 28/05/2023 - 15:54
      +1

      Good choice, plus you would have got a 4K cashback from St George…

  • Gunther on 23/05/2023 - 23:19

    FYI - some banks do offer fixed rate loans with offset accounts. It is possible.

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