Growing impatient

It has now been a while since we made the decision to travel Australia. We have investigated the big ticket items we will need, we have chosen a caravan and we have chosen a tow vehicle, but we have not yet been able to move on either. Now wait on finance and we are growing impatient.

While often frowned upon for buying a car or caravan – for some good reasons – we have decided to extend our mortgage to finance the purchase. Quite simply, it comes down to cashflow. The repayments on a car and caravan loan would simply be too high. Extending the mortgage means we are paying off the car and van over a much longer period, and wind up paying much more as a consequence, but keeping the repayments low is necessary to stay within budget, and still allow for the extra expenses that travel will entail.

Banks are frustrating

So after contacting our bank and getting most the requested documents together, we sent them off. The numbers were workable, but we needed to complete a couple of tax returns for Megan in order to prove her income. My returns were up-to-date at that stage. So we completed Megan’s and after a week received the needed documents back from the ATO (Australian Taxation Office for any overseas readers), which we then diligently forwarded to the bank… only to be told that the 2016 and 2017 returns they had asked for (in writing) were not the right ones and they needed 2017 and 2018. We run a partnership, and so our 2018 returns have not yet been completed. Needless to say I was pretty angry and frustrated. If they needed 2018, why weren’t we told that up front, a week earlier?

Anyway, the upshot is that the information could be forwarded to the loan approval team “as is”, but that they might want more information at later date.

It has been 1 week. We are still waiting. But they did say it may take up to 10 business days.

Fingers crossed.

Updates:

Nov 22, 2018

I have just been informed that the loan increase has been provisionally approved. Just a couple of details to nail down.

Dec 4, 2018

Still no word from the bank. If I had any hair I’d be pulling it out!

Dec 5, 2018

Got word today that final approval has been given. One more slight hold up because a personal loan we are paying out as part of this process is denominated in US$ and they have to get the Foreign Exchange section to calculate it properly. All being well, we should have contracts to sign either tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday.

Dec 10, 2018

Another delay with the bank. This time it’s back to credit because our VISA card went over it’s limit last month. If they looked, they’d see it goes over every month… and gets paid in full every month too. We don’t increase the limit because we would simply spend that limit each month, and probably exceed that too, making it that much more difficult to pay it off in full. It’s a hard limit that we impose on ourselves. Oh well… we are being told it won’t stop anything, just another delay.