Wednesday, May 05, 2004 at 14:10
G'day Flappan,
Of course you are correct about the TV shows.....they only ever show one side of the story in those sort of cases. The banks are prevented from telling their side of the story due to customer confidentiality etc. Being a banker (that's with a "b" not a "w" LOL), I can attest to how long it takes before a bank can take recovery action against an errant customer. Letters advising of missed repayment is the first thing. 3 months later we are allowed to issue a formal Letter Of Demand. Then we have to wait for 60 days before we can issue a "Notice Of Default". The funny thing is that at about this stage, we also have to advise the customer that it would be in their best interest to seek legal advice and bring their matter to the Department Of Consumer Affairs etc if they think the Bank has not been fair towards them.
Then the Bank has to wait for a further lengthy period before they can issue a notice of intention to take possession of any security it may have a mortgage over etc. It just goes on and on.
I remember one case I was involved in south of Cooma several years ago. A businessman had taken off to Hong Kong....done a runner. He was not in the country to "defend" himself. Even so, with no arguments from his side, it still took the bank 18 months to go through all the hassle and legal rubbish before his property could be siezed and auctioned to recover the debt. The legal fees and additional interest accrued over that period meant that there was hardly enough to clear the bank debts, let alone any other creditors.
What I meant by my reply, above, was that in my experience, nobody wakes up one morning as says...."Jeez I hate the bank, I think I'll just go
broke to spite them". Most people who go
broke have good intentions but poor management skills.
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