Bank blue blamed for sale

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

West Auckland couple Barry and Linda Ewing are blaming stress from a $25,000 bank error for having to sell a rental property next to their woodland home.

For 12 months, the ANZ Bank mistakenly levied an unheard-of penalty rate of 24.15 per cent on the bulk of their $204,000 mortgage, leading to overcharges of $24,976.99c.

Not even when someone in the bank discovered in June last year that they were being charged too much were they told of the error.

Their interest charges were simply adjusted back to a contracted fixed rate of 8.95 per cent and they were none the wiser until their accountant told them eight months later that something was woefully amiss.

The Ewings, busy running two small businesses to make ends meet, were left wondering why their apparent debt to the bank kept climbing, even though they were making monthly principal repayments.

Their bank manager arranged a refund of just over $25,000 after accepting they were being charged too much, but it was not until this month that the ANZ recalculated its figures and admitted it owed them a further $2412 in compound interest.

And the agent for an Australian interest-checking software program, Chris Seagar, says the bank still owes the couple almost a further $3200 by his calculations.

Mr Ewing blames the bank's bungling for a decision to sell an investment property next to the couple's Oratia home, and wants it to restore them to the same financial position they were in two years ago.

"We were just shot to pieces," he said of their ordeal.

Mrs Ewing wonders if the bank would ever have owned up to the error had the couple not challenged it, and resents a suggestion by the ANZ that they should have done so sooner.

The bank denies the property sale was caused by its mistake, which it blames on human error compounded by a change in its accounting systems in mid-1999.

Mr Ewing acknowledges that the sale occurred a month after the bank accepted there had been a mistake, but says his wife was under so much stress she persuaded him to put the property on the market beforehand in a bid to reduce their loan by as much as possible.

ANZ spokeswoman Samantha Shaw said it was unfortunate the change in accounting systems meant the Ewings were not notified of the error as soon as it was detected, but insisted that the bank had done what it could to square things up with the couple.

She pointed to a decision by the ANZ to waive an early repayment fee of $2908 when the Ewings banked the proceeds of their property sale.

But Mr Ewing said it was the bank that had broken the fixed term of the contract anyway, through its overcharging, and his next move would be a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman.