Kim Anderson-Robb explains why a loan to renovate her house was turned down. Video / Otago Daily Times
A Dunedin woman who hit headlines across the globe after being declined a mortgage over Christmas shopping at Kmart can finally sleep easy.
After three long years, Kim Anderson-Robb says she has finally got her bank to approve an extension of her mortgage so she can replace the dangerous old wiring in her house.
Last year, the Dunedin woman’s story went viral after her bank refused to give her a loan because of a $187 Christmas shop at Kmart and her husband’s stops at the dairy to buy a drink before work.
She was one of many people to blame the Government’s changes to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act for a bank crackdown on approving loans.
“I was stopped because I went to Kmart and The Warehouse to do Christmas shopping and because of my husband buying a drink and a sandwich on the way to work.
Kim Anderson-Robb was perplexed after she and her husband were turned down for a loan to renovate their house. Photo / Gerard O'Brien, File
Three reapplications later the bank finally approved Anderson-Robb’s loan.
“My house is now fully rewired and I have a brand new deck that is safe and secure after my daughter and I have fallen through it I don’t know how many times last winter.
“I actually managed to win the fight. Yes, I didn’t get my bathroom done which urgently needs to get done, but that’s okay, that’s fine. I’m quite okay with that.”
Anderson-Robb’s advice to home loan seekers was to be really “scroogey”.
“Just really knuckle down on what you’re spending out of your bank for three months and then go reapply because they only go back three months.
Kim Anderson-Robb overcame the obstacles caused by changes to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. Photo / Linda Robertson, Otago Daily Times
“Don’t go out for takeaways, do your home-cooked takeaways, do fish and chips in the oven.”
The response to Anderson-Robb’s story — which was picked up by the Daily Mail after first being published by the Otago Daily Times — came from near and far.
“You would literally have tears reading people’s messages and people telling their stories and how they were so proud of me for coming forward and doing an interview with the newspaper and stating what was going on,” Anderson-Robb said.
The story made the Government sit up and take notice, she said.
In March last year, two months after her story broke, then Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark announced that “practical amendments” would be made to the Contracts and Consumer Finance Act after he fast-tracked an investigation by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
