Sheril Morris - Victim of La Trobe Financial

Bank Story Overview: 

How wide does the Royal Commission need to go?

Sheril Morris (SM) – La Trobe Financial

Summary

• Marriage breakdown, Loss of a family member, house loan fell into arrears.
• Bailiff visits the property with documents saying vacate the property by 18/10/14
• Contacted a motel developer (previously interested) he agreed to buy the land for $250K
• 10/10/14 contract is ready to sign but dropped to $230K take it or leave it
• An issue with the contract was raised by La Trobe, so it was not signed by SM.
• Property auctioned 14/2/15 to the same motel developer for $110K – a shortfall of $168K

Issues that arose

• La Trobe organised valuers whose valued property at $80K, well under the unimproved value of $136K
• Issues of conflict of interest with the real estate agent, La Trobe is getting the sale price down when an agreed price ($250K) was already arranged

Outcome

• SM complains to Ombudsman who deems La Trobe not liable for loss, and they offer to not pursue the remaining debt if SM signs an agreement not to pursue the complaint.
• SM refuses and counter claims compensation.

Further issues

• La Trobe charged 35% interest on arrears when they said it was 3%
• La Trobe takes default judgement and applies the legal cost to loan when a default judgement was already put in place by Coastal and Hinterland and was still valid
• The default notice was fraudulent
• Statement of claim should have been served on the sole owner of the property but was not.
• Overcharging of interest because La Trobe did not apply the court ordered interest rate from judgement
• Overcharging of Legal fees by La Trobe (which led SM to seek a sale to attempt to try to protect themselves)
• La Trobe created a shortfall of $4531.22 on the payout, which allowed them to stop the sale going through.