2015 - 2016

Lending

Property lending

Mrs J complained about her bank allowing her ex-husband to take out a loan in joint names and open an account in her company’s name without her permission when they were still together.

They had a home loan secured by a jointly owned property. Mrs J was also the sole director of a company, XYZ Ltd. Unknown to Mrs J, her husband had applied for and was granted a further $30,000 joint loan, and may have forged her signature to get it.

Mrs J had become unwell and Mr J took over XYZ Ltd’s finances, at which point it appeared Mr J had been allowed to open and operate a company account with Mrs J listed as a sole signatory without her knowledge or consent.

Mr and Mrs J sold their property and repaid their home loan, including the $30,000 loan. They later separated and their relationship property was divided.  It was after the separation that Mrs J complained.

The bank investigated Mrs J’s complaint and agreed her ex-husband shouldn’t have been able to take out the new joint loan or open another business account without her knowledge.  But it did not consider she had suffered a direct financial loss because the funds had benefited her and XYZ Ltd.

When Mrs J brought the complaint to us, we looked at whether she had suffered loss and inconvenience because of the bank’s actions. We found Mrs J knew about the loan by the time the property was sold and it appeared most of the surplus sale proceeds were invested into XYZ Ltd. It also appeared the additional loan was taken into consideration when dividing the couple’s property. Therefore, we didn’t think Mrs J had suffered a direct financial loss from Mr J taking out the loan.

However, we did think she may have suffered a loss from the unauthorised opening and operation of the company account. The bank demonstrated that some of the payments made from it were legitimate business expenses, but approximately $9,000 was unaccounted for. The bank agreed to compensate Mrs J for the $9,000 as direct financial loss and a further $7,500 for inconvenience and costs incurred.  The case was closed on this basis.