Glimmer of hope for a STORM victim.

Mrs Fish's friend (aged widow) is in deep trouble with Storm Financial but the bank has offered her (and some others, apparently) "hardship" relief.

She has equity in her home (I assume that matters) so they are allowing her to stay in it till she dies or goes into an aged care facility, at which time she can sell it and keep her equity. This is not a "reverse mortgage" and there is definitely some concession to normal lending practice and one of the conditions is that she does not join a Slatter & Gordon suit.

I'm getting this 2nd hand and I'm not sure about what, if any, interest is accruing or payments need to be made along the way. This does not sound like a one-off settlement of a law suit but rather, a policy option which exists but they prefer to keep secret. Comm Bank is in major damage control. :D

Does anyone know of this policy and be able to fill out some details?

And what would be the actuarial life expectancy of a 73yr old woman?
 
Trying to cut the lawyers out which I can fully understand why. As to whether its a good deal, its up to your wife's friend to decide. She will never get all her money or equity back. At the end of the day the market robbed these poor people of their life savings and the Slater and Gordons of the world will only go after the big boys who have survived all this. The big banks have the deep pockets so rightly or wrongly they will get sued. I am not directly affected by this but at the end of the day, insurance premiums go up, settlement costs are inherently passed on one indirectly so the community suffers simply because non-financial savvy people rely on so called experts rather than taking some responsibility themselves. Finance 101 is very simple. Risk = Reward. Stick by that and you can't go wrong.
 
hi
glimmer all that glitters is not gold.
for me she should do nothing without getting her own legal advice
I am a bush lawyer so no legal training but from my view of storm the barrrels of my double barrel shot gun is aimed squarely at the lender.
why at 73 who and why did they lend
where is the due care
this whole problem has more hairs on it then a caterpiler.
for me a lender has to know the borrower can cover the loan.
what ever the paperwork tey receive they have to make sure the borrower can pay or cover the loan its that simple for me.
so cba is doing the old
heres a few glass beeds for your land and by the way sign off that you wont find out and sue.
the banks are trying and good on them to get out of this the cheapest way possible.
for me I think it will be a very hard push of s--t up hill to say that the loans were effective from the start.
and if the banks were not to blame the legals advicing were
if I was the 73 year old I would not take the beeds at all.
it would be simply I should not have been given this debt your broker, rep, agent what ever sold me a pup and thats your problem
for me not to join slater thats fine right off the debt total and I will walk away
now I am going into a meeting tomorrow with a barrister not for a storm problem but a funder that stopped funding and thats the offer to that bank.
if the problem was not the clients problem and for me storms problem is not the clients
then whos problem is it
the lender
as he has to get his money back.
adn if he should not have lent in the first place and tell me a lender that lends to a 73 year old etc without checking and if they did without checking storm they have a big problem.
yes people will say that people must take resposability for there actions
thats true but so must lenders
if you lend to anyone for any reason for anything with limited or at worst no protection the chickens come home to roost.
I would go the other way
tell this crowd that the 73yr old has paid her own legal 5k to negotiate a deal and thats to walk away( and pay a legal to get a deal)(could be 10k and cba pay there fees).
after the 5k is gone she is signing with slater in the class action and will not change that position.
we are talking a game of chess here
and thats what this is.
with bnks its chess yes high powered chess but chess and good players win bad players start again.
these guys don't even want to play they say we will reverse mortgage and when you die we will fight it out in the will
and no cross claim give me a break.
not only that
remember without a funder or bank there would not have been a storm problem.
storm had no money
it was all borrowed and invested in storm and required borrowing to survive.
( but thats not unusual)
cba is trying to be pilot washing there hands of the issue.
well for me sorry boys good try but throw them a pencil and a sharpener and lets do a deal for me.
I do think they are in damage control because I think they have alot more questions then they can answer.
not that they have answer for but that they can answer.
becuase they let someone or some group do lending that simply should not have been done.
and for me I just can't understand what credit was doing
15 bottles of scotch each would not have allowed a person on the dole to borrow 2.5 mil
a guy on 35k per year to borrow 1.5mil
etc
so I don't think they won't answer the questions I think they can't.
and you can't fight a legal case if you don't have the answers.
so for me
the cba
look out boys and get out of this quick before the egg is thrown and lands on alot of faces
oh and no have nothing to do with storm, cba or the borrrowers this is a side line view
 
Here here grossreal. Exceptional food for thought.

I too cannot imagine the bank just hanging in there waiting for this lady to die before they can profit or recoup. There is definately more to this story.;)

My experiences with banks recently has taught me there is no such thing as common sense within a bank if there is nothing in it for the bank.

Banks WILL cut off their noses to spite their faces.

If they are cutting lifelines to multi-million dollar developers why would they worry about some little old woman?

As I said, there must be more to this story,

Regards Jo
 
There's a little more about it in today's paper:

TONY RAGGATT

March 11th, 2009

CLIENTS in Storm Financial have slammed the actions of the Commonwealth Bank as `rotten to the core' as it moves to provide financial relief to victims in return for agreements they not pursue the bank in court.

Lawyer Damian Scattini, who is acting for more than 1000 Storm clients left devastated by the sharemarket rout, described the bank's officers who are now contacting people at their homes as `wandering minstrels'.

He said the clients were `desperate people' and included hundreds who faced the risk of losing their homes and yet the bank was pressuring them to sign agreements within seven days releasing the bank of all liabilities.

"These wandering minstrels from the bank are saying, we are here to help, well I don't think so, we've been down this path," he said.

The whole article is here:

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2009/03/11/43755_business.html

And thanks for your thoughtful comments ASDF:
I am not directly affected by this but at the end of the day, insurance premiums go up, settlement costs are inherently passed on one indirectly so the community suffers simply because non-financial savvy people rely on so called experts rather than taking some responsibility themselves.

Am I to understand that just because you read a property forum which still has, as it's underlying tenet, "Property doubles every 7 to 10 years!" you are so much smarter than someone who believed that "The stock market doubles every 7 to 10 years!". Have you stress tested your investment plan? That is a real stress test, not just "little or no gain for a few years" scenario. What if NR is right?
 
hi all
just read a snipit on the email from the syd herald
and looks like even the comm bank is using the nero excuse
and
we wash our hands of storm
its all there fault not ours
and we have nothing to do with this
our team is trying to assist.
team
what team
if I had nothing to do with some thing
you ring me up and say gross its all your problem this
and I say it nothing to do with me its him over there.
do I then organise a team
a team is not something that is organised quickly unless
you have a problem
and reading slaters response is very interesting.

our court system is a legal system not a justice system and anyone that thinks its a justice system need to go thru it sometime.
trying to get little old ladys to sign off on stuff is fraught with danger.
there is a very funny saying, message or post from a very interesting person that posts on the net
he does not post here I think
but its well known and should be shouted to these people each time you see one
to see one they are the ones with the drawn faces in townsville
and the saying is this
and I will parra phrase as I might get it wrong
DON'T SIGN ANYTHING.
now guess who that is and he has a couple of real estate books out
if you need a clue:D
 
hi asdf
sorry to say some thing here but your idea of sticking to anything and you won't go wrong
does not work if you are in a pool of sharks
the sharks work out how to attack and a shark does not attack head on it takes you from behind
it circles and cirles until it sees the moment and attacks
and thats what this is.
these sharks used paper work to circle
the used pens in stead of teeth
and they ued the financial market instead of a pool
but the theory is the same
now if you can give me a safe way of swimming in that market.
you are doing a hell of a better thing then I ever could.
you can try to protect yourself with knowledge and we all do that but that the same as being in a shark pool with a knife you can protect yourself you can't protect everyone.
and these sharks look for the frail, the inferm, the old, and sorry the dumb,
now you can say well that there problem I got my knife I will survive
that again is true.
but there is one small thing that I belive and not eveyone on this rock does and thou I don't agree I accept
we have a duty to protect those from the sharks
and our sharks don't swim in the sea they are land sharks and they wear suits as I do.
and they are in banks and financial intitutions
as well as corporates
and again sorry to say
I don't have any protection but knowledge.
so if you can organise some sort of land shark detection system I'm the first customer.
and just in case you want to try to detect a shark.
hes the one smiling and showing lots of teeth just like a water shark
and the difference between the two types
the land shark does not bite and swim away he bites and bites and bites and will try to let you live and comes back and bites again he will swallow whole and has alot bigger apertite then any sea shark I know.
they are preditors and they are out there
so as they say in the movies
beware
 
And what would be the actuarial life expectancy of a 73yr old woman?

Using my trusty actuarial book of Formulae and Tables:

ELT15(Females): complete life expectaction of 73 yr old woman = 12.476 yrs

(figure based on the mortality of the population of England and Wales during the years 1990/91/92)
 
Using my trusty actuarial book of Formulae and Tables:

ELT15(Females): complete life expectaction of 73 yr old woman = 12.476 yrs

(figure based on the mortality of the population of England and Wales during the years 1990/91/92)

Thanks. That was what I was looking for. :)
 
No probs. There is one other table, PFA92C20, based on the mortality of pensioners insured by UK life offices during 91-94 (inclusive). The complete expectation of life is 16.03 for a 73 yo female. I can only speculate that it's higher because people who can afford to take out life insurance may have better living standards & therefore live longer, etc etc.
 
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