Westpac - Offset account

[tonyc00]

Hi

Hopefully someone will learn from my stupidity.

For many years I have thought that my Westpac savings account was an offset account linked to any one of my 8 IP accounts.

With 9 IP's I have always held a large balance of funds, eg $20k to meet the monthly payments but I was always thinking that the surplus funds were silently working as an offset to a loan account.

Imagine my surprise when I phoned to ask which loan account was the offset account. Answer none.

The Lesson - Check, check, check.

Of course, the matter took 30 seconds to rectify by the "nice" Westpac man but I don't know who to blame the most, the initial Mortage broker, me or Westpac.


Tony

 

[Rolf Latham]

tough one ...................but tony might have to wear some of this one

the broker cant link the accts and can only push u to do same.

The bank should ( could) have picked this up at some point during their review process, just as a general issue.

At some point you must have received interest on the savings acct ?


In passing, WBC now hassle for an offset account if the feature has been requested at settlement

ta

rolf

 

[alexlee]

With a sizeable offset balance, you should have had one loan that had disproportionately low interest payments.

Do you check your loan transactions?

 

[sash]

Yes...very important to check your loan statements...it will tell the amount of offset of interest.

 

[MFG]

Tough lesson. thanks for sharing

 

[Rags]

Hey Tony i done the exact same thing except it only took me just over 1 year to notice it was with Westpac as well. Once i informed them though they lodged a form and reimbursed me the amount owed as the account always came with a offset.(think it was called rocket something account).So if you haven't already done so i would be going and seeing if you can get anything reimbursed best of luck.

 

[buzzlightyear]

With WBC, if you have an active offset account, the loan statement loan will include all transactions from the account which is offsetting in the one statement.

If you are being sent two (2) statements ie separate transaction AND loan account statements, there is no offset in place.