Suncorp requires “Power of Attorney to an Australian Solicitor” when dealign with expats....

Im looking to refix a loan that's gone variable with St George and have been dealing with Suncorp with the view to locking in a P+I, IP, 5 year fixed


I sent a question to Suncorp about a section on their application docs

"Can you please explain further what is involved with the “Power of Attorney to an Australian Solicitor”, ive never needed to do this with either of my existing loans to St George or Westpac. Why would I need this? What purpose would this serve?"



Their response was

"Thanks for getting in touch with us.
The reason for the Power of Attorney is so we have a legal representative located within Australia that we can serve notices to if needed.
As we only operate and offer finance within Australia, this is a condition of the loan contract and it is required to be a Solicitor.
Regards,
Jacob"


My response is

"Thanks, but seems an unnecessary expense that I would incur each year that I don't need to meet using my current lenders St George and Westpac (for our existing Australian IP loans).
But wish you the best in dealing with expats, feel free to get back in touch if the situation changes."


Am I being unrealistic? Im assuming someone thought this was a good practise and it's been that way ever since because people don't push back against this ridiculous requirement.

Thoughts?

 

Expat borrowing is rarely straight forward and easy - particularly when it comes to second tier and smaller lenders. There’s always a few more hoops to jump through.

It’s unlikely they’ll waive their requirements.

Cheers

Jamie

 

Their legal department has made a ruling, reasonable or not. They're not going to change their mind.

Given it's Suncorp and you're an expat, you're probably lucky to have gotten this far.

 

Suncorp don't have the best non resident/expat lending policy.

Max LVR is 70% and they want all lending to be serviced by income derived in Australia (a bit rare for someone living in say the US and earning AUD).

They also shade the converted income harshly @ 70% which will kill most deals considering their servicing calculator is already one of the most conservative.

There are other lenders such as ANZ with much better expat lending policy that Suncorp.

Also the PoA is a common requirement for most of the 2nd tier lenders and the reason he has given you is correct.

 

We have the same 70% LVR and 70% income limit already with St George/Westpac (we are way way under both issues as very conservative investors and are pretty much cash flow neutral).

Like I said - just looking for the cheapest 5 year P+I, IP fixed loan to refi our St George loan that has now gone variable as they no longer have what I consider a fair variable rate.

I guess I can let Suncorp know that we don't consider this a reasonable requirement to impose on expats due to annual costs and look elsewhere. Its silly really.

 

I would ensure that the lender orders an upfront valuation before you move anywhere as we are finding Sydney metro full valuations coming back very low.

As for lenders sounds like you need to be looking at CBA and ANZ - they won't hammer you on the rate the way WBC/STG does for non residents and they dont have any of the silly restrictions.

 

Our LVR is very low for this property so that's not a concern for us (we are very conservative borrowers running pretty much cash flow neutral on our Sydney IP's).

 

You will run into a similar issue with Mac bank. They also require a POA, it is a one-off cost.