“
Took up a bank loan back in 2011 where the terms are
0.7% + 3 mths sibor perpetually. The bank just recently "notify" me
that going forward, the rate will be 0.85% + 3 mths sibor instead.
Do check your loan carefully. The banks seems to be
pulling a stunt on borrowers.
The Tnc as follows (I cut down on some unnecessary
wordings which has no impact)
(d)
Contractual period 1 (for 1st year from date of
disbursement) - 3 mths Sibor + 0.7%
Contractual period 2 (Thereafter) - 3 mths Sibor +
0.7%
(e) The minimum effective interest rate whall be 0.8%
p.a.. Interest rates are all subject to review and may be adjusted from time to
time depending on prevailing market conditions. The bank will not be giving
advance notices to the Borrower for any changes in the interest rate
They are saying that even if they decide to change the
spread to 10% or even 100% tomorrow, they can still do it.
Edit: Will be writing in to MAS and ABS on this
matter. For those affected person, please PM me and see how we can submit a
joint petition letter. In particular, on clause (e):
It is interesting to note that the second sentence
"Interest rates are all subject to review and may be adjusted from time to
time depending on prevailing market conditions." does not refer to
Citibank at all. Thus, reading strictly by the rule, Citibank does not have the
right to change the interest rate. The interest rate that will be changed is
referring to Sibor.
Please see the images on the flyer and the loan
agreement. there are other supporting documents which I will not be uploading
at this point of time.
“
The
housing/mortgage loan in question appears to be “Citibank Home Saver” which is
a SIBOR-pegged loan with fixed spread of 0.65% or 0.70% (as in above scanned
page).
“
“Quote Originally Posted by MortgageGuru
borrowers can only blame itself for signing the loan
with them when they took up the loan back then.
I'm sorry but you are wrong here. “
You still do not get it: all banks' T&C have
rights that allow them to change all rates, whatever the main doc says.
The diff thus far is, only Citibank actually is doing
it now.
This practice alone must be condemned. and the public
must be educated that banks T&C indeed allow them to do whatever they want.
what teddybear is championing, and I agree, is to
force MAS to impose ABS to stop such unfair terms.
"blame yourself for signing the loan" ?
There is no option to customers today. At most you say "blame yourself for
trusting Citibank".
You are a mortgage broker. You do represent Citi too,
do you ? Imagine one day your client tell you "how come you sold me this
fixed rate mortgage 2yrs ago now bank say it can change the rate now", and
you say "blame yourself for signing the loan" ?
You did not see the severity of this situation. This
is a precedence that should really be prominently flashed out and stopped.
“
“
Wah, such general overtly one-sided unfair clause that
allows the bank the right to do anything single-sided unilaterally, that I
think Singapore is the only so-called developed country where the monetary
authority allows the bank to insert such clause in their so-called Terms &
Conditions (that their clients don't even sign and agreed to) and then enforce
them on their clients!
Asking their clients to accept such unfair treatment
to the total disregard that the mortgage loan agreement (the actual agreement
signed by both parties) clearly states "SIBOR + 0.70%" and then the
bank can change the "0.70%" to any figure they like really makes a
fool of Singaporeans!
It is time that Singaporeans wish up to such unfair
treatment by bullying companies like these banks, and to think that Singapore
only has their CPFTA only not too long ago, and it makes a mockery that no
government agency even bothers to look into such clearly disregard of
CPFTA!!!!!!!!!!!!
And you analogy doesn't even make sense! Don't
understand what you mean by "you go into other people's premises, please
don't deem yourself as having the rights of anything."???
We are talking about a contract, where almost every
bank tried to insert the same aggressively 1-sided clause vaguely, and then
point to the clause to say they have the right to do anything anyhow they like
(based on their own interpretation)???
“
“
You raised a very good example about property rental.
Imagine you are the landlord granting renting out the
property (like the bank granting the loan), both of you sign a contract, and
you only want a contract where you could insert a clause saying that "This
tenancy is for 2 fixed years,...,.....the landlord reserves the absolute right
to adjust the rental per month from time to time, depending on prevailing
market conditions....."????
And what choice you are talking about when all banks
are resorting to bullying tactic and put the same clauses in the contract? Fair
clauses? CPFTA for what? The banks loan contracts/T&Cs violates the
following regulations in CPFTA:
* Taking advantage of a consumer by including in an
agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive or excessively
one-sided so as to be unconscionable.
“
“
I will rally all Singaporean consumers to be aware of
such unfair and oppressive clauses in mortgage loan contract, Citibank
UNILATERALLY changing the spread by invoking those unfair oppressive clause,
and that they should not VOTE FOR PAP if the MAS / CASE currently under them is
NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT CONSUMERS LIKE US! Simple as that,
understand????
And by the way, you as a mortgage broker, is your
fudiciary duty towards the banks you represent or towards the clients you
introduce to the banks?
Seems like you have no regard to the oppression of
your clients by the banks? Is that because it is the banks that pay you
commissions and not your clients?
“
And
more scorns on Citibank:
“
But actually, it is not because the bank's loan
clients know about it, it is because the contract is written in such as way as
to MISLEAD their clients, and so VAGUELY so as not raise to their clients
attention, until the Citibank issue now then we knew about it! In all my life,
I never knew that banks can unilaterally change the interest rate figure
already agreed upon, because NO bank has started such precedence before, until
Citibank now!
Let me challenge Citibank:
If they want to change the spread UNILATERALLY, then
they should not mislead their clients, they should just write:
Effective Interest Rate:
Year 3 and thereafter: SIBOR + spread to be determined
by the bank who has the absolute right to adjust from time to time depending on
prevailing market conditions.
Don't try to write:
Year 3 and thereafter: SIBOR + 0.70%
to mislead people if they are going to change that
"0.70%" to any value they like!
“
“
Like I told you, I feel that Citibank's mortgage loan
agreement (the main agreement signed by both parties) NEVER explicitly state
that they have the right to change the spread!
Let's not argue for the sake of arguing, let's refer
to the Citibank's loan agreement:
The contract contains the following (cut out
unnecessary wordings which has no impact):
"
(d) Contractual period 1 (for 1st year from date of
disbursement) - 3 mths Sibor + 0.7%
Contractual period 2 (Thereafter) - 3 mths Sibor +
0.7%
(e) The minimum effective interest rate shall be 0.8%
p.a.. Interest rates are all subject to review and may be adjusted from time to
time depending on prevailing market conditions. The bank will not be giving
advance notices to the Borrower for any changes in the interest rate.
"
When I read the above, my interpretation of
"Interest rates are all subject to review and may be adjusted from time to
time depending on prevailing market conditions" is that since Interest
rate = 3mth Sibor + 0.7%, Citibank is just referring to the adjustment is for
3mth Sibor, because "0.7%" is a fixed figure. If they really want to
change "0.7%", then the contract should write as:
"Contractual period 2 (Thereafter) - 3mths Sibor
+ spread to be determined solely at the discretion of the bank and to be
adjusted from time to time depending on prevailing market conditions."
See, Citibank is just playing with words now and
attempting to mislead, and what I said make more sense than what they tried to
force you people to accept,..........
Unless they are saying that they are enforcing based
on those small font clauses in their Terms & Conditions document, but heh,
those cannot stand up to scrutiny because we never sign the T&C document,
not to mention those clauses that are oppressively 1-sided!
“
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