Great Southern Bank home loans

First time customer with CUA with whom I successfully negotiated a new home loan. CUA was recommended to me by friend paralegal as one of the few banks she never had any issues with when it came to settlement and they did not disappoint. From start to finish CUA made the whole process as stress free as possible, my loans officer kept me updated and was always easy to contact, all phone conversations were with real people who were all friendly and helpful. Even with one contract termination and unreasonably short settlement date for eventual purchase CUA met all deadlines in ridiculously short time frame. Do not have one single negative comment to make.

CUA gives you a dedicated broker to manage your mortgage and accounts, which is a great and efficient service. They do however seem to be somewhat reluctant to pass on the latest rate cuts to their customers. It is great that they offer limited fees, but they need to be more competitive with interest rates.

Building on our children's property to the value of R500 000 +(a very large extension) we wanted to go on title on the property. I approached their mortgage broker on the 5th November 2020 to get this organised. Because they have a mortgage on the property CUA required us to be on the loan (all title holders have to be on the loan if there is a mortgage). We all had to apply for a new loan. This loan was not going to change at all i.e. my husband and I were not going to borrow any money from CUA, just use our own savings to build. They also required us to put money into the loan to get title even though we are going to add so much value to the property - in fact more than the percentage we are asking for. Well we are still waiting. 3 months and 6 days have passed. We still don't have title to the property. I have done everything they have asked - filled in all their forms, paid in the money. Our build was postponed as we need to be on title to build. We are probably incurring delay costs. This is just unbelievable!!!. We require nothing from CUA and yet they are pushing us around to such an extent. At one point they even asked for all our savings so that they could control the build (i.e. the invoicing and receipting) They wanted all of our savings! As said above, we are not borrowing a cent from them and the control they want over us is just unwarranted!

OMG! Where should I start- don't touch them! We transferred our investment loan to them Because they didn't charge extra for investment loans and assured us that there weren't plans to change that even though the company we were with and most other companies had- well that lasted long enough to get the loan set up then- you guessed it they changed. We moved from a variable account to a one year fixed term with no charges but when the year was up there were charges no matter we decided to do- fixed term again or variable they wanted to charge hundreds to 'set it up'. Trying to speak to someone is a nightmare - if you don't have at least half an hour to spare for them to actually answer the call don't even bother trying! Then we decided we'd had enough of extra charges and poor customer service and decided to look elsewhere- our new loan is 2% less! saving us thousands, but they struck again! The signed loan contract stated that the discharge fee would be $200- no .... they changed it to $500!!!Apparently a signed contract doesn't mean a thing- they can charge whatever they like- Even the big banks only charge $250! What a rip off! Stay clear!

First time I have dealt with this bank. Absolutely awful - We are just trying to go on title on a house already owned by our daughter and son-in-law. Purchasing 40% of the house. I would have thought we could just put 40% of the purchase price into the loan and buy 40% title that way + stamp duty and legal fees. We are building on the property so I would have thought we could just draw the money out through the building stages as we build and add value. The build is going to cost a lot more than what we will be putting into the loan so a lot of extra money is going into the property. We have absolutely no debt on houses, cars or cards and yet it has taken over 2.5 months so far for them to process this, delaying our build and my frustration knows no bounds. They keep saying it is an extremely complex transaction. I don't see that it is. Just see them as incredibly inefficient and useless. Don't use them if you can avoid them.