Weeding now homeless
A DEPRESSED Greg Weeding was roughing it in a shipping container last night after being evicted from his Rockhampton home yesterday morning.
Mr Weeding was the victim of an unscrupulous money broker who secured him almost $1 million, setting him on a path to financial ruin.
A spokesperson for Mr Weeding said despite having unconditional contracts for the sale of two properties, the bank still foreclosed on all three of Mr Weeding's properties yesterday.
"The bank hasn't even got back to us with the decency to say they are or aren't accepting the contract.
"They haven't even acknowledged it," the spokesperson said.
She said that after selling two properties, Mr Weeding would still have owed the bank $300,000. About $100,000 of that was believed to be for fees, charges and penalty rates.
"If they'd let him refinance based on his own home and two businesses, he could get out of trouble, keep his businesses and stay out of bankruptcy," she said.
David Breen, head of corporate affairs for ING Direct, said eviction was always a last resort.
"It comes after a long process where every matter was sought to be resolved first.
"In this case, there is no genuine offer on the properties," he said yesterday. For privacy reasons Mr Breen was unable to comment on Mr Weeding's case.
"I can't answer your question without going into detail about the case and I simply can't do that.
"But there is no genuine offer," he said.
However, the Morning Bulletin now has emails which confirm an unconditional contract of sale to settle on August 17.
At the time of receiving the contracts last night, the purchaser and Mr Breen were unable to be contacted.
Mr Weeding believes the length of settlement, 90 days, was the problem for the bank.
"I've got $20 left to my name," he said last night. The man who originally arranged Mr Weeding's loans has since died.
He was not connected in any way to ING Direct.
Your Mortgage
A survey released yesterday found that almost one third of Australians with mortgages have no idea what interest rate they pay.
The savings between 7% and 6% on a $300,000 mortgage is about $197 a month.
Source: Aussie Home Loans
