Bank check for construction financing loans! Hammer fees in divorce

When a married couple who owns property together gets divorced, the financing agreements often need to be changed.

In practice, three common variants can be observed:

• An ex-partner takes over the shared home and the previous co-debtor withdraws from the contract. In banking jargon, this is known as “discharge of a debtor’s liability”.
• So far, one of the two former partners has financed the home alone. In the future, the other person should take over. To do this, the bank must rewrite the loan agreement to the new debtor.
• The home is sold, but one of the borrowers purchases a new property immediately afterwards. If the current loan agreement is to be continued, a change to the mortgaged property is necessary because the land charges have to be exchanged.

In a sample, the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center wanted to know from twelve banks what fees they collect in these three cases. Annoyingly, however, some providers apparently did not want their fees published. DZ Hyp, which, as a nationwide real estate financier for cooperative banks, has its loans brokered primarily by Volks- and Raiffeisenbanks, completely failed in the survey.

Postbank and Dortmunder Volksbank, on the other hand, remained in the dark: the “workload” determined the amount of the fee. As a guideline, customers of the Dortmund Institute should expect to pay “at least 100 euros”.

But the banks that were willing to provide information also caused astonishment: only in one case was one of the three services in question available for less than 100 euros. The cashier's desires could often only be satisfied with four-figure amounts. Ranges that suggest a landlord-style pricing policy.

Nasty fee trap

An example of this was the “release of liability of a debtor” at Sparkasse Rheine. Anyone who still had a lot of remaining debt on the loan could fall into a nasty fee trap. 0.5 percent of the loan amount, but at least 150 euros, was due. With a loan balance of 250,000 euros, this results in a fee of a horrendous 1,250 euros.

The Sparkasse Köln-Bonn demanded at least 400 euros for the dismissal, Santander demanded 500 euros. The cheapest were DKB, ING and Sparda West, who unanimously charged 250 euros for the service.

For the majority of institutions, it often became twice or three times more expensive if the loan had to be completely transferred to another borrower. The PSD Westfalen-Lippe offered the cheapest fixed price at 700 euros. Sparda West, Santander, ING, DKB and Commerzbank followed with 750 euros. The Sparkasse Köln-Bonn used a “minimum price” of 560 euros.

Sparkasse Rheine also activated its fee trap for the release of liability during the transfer . Here too, the 0.5 percent could lead to a four-digit euro explosion with higher loan amounts.

With so much chutzpah, it is surprising that the Rhine-based company carried out the exchange of the mortgaged property free of charge - as the only institute in the test field. The majority here was once again around 750 euros. The infamous front runners were Santander (1000 euros) and Commerzbank (1200).

Such seemingly arbitrary fees suggest that before taking out construction financing, you should not only compare the amount of interest, but also the fees for changes to the loan agreement. If banks, as in the consumption center check, conceal the rates for such special services in the price list, only targeted inquiries will help. If two institutions offer identical interest rates, preference should be given to the lender that receives less if the loan agreement is changed later.

Please note that the message reflects the situation at the time of publication.