FNB: Thank Us Later For Denying You A Bond And Losing Your Deposit

If you put down a deposit on a property and FNB reassessed your loan and denied you your bond causing you to lose your deposit, FNB says that you should thank them because in actual fact you probably were going to lose a lot more money later on:

Some home buyers could lose deposits

Kleynhans said it was possible some customers might lose their deposits on houses if they did not get the bond.

But, he said, the loss of a R30 000 or R50 000 deposit might "in the grand scheme of things" be better for the applicant than a much bigger loss if the client could not service the bond.

It was possible that if the customer was later forced to sell the property he could find himself with a shortfall of R200 000.

Let's say that R50 000 was a 10% deposit. That means the selling price was R500 000. If there's a shortfall of R200 000 then FNB are seeing a 40% nominal drop in house prices. Ouch.