File a complaint with Rabobank? Get free advice!

Questioner

I have had a bridging loan since 2008 for an expensive house that has still not been sold (despite a downward adjustment of the asking price). I can afford this. There are no arrears in any installment payments and never have been in the past 30 years in which Rabobank has financed my house. However, there has been a change of management at the bank that provided me with the loan. Since then, I have been treated extremely unfriendly and I feel treated as an unwilling non-paying customer with serious problems. I have no financial problems at all, but I do suffer a great deal from this bank. This starts with communication: it turns out that few to no notes are kept of conversations, which is only a minor problem because I have recorded a lot in writing. Nevertheless, my previously provided information always turns out to be completely unknown to a new person who is added to my file. So I have to start explaining things all over again. Then the needle gets stuck in the groove at Rabo and the same formal requirements are repeatedly imposed on the desired information, which sometimes it has been clear for a long time that I cannot possibly meet. I do provide information, but in such a case in an alternative way. Then I do not get the impression in any way that this information is used meaningfully and in the meantime I have the strong impression that my situation is being approached purely negatively. Files are apparently not read or understood and are not transferred from one department to another. Last year, a few months after the last contact, my file was transferred to the special management department in Eindhoven, from where again harsh letters followed and a summons to make contact. Since I think that contact once a year is enough, my last questions to the Rabobank in the spring to explain the positions they have taken were absolutely not answered to my satisfaction and I am a very busy person, I did not respond to that other than by telephone once with the advice to read my file carefully. My plan is to file a complaint with Rabobank about this way of acting. I am not a customer in arrears and do not want to be treated as such. My financing and income situation can be looked at in a normal advisory manner so that it can be determined that the situation is not ideal but bearable and does not require intervention (forcing a sale at a much lower price level). I also no longer want to deal with people from the local bank who treated me so mercilessly and unpleasantly earlier this year and who have pushed me to special management. Now I get a bill for management costs incurred (to the tune of 100 euros) with the addition that non-payment can be a reason for terminating financing. In my opinion, this is clearly blackmailing me. My financing cannot of course be transferred to another bank under the current circumstances. As far as I am concerned, this account is also undue: whatever they wanted to do at Rabobank - they do it there on their own initiative and not at my request or on my behalf. Rabobank cannot ask me for money for that, can it? Should I allow myself to be blackmailed in this way and forced into losses that Rabobank apparently wants me to take? I

Lawyer

What an annoying situation. You do not have to let yourself be blackmailed or forced to lose. Depending on the agreements made, the invoice for the management costs is unjustified. Furthermore, the financier has a duty of care that it must apply adequately without forcing customers to sell. I can assist you in this matter if desired. You can contact me directly and without obligation for consultation.