Ten ways to turn farm debt into farm profit Hint No 7 – Watch and record the bank

Watch and record for future reference anything the bank does that you think is not in your interest  or is unfair. When offering home loans banks are usually very helpful. That is often the high point in the relationship. After that, once it has security rights to sell your property if you do not obey loan terms, the lender is in the box seat.

It is not unusual for conflicts to arise. Risk management in banks is no longer handled at local branches and in fact may be handled Interstate or overseas. Therefore the person in charge of collecting regular payments, if in fact there is any person involved rather than a computer, may not have any idea of changed circumstances affecting your farm. A computer certainly will not!

Even if they are in your capital city they still may have no idea of weather events, government policy or commodity price changes that could affect your ability to manage the debt. When GBAC advisory handles loan applications for clients we try to ensure that in the loan document the farmer has covered most eventualities.

If serious problems or differences of opinion arise between you and the bank and you want an advocate like GBAC to arrange a favourable settlement with the bank for you so that you can refinance your loan elsewhere, we need to know all that the bank has done wrong. Then it will talk turkey. What often happens is that the bank has detailed records of everything the borrower and the bank have done throughout the loan, whilst the borrower has no records at all.

Keep a loan diary from the time you accept the loan to the time you clear it and claim your title deeds back.

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