Victorian Borrowers Association Protest Rally

The Victorian Borrowers Association (VBA) will hold a Protest Rally on Wednesday, 29 September, at 11.00 am sharp, at the Department of Human Services, 555 Collins Street, Melbourne, before proceeding to Parliament House.

The protest concerns some 30,000 State Government Home Loans sold in Victoria since 1984. They are known under a variety of names: CAPIL (Capital Indexed Loan Scheme), HOLS (Home Opportunity Loan Scheme), IRL (Index Repayment Scheme), DIS (Deferred Interest Scheme) and SHOS (Shared Home Ownership Scheme).

The Home Finance Department ceased selling these loans in June 1996 as they did not meet the standards of the new Credit Act that came into force in November 1996. Such loans are no longer legal under the new credit laws and the VBA believes they should never have been given in the first place.

Dianne Cowling, Secretary and Spokesperson for the VBA, states:

‘One of the main flaws in the loans is the capitalising interest charge. Predominantly the interest rate is linked to the CPI, but this is not clearly explained to the borrowers. Low-income people are charged an increasing percentage of their income in repayments, but the repayments do not cover the interest charged to their account. The gap between the repayments and the interest charged is added to the body of the loan. The borrower pays interest on the interest in an ever-increasing upward spiral.’

   To read PDF files download the Reader from the Adobe web site.
Send web site comments to Webmaster@GeelongCatholics.org   Last modified: December 29, 2006