ADCB client 'forced to make extra payment'

PRAVEEN Mehta, an investor says that she had taken a mortgage loan from Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), but during the process, several hidden charges were included due to which she had to pay Dh13,500 extra, other than spending a good amount of time and experiencing harassment from the bank.

By (Complaints corner)

Published: Sat 27 May 2006, 10:42 AM

Last updated: Sat 4 Apr 2015, 1:52 PM

The bank denies the charges, and points out that all procedures of the bank are made clear to any customer before any procedures are carried out.

Praveen alleges: "They planned it so well that I had no choice to go to their competitors and other better alternatives."

According to Praveen, she had bought a property in Dubai for which she needed a loan from ADCB. She accused the bank of not having specific rules and costs involved in the whole process of acquiring a mortgage loan and for this she had to pay Dh500 as evaluation fee.

She also said that she was asked to undergo a medical check-up for the purpose of insurance for which she had to pay Dh1,500. She also accused the bank of asking her to sign a form that included handing over rights of all her property to the bank. She said that they placed it all on the legal aspects.

Praveen also said that then she was told to register the bank's mortgage with the developer which cost her another Dh3,000. She complied hoping that the loan would be disbursed to her then, but she got a shock when she was informed that her original approval had expired and could only be renewed for Dh500. After a total spending of Dh13,500, including cheques worth Dh8,000, she finally got the loan.

Reply

KATE Dickens, Service Quality Manager ADCB, said: "The bank has a defined process for mortgage loan applications and all fees are transparent and in line with the market. All fees are clearly communicated to the customer before initiating any application for which ADCB charges Dh500 as pre-approval process."

According to Dickens, undergoing a medical examination for insurance is a standard international practice and any fees are paid directly to the clinic and not the bank. Exhibit B is a standard form that all buyers within the UAE are asked to complete. This assigns the property to the bank in case of default, but the whole property cannot be kept by the bank and after recovering the debt the balance will be paid to the mortgage holder.

Dickens said that registering the bank's mortgage with the developer is a standard practice within the UAE and the fees are determined by the developer, not the bank. The expiry of the original approval is 90 days and not 30 as the customer claims.

She also clarified that this particular application took over six months to process because the customer extended the loan term from 15 to 25 years and the delay in submission of requisite documentation resulted in a new offer being required.

Do fine us, but first provide parking areas

AN ABU Dhabi resident complained that though the civic bodies do not provide parking facilities, the traffic police fines those who are compelled to park their vehicles wrongly. "Abu Dhabi Municipality does not provide us with parking spaces but fines us. Is this a solution to the problem? They should make enough parking spaces, and only then they can fine us."

Reply

ACCORDING to an official, the Abu Dhabi Municipality is currently managing six parking facilities which can accommodate 2,500 cars, in addition to another new 3,000 spaces for vehicles under the Corniche project. This is in addition to parking spaces in residential areas. Plans are afoot to establish new parking lots near the Capital Park.

Statistics show that increase in the auto parking in Abu Dhabi is estimated between 15 to 25 per cent; and areas allocated for roads and surface parking at downtown constitute 41 per cent of the total area and 17 per cent of that of the Abu Dhabi Island, said the official, adding that the motorists are reluctant to use these facilities.

Annual increase in the number of public and private vehicles hitting the roads which stands at 5.2 per cent was specified as one of the main reasons behind traffic woes in the capital's commercial district.

Figures pointed to the substantial rise of 12.5 per cent in the number of vehicles over the past five years, jumping from 25,762 in 2,000 to 68,254 in 2005, he said, adding that driving licences went up from 40,077 to 46,889 for the same period under review.

Abu Dhabi Municipality has hired Hydro Consultants International to explore the best mechanisms to handle traffic and transport bottlenecks, he informed.

Delivery of visas at DNRD counters

A READER suggested to the DNRD to consider the delivery of visas and documents via Empost an optional service. He believed that applicants should be given the option to collect their visas and transactions by hand at the counter especially as sometimes it is urgently needed to collect documents fast.

Reply

LIEUTENANT-Colonel Salah bin Suloom, Director of the Visa Section at DNRD, did not agree that the suggestion can be implemented because the inception of delivering visas via Empost helped in curbing the problem of crowds inside the department and at its parking lot.

He noted that if the applicant has to approach the department a second time to collect the processed transaction, this means that double the numbers of customers will be in at the same time. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the crowds and the pressure at the counters.

"Similar will be the situation at the parking lot, he said, adding: "It will be a real problem for all, especially the clients."

The DNRD had decided to deliver processed transactions via Empost to help reduce the number of clients inside the department and solve the problem of space shortage at its parking lots. Despite the fact that larger numbers of parking areas were allocated for the department's clients, many are still facing difficulty in finding a lot for their cars."

Lt-Col Salah noted that the DNRD provides urgent transaction services. "If the applicant urgently needs to finish the transaction he can do that against paying extra amount. The transaction is processed instantly to the applicant," he added.

However, all of the transactions of the DNRD are processed in a significantly short time and are dealt with as urgent transactions when compared to other departments or other countries, he said.

"The non-urgent transactions are processed in just three days. Is not it a comparatively short period?" he argued. "Those who do not want to wait for three days can choose the urgent application against paying an extra Dh100," he added.