Joy’s sister Cyndi started a Givealittle page in a desperate attempt to save Joy from being evicted.
An overdue water account that threatened to make a solo mother living in Maungaturoto homeless just 10 days before Christmas has been resolved.
Joy Robinson was packing her bags when she received a call from her bank telling her that they were revising her case.
“The bank employee told me they had dropped the ball, handled the case badly and humbly apologised for the stress that I’d been through,” Joy said.
“I thought ‘pinch me – this can’t be real’. If you had told me that this would happen this morning, I wouldn’t have believed you. I was packing my bags because they were coming to change the locks next week.”
Joy’s ordeal began when a major water leak went undetected while she was with her disabled son in hospital earlier this year.
This left her with an $18,000 water bill owed to Kaipara District Council.
Joy says she rang her bank and asked it not to direct debit the money, as she was asking the Council to review the bill. However, the bank paid the bill anyway, saddling her with an unarranged overdraft and substantial additional bank fees.
She paid $10,000 but had been unable to find the remaining $8000 on top of her mortgage repayments.
She says the bank refused to extend her mortgage and had given her until December 16 to leave the house she had inherited from her mother.
Then the bank was asked by Mahurangi Matters for comment.
ASB executive general manager retail banking Craig Sims said he couldn’t comment on specific customer circumstances, but the bank would not be initiating any mortgagee sale processes between now and the end of January.
“We are committed to keeping our customers in their family homes, and working with them to get the best outcomes we can, without causing further undue financial stress,” he says.
Joy says the bank has given her several options for resolving her financial commitments, including an interest free loan.
Kaipara District Council, which initially said it would not refund the payment for the leak, has also come to the party.
A Council officer visited Joy’s home and helped her to fill out forms to apply for a credit for the costs incurred by the leak.
“I was so relieved I had to call my sister straight away.”
