Finance update

Yesterday we had our second appointment with Volksbank.  Although we had already signed with the independent advisor we wanted to hear what the Volksbank had to say as in theory we could still cancel the other contract with the 2 week grace period on all contracts here in Germany.

Herr V. at Volksbank had come up with a couple of options for us, the first being that we sell the flat and then take out three loans and a Bausparvertrag meaning we will pay only slightly less than the Sparda Bank offer.  His second option was to keep the flat, buy the land only and not the house, wait 3 years until our current Sparda mortgage is due for refinancing and then decide if we should sell the flat and build the house.  This was his recommendation as he thinks it will give us time to decide if we really want to go through with our plan to build.

This was quite a surprise! Having the banks mortgage advisor, who we had only spent two hours of our lives with, making life decisions for us and assuming we may not actually really know what's good for us or what we want was not what we expected.  And although Herr V. was very friendly he lost us at this point and made us feel even more strongly that we had made the right decision.

In future I would go straight to an independent advisor.  From Steffi's time as a financial advisor we know that there is a very attractive commission attached to opening a Bausparvertrag and I'm not entirely sure if the banks had our interests at heart.