Commonwealth Bank: coal seam gas makes property ‘unacceptable’ as loan security
Australia has declared a Queensland with coal seam wells “unacceptable” as for residential lending, that’s gas fields to theirs. Queensland (QGC), which owns the wells Chinchilla acreage, has insisted that its infrastructure has negatively affected their values now that host. A letter from the Commonwealth, Australia, the presence of wells 240-hectare,, given for refusing the ’ for a $500,000 bridging. The “fails the ’s lending ” the Chinchilla is “unacceptable” as owned or blemished and a tax bracket. “ Valuation has coal seam wells land, making unacceptable for residential lending,” the.
The then QGC if the, refused.’I with that farmers are powerless to refuse to coal seam ‘Sarah Ciesiolka“QGC does the that its infrastructure has had any of or any QGC infrastructure,” a letter from its landholder relationships.“QGC has no direction to the of rural upon which are Surat Basin.”The ’s letter that “in QGC’s, a for finance declined for of the proposed as.”In a Commonwealth Australia, it “, profiles and serviceability” assessing.“In, we require a valuation to without of them and to our lending,” it.
Mark McGovern, rural economics from the Queensland of ’s of, economics and finance, the case of the. If the with wells as for bridging, it lends to McGovern.“ In as a resident wouldn’t meet the of the Commonwealth,” he. The, who, he and his had “ prisoners in our.”The to,“’t it, ’t lend it. It’s to us,” he. His she “ropeable” on of the rejection after QGC had given public assurances of its values.QGC to pay for a valuation of the couple already had, one from the overturned its pre-approval.
The Chinchilla their the that of Queensland’s gas fields, to refuse “the guinea pigs” for a banned in Victoria and strongly resisted in NSW. Anti-gas industry activists, a local property agency manager, and the president of the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) all told Guardian Australia it was the first case they had heard of a bank refusing to lend because of gas wells on a property. Guardian Australia asked the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ, and National Australia Bank if gas wells now represented a black mark under their lending criteria. A spokeswoman for Westpac said the bank dealt with properties “over a certain size” within its business/agricultural division, where “different lending principles [to residential loans] would apply.” The Commonwealth Bank said in a statement that every loan application was assessed on a case-by-case basis and it did “not have a policy of excluding coal seam gas wells as acceptable security in our region and agribusiness banking.”
ANZ and NAB did not respond. The REIQ president, Antonia Mercorella, said it was concerning if the case represented “the start of a new trend where lending institutions were suddenly deciding they were not prepared to loan money to people wanting to buy these properties.” “We know that in regional Queensland, there are several properties that this is going to create issues for,” she said.“If they’re applying a blanket rule where they’re not going to give a loan to anyone who has these on their property, that’s obviously concerning because it would make it very difficult for those property owners to sell their property.
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