(Asking on behalf of a friend) In current market is in common place for lawyers to advise clients that no point in offering on house if they don’t have 10% deposit in cash, by this mean excluding Kiwi saver? I’m trying to help him, has heaps with kiwi saver but not the 10% without it. I believe his lawyer is wrong. Am I right in saying this? Also what percentage deposit did you guys have? Thanks in advance.
Answer #1: Our deposit is 100% Kiwi Saver right now and we putting offers in on houses we are interested in. We have around 15% deposit for our total pre-approval amount.
Answer #2: Where are your friends looking? It could be they’re looking in a high auction area like Auckland and therefore a bit tricky to go unconditional on offers? Auctions require to go unconditional and pay initial deposit to vendor (which is separate to overall deposit) on the spot. And so therefore Kiwi Saver only or mostly, is not a viable option. There are ways around it if bank allows for cash in advance/ overdraft.I reckon this may be the case?
Aswer #3 You are referring to the deposit in the Sale & Purchase Agreement I presume.Some lawyers interpret the kiwisaver Act different from others.Some lawyers will help you use kiwisaver funds to make the deposit on the unconditional date, and a small minority of lawyers won’t do this.The minority that won’t use KS funds for the unco deposit is being ultra conservative. IF, you use your KS funds to pay the unco deposit and you do NOT settle, then you need to recover the KS funds and pay them back to your KS provider. The risk is your cannot recover the deposit and you’re in the poo.
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