Locals miss out on Green Loans

Assessments for Green Loan applications submitted over three months ago are unlikely to processed by a Government department before the scheme closes on March 22.

At least five Peninsula residents who had their homes assessed in November have still not received assessment reports required to lodge a loan application.

The Government announced on February 19 that "the less popular loans component" of "the popular Green Loans Program" would be discontinued from March 22.

In what one assessor described as "bureaucratic bungling", the federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts appears to have had neither the capacity to handle the demand for assessment bookings nor the capacity to process the assessments submitted.

The Government's Green Loans Hotline has advised it cannot give any indication whether the Peninsula reports will be processed in time.

Hotline staff said they could pass on "missing report requests" to the department but they did not have access to departmental records and could not give information on the status of an assessment report.

Two weeks ago, the Hotline was saying departmental staff would return calls within three days, but by the end of last week the Hotline was unable to say whether inquiries would receive any response.

An online departmental enquiry form indicates a response time of 20 days, which is beyond the closing date of the scheme.

In the meantime, the financial institutions are quickly dropping out of the scheme.

What was previously a long list of participating financial institutions on the Department website dwindled to a short list of credit unions, many of whom were no longer accepting loans.

For example, just a week after the announcement, Maleny Credit Union was no longer receiving applications and the Teachers' Credit Union was only accepting applications from existing members until 4pm on February 26.

At the end of last week, just seven credit unions remained on the list.

The Community First Credit Union, which has a branch in Woy Woy, is still accepting online applications and says it intends to until March 22, but there is doubt whether it will be able to process all loan applications in time.

Its website states: "Due to the large volumes of green loans applications ... we cannot guarantee that we will be able to process all applications prior to the government imposed cut-off date."

Some lenders also require quotes from suppliers which are in line with the recommendations in the report, which makes the timing of submitting a loan application and having it approved in time even more difficult.

Mark Snell, 5 Mar 2010