Bank of Queensland Home Loans

My experience leaving has been HORRIBLE 0/5. I recommend anyone thinking of going with BOQ for a home loan to STAY AWAY FROM THEM. They drag the settlement to the new bank out to 20-21 days so they can suck every last cent of interest out of you then make all these excuses as to why they are taking so long. They act like a spoilt child not getting there way. Do yourself a favour and STAY AWAY Show details

Worse bank – impossible to speak to someone. Worst service, 3 days of trying to talk to someone for merely a question on my mortgages. I cannot wait to get away from this bank

Disappointed with Lack of Communication on Home Loan Interest Rates – I’ve been a home loan customer with the Bank of Queensland (BOQ) since 2015, and while I initially had no concerns, my experience over the years has left me feeling disappointed, particularly regarding the lack of transparency around interest rates. What Happened For many years, I wasn’t aware that it was my responsibility to regularly check and… Read more

request updates on my home loan interest rates. This was never communicated to me, and as a result, I was unknowingly paying higher interest rates compared to other customers. I only discovered this in 2022, after reaching out to BOQ with questions about my rate, and was shocked to find that I could have been paying much less.

Financial and Emotional Impact Over time, this lack of transparency cost me thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest payments. Beyond the financial impact, the emotional strain of realizing I had been overpaying for so long was incredibly stressful. I felt like I was left in the dark as a customer, and this has taken a toll.

BOQ’s Response When I raised the issue with BOQ, I was offered a small goodwill gesture, which, while appreciated, didn’t fully address the stress and anxiety I experienced. I expected a more proactive approach from the bank in notifying customers about rate reviews, especially when significant savings are possible. While they have apologized, it still feels like the system is set up in a way that leaves customers uninformed unless they actively chase the information.

Why I’m Sharing This I’m writing this review to raise awareness for other customers who might be in the same situation. If you’re with BOQ or any other bank, make sure to regularly review your loan terms and ask about better rates. Don’t assume your bank will notify you of available rate reductions.

Key Takeaways: BOQ doesn’t automatically inform customers when better rates are available. You must actively request interest rate reviews, or you could end up overpaying. While BOQ offers customer support, I feel there is room for improvement in their communication regarding loan management. I hope my experience can help other homeowners avoid the same pitfalls. It’s important to stay proactive with your finances, especially with long-term commitments like home loans.

I hope to receive an automated message acknowledging my review as others have, but my main goal is to raise awareness and help others make informed decisions.

Mornington Branch - Customer Service at its absolute finest!! – Absolute pleasure to deal with anyone I spoke to in the Mornington Branch regarding my home loan. Thank you for your amazing customer service. Even with Covid being a stressful time at this current time, everyone in this branch made sure my experience was a pleasant one. Thank you :) Show details

Excellent – In terms of service, you probably won't find a better bank, [name censored] from Chermside QLD branch (owner manager) I would highly recommend. I spoke with several lenders / brokers and BOQ wasn't the best on price (based on their advertised rates) but were miles ahead on service. Remember the mortgage industry isn't short of competition and… Read more

lenders want your business, so don't be shy on asking for a better deal to see if they can match other loans you are considering Exceptional service, owner manager was involved to ensure the whole process was extremely smooth. BOQ was competitive on their fees and rates to try and match other lenders I was considering. It probably sounds like an advertisement but they have the security of a large bank with the personal service of a small one (I think this actually might be the catch-phrase for St George, but BOQ excels here!) Nothing - there was a hiccup in the first month with offset account but solved within an hour of notifying BOQ, branch manager followed it all up for me and resolved really fast.

Excellent – excellent service..... would highly recommend getting your home load thru BOQ. I have been with them for just over a year now & dont think i will change to a diff bank... Friendly staff , its more of a personel experience as the bank manager owns the bank so he will do anything to make your experience a good one.

Just dont, save yourself a lot of trouble and stress and go elsewhere – Take your time and money elsewhere. The approval process was much longer than any other bank I have been with, they nit picked over inconsequential things, their information is not transparent (I still havent been told what my repayments are meant to be). Their online banking app is like something from the dial up days, so, so basic and their… Read more

online banking site is not much better. Takes ages for them to answer the phone. Plus they charge you $10 a month for having your mortgage with them! I will be leaving them as soon as I can! There is a reason why they have a cheaper interest rate and its not because they are market leaders!

How many HOURS does it take BOQ to answer a phone call? – 4 Oct 2023 call 1 - 1150 am hold time 01:13:10 call 2 - 1159 am hold time 00:10:03 they are still working hard to answer my call ...... I suspect BOQ don't want you to call the main number but to call the branch number. They certainly don't want to receive any feedback as their website does not link you to an email...just back to a phone… Read more

number which doesn't get answered.

Imagine if you were stressed about paying a loan and needed to talk to someone.

Just as well they are not responsible for our emergency services.

Stay Away from Bank of Queensland – I and my wife applied for a investment home loan refinance through broker, we applied only after checking with BOQ if my wife's visa status is eligible, we submitted all documents right at the application start, yet we were asked a different document every week and at end after wasting 30 days, loan was rejected stating my wife's visa status is… Read more

not eligible.

I've refinanced many times for the past 5 years and never had a problem. BOQ home loan team or incompetent they wasted lot of time.

Don’t bother – We have been trying to get a loan application through this bank since mid October. We have been asked constantly to supply more documentation. Finally had enough and advised our broker we do not want to proceed. I wouldn’t give this bank my business they don’t deserve it. Lodged a complaint with them and was advised it was our fault because… Read more

the application was missing documentation. Reading other reviews however it appears that requesting additional information repeatedly is a common occurrence. Very stressful and disappointing experience.

Worst bank i ever dealt with! Especially broker team! Rude – Very limited knowledge and rude attitude staff! Poor management! The broker team should really need to be improved by a lot! And especially customer service need to be trained better  Show details

Avoid at all cost – Applied at BofQ for loan, they had no idea of paperwork to comply. Cost a fortune in Solictor fees, and had not even forwarded application to credit department. Took months. Lost the property .Still no decision.  Show details

Waste of Time and No Clear Direction – No satisfied. it took them 6-7 weeks but still couldn't provide a conditional approval.!!They were not transparent what documents they are after from the beginning. They even wanted to know how my salary is calculated and wanted to know my company's business details!!!!! I withdraw my application and resubmit to NAB as my land settlement date was after 10 days. NAB did it in a week with only the statements and salary report. Show details

Home loan discharge pain – very disappointed with Boq Cockburn. Switching home loans to another bank to save money and they are making us and the new bank wait 20 days to discharge, even though they have had the discharge paperwork from the new bank 2 weeks ago. Will not recommend this bank and will definitely be telling my friends and families who are with these guys to leave! Grow up!

How do you give a zero rating! – Absolutely the worst bank to get a mortgage through. We had to push financing back twice... and now settlement back twice. They are disgusting to deal with. They outsource their documentation and pay no attention to your deadlines. We are deciding whether to pull out of a house purchase right now because they can't produce loan documents. BDM of… Read more

BOQ are useless... they can't even get things escalates. Stick to your big banks... they know what they are doing!

BOQ terrible – We are currently with BOQ and in order to refinance we have been waiting for 3 months as BOQ keeps pushing the settlement date to release our loans. Very pathetic . Never go with BOQ. Im taking ombudsman action here Show details

Worst interest rates – Good introductory mortgage rates to rope you in but forget about it after that. Our interest rates have gone up every few months for the last year or so. Hard to see that they can offer extremely low rates to new buyers but don't really care about those of us that have been with them for years. Can't wait to move.

Personal Banking with NO service – They promote personal banking. LOL!!!!! We haven't heard from the Castletown branch since our loan was approved. Sometimes not even when our interest rate goes up. Which is quite regular. Lodged an enquiry online. Was advised that I would receive a call from Castletown, Townsville branch.....still waiting!!!! Now have enough equity to release… Read more

security held and even though we have l9weref our debt below reqiited amount, a valuation was required. Now they are ASKING for an amount 1 1/2 times more to release it. Stay clear!!!

Don't be fooled they will raise your rates significantly – I have had my home loan with bank of Queensland for just over 3 years. As soon as the fixed term ended on the loan, the remaining amount was then changed to 5.61% interest rate. We initially locked in the loan at around 4.26% for the first 3 years.. In the last 3 years the RBA has only lowered the interest rate, so i'm not quite sure how they can… Read more

justify such a significant increase. The other portion of my loan is on a variable rate of 4.60%. After calling them to see if i could negotiate a lower rate they simply responded with sorry our team can't help you. Im now paying on average 5.13% for both of my loans, both variables with the same bank at a different interest rate! This is costing my family on average an extra $180 per week as opposed to other lenders offers which i am currently in the process of refinancing. Plus the extra fees, $10 per month per account. you want to split your loan that's $20 extra a month just to have an account open. BUYER BEWARE

BOQ CPA offer is fake – We have applied the home loan 2 times in this bank under their CPA offer but they have just rejected our applications without any reason. In fact, they are offering the fake promotions to the people and wasting the people's time. I would not recommend this bank to anyone and I am sorry for CPA Australia that they are partner with them. I would never touch BOQ for anything. Very disappointed!

Not bad for the first year, but forget about it after that – We have been loyal BOQ customers for 20+ years. I negotiated a reduction in our loans about 6 months ago, then within 1 month they advised me the loans were being increased again, basically up to where we had started. I called the bank 3 times to renegotiate and no-one called me back. Went into the branch to talk to the manager who said she had… Read more

organised a great deal for me, still almost 3/4 of a percent above their introductory rate. Stated it was bank policy not to reward loyal customers with introductory rates so BOQ, you have lost 1/2 million in earnings from this (no longer) loyal customer.

Disappointed – On advice from a friend we contacted BOQ to refinance and consolidate a couple of small loans . There interest rate that is being advertised seemed a good thing . We have equity in our home so thought we were a good chance . After valuation we were advised loan had been knocked back due to high voltage power lines running past our residence . They lose, anz wins.

Interest Rates - Terrible – At first this bank was our only very few options who would loan us funds with minimal deposit - family of 3 on single income. We Fixed for 3 yrs. Fast track 3yrs, received a letter in the mail "contact us to discuss your options/interest rates"... so I did. 12.5mins on the phone requesting what my new interest rate would be in 6 weeks time… Read more

to get nowhere.

Customer service advised "sorry call back closer to the 3yr expiry date but at this point we can offer a rate 0.50% lower than your current fixed rate", i thought ok thats fine... but I needed to know then a confirmed % so I could figure out my options.

Decided to investigate other banks and started to line up my options with my mortgage broker.

Come end of 3yrs fixed contract expecting my repayments to drop... they instead jumped!!! (despite the RBA cash rate falling so low compared to 3yrs ago)

Logged online to find out what my rate was... nothing. Online portal is very minimal and basic. Called BOQ to find out my rate to be told that it was only 0.02% higher than fixed rate, with no record of my conversation 6 weeks ago I then advised of my annoyance and requested it to be lowered and they said no as we had rolled into a new month.

Organised a refinance with another bank, then called BOQ for discharge who then clarified my interest rate was actually 0.62% higher than my fixed rate ($100 per fortnight more), after being led to believe my repayments would drop!.. in this current market I gave them what I thought and then requested the discharge paperwork.

Refinance was all signed and sent off to get an email 7 days later saying my new bank has sent off the paperwork ont time and the date hadnt been set due to BOQ not following its own processes.

I sorted that issue with another call to BOQ (by this stage I was on first name basis with the retention team)

Settlement was requested early by the new bank, who then advised us BOQ was delaying and pushed the date into a new billing month.

Again, sorted this out with another call and managed to pull forward the discharge after requesting a lower interest rate to match my new banks rates (1.80% lower than BOQ which they refused) while they get it together.... low and behold the settlement date was brought forward finally to the new bank request date.

To top it all off... expecting the settlement fee to be charged at $150, it was raised to $320 effective from 2 weeks earlier which I was unaware of and was also slapped on our settlement.

Despite refusing to offer competitive rates, they never requested any updated information... our service capacity had increased dramatically from 3yrs prior, property Val increased and BOQ just would not come to the party at all.

Nothing but the run around trying to discharge Mortgages – So, we started the process with BOQ To discharge our home loans last week. On Wednesday, I rang up and asked them to send me the discharge form. This was sent within a matter of minutes. We were told we needed to send the form to the branch that established our loans. (BROKER UNIT) we tried to ask the customer service team to be put through to… Read more

the broker unit. This was approx 6pm AEST. We were told the brokers unit had closed for the day as they only work business hours. (They are based in Perth and it would have only been 3pm)

The form was rather convoluted and difficult to fill out so my partner rang the broker unit for advice on Thursday. Forms were emailed to the broker unit Thursday.

Come today, new lender has advised us, BOQ won't arrange settlement as the form needs to be sent to the loan establishment branch.

Rang the broker unit. They advised forms had been sent to retentions, but they weren't available to talk and they could only email them to call us.

Called customer service number at 630pm tonight to ask to be put through to complaints. Can't do that, they've gone home for the day. Yep, website says they are there until 7pm AEST. Partner then called the direct number listed for complaints listed on the BOW website for calls originating from overseas.

They ended up putting her through to someone in the retentions team, who said they couldn't find the title/address for 1 of our properties. She was advised that settlement probably won't happen until the week after next. So 3 weeks. Appalling service. Bank just dragging their feet to earn whatever funds they can prior to releasing the titles.

Avoid at all costs. The left hand doesn't talk to the right hand. Their own customer service staff are unaware as to what hours different departments are open.

Took 2 months to get the loan approved, only to get a higher interest rate – I attempted to refinance to BoQ. Having promptly submitted all requested documents, it still took them 2 months to get the mortgage approved. Being a refinance, I was under no time pressure, so I just waited for them to get it done. So after waiting 2 months, I finally get a mortgage contract to sign, except the rate was about 0.3% higher than the… Read more

deal that I had applied for. There was no official cash rate increase in that time, and they never bothered to tell me about the rate increase. They just made me wait 2 months to get a worthless contract with a higher rate that I was not going to accept. A complete waste of time. I would never touch BoQ for anything.

Worst Bank... don't get attracted with their Interest rates – I had my Home Loan with BOQ for 3 years . First of all their online Banking is very ordinary and painful. Beware of their interest rate, Every time RBA Cuts interest rate, BOQ would say they will pass 0.25 Full rate, but they do have a catch on this. before passing the full 0.25, you will notice an interest rate increase on your current rate. … Read more

So they Increase the rate and apply the 0.25 cut. This is their Trick. Don’t get caught up with this.

Very poor Communication and it almost took us a year to get the home loan approved and I had to pay 10k on Loan Fees. Ridiculous!!!! As a First home buyer I didn't know much about this so I was a victim of their bait.

Last week I switched my Mortgage to another Bank. Guess How much exit fees they charged ?

$9,500 for a standard variable loan. What a joke!!! I was on their best home loan package "Home Loan Privileges Package " and yet I had to pay a fortune to exit.

I wish there is a Royal Commission into Banking Sectors as proposed by the Labor GV.

I will not recommend this bank to anyone. Please look for another bank. This could be the worst bank u can ever deal with.

As unethical as the big 4 banks – We got our home loan from BOQ after seeing their attractive interest rates however even before we signed the documents, we were advised their interest rates had increased. At that point, we had limited time so went with it but didn't not expect our rates to be systematically increased every 2 months after that! They have increased our rates 3… Read more

times since we signed with them 7 months ago and after receiving the latest increase yesterday, have decided enough is enough and are currently actively looking at switching. BOQ is NOT a bank to love, and are just as unethical as the big 4 banks.

Worst bank ever will like to give 0 - 1 star is too much – I am a CBA customer but I looked at attractive interest rate BOQ had advertised so I approached them for refinance...took them 8 months to say they won't give us loan after losing documents 2 times and interest rate changes 3 times... Staff is always on holiday...They don't know value of time. They are worst bank on planet earth. WORST BANK

Poor Head Office Communication, Watch Your Diffrent Banks If You Got Several Rentals – I got a home loan with BOQ for several years, as rental property I had knew that my interest rate is always higher than commbank both interest only at the time. Commbank 5.17% versus BOQ current 6.44% effective from 20/11/15. My payment of 0/12/2015 to 02/01/2016 went up $47.61 for the month. 02/02/2016 it went up $350.65 a total of $398.17… Read more

since the so call increase with no warning.

A phone call to head office at Brisbane speaking with [name removed] who refuse to give me his surname about the account took me nowhere. A local branch in Mackay was helpful to let me know that it is now principal and interest. Good of them to let me know and not been given a surprise. Glad to say never had any problems with Commonwealth Bank where I got more than one home loan.

Never use the service from Baconsfield Branch - VIC – Tried refinancing with BOQ after discussing with the business development manager in Baconsfield branch. Supplied all documents, valuation done, all discharge papers signed - after all the hassle, no response. Never returns the call. At least don't have the courtesy to tell what happened to the application. Never, ever suggest this bank or this lending manager to anyone. Utterly disappointed!

Do not use the Werribee branch in melbourne – The manager George their is an absolute tool. He keep hanging up on me because the enquiry that i had about was about taking business away from his branch. People should be humble in there loses and grateful with there wins. This was poor service and i would never use them again or recommend them to any of my friends or Family. nothing everything

interest rate at online banking missing – Good loan set up got it for a few years now but evey time there is a interest rate change you do not know what the interes rate is on your loan.you have to work out manually what the interest is what you pay per year .this is a investment loan Easy to access on internet cant see the interest rate.have to work out manually interest pay for year

Good – We have been with BOQ for almost 2 years and every branch we walk into the staff are friendly and happy to help. They will take time to explain everything to you and answer all your questions. Very professional. We shopped around before we got our mortgage and BOQ was happy to match whatever we found. The branch at Mooloolaba helped us the whole way. Everybody knew our names and actually make banking a joy.

Stay away from them, terrible service! – Boq promised 2k cash back after settlement. It is never going to happen. Stay away from them if you cạn. Show details

I look forward to leaving BOQ – I am looking forward to leaving the Bank of Queensland so I don't get charged for something that I know nothing about.