Hi, we've got a home loan with saim commercial bank and wanted to know if anyone out there has any good intel on avoiding fees with them.

If your normal payment is on say the 5th of each month will it ALWAYS be on that day or does it shift depending on how many days are in the month?

I've shown up a day or two late before and asked what my penalty was for being late and the teller assured me there was no penalty. I had this happen on several occasions. However they were really hitting us with HUGE fees in the form of far less of the payment going towards the principal. Example: We pay 15,500 baht a month and when we'd pay late it would be a 3,000 baht difference going towards principal!!

Thanks for any intel!

I can't comment specifically on Siam Commercial Bank, but the normal practice is that if the payment is due on the 5th and the 5th is not a working day it will become due on the previous working day.

I really don't think you're paying huge fees. With a typical repayment mortgage in the early years the vast bulk of the money goes in interest payments, not in repaying capital, so of a 15,500 Baht payment only 3,000 Baht going towards capital doesn't surprise me. It's only in the final few years of the mortgage that much of the capital gets paid off.

That is good to know about the previous working day trick. Yes I understand 3000 is not a lot to be paying early on in the mortgage when so much of the loan is still interest bearing... but I'm saying it will shift an additional 3000 baht! When I go in to pay at the bank I get the receipts... I can compare them when their interest rates are exactly the same rate.... if I pay late way more goes towards interest only. Gigantic way for these guys to make easy cash off of unsuspecting customers. The tellers must either not know their stuff or just pretend not to know.

pays to pay on time