Refinancing takes about 1 week for the offer, and 2-3 months (could be more though) for money to be released...

1. If you first got the property financing in 2010, your rate may be a little worse or on-par with the current market rate, which starts at about 4.25% and above, it may be ok to refinance to get a better rate, but if  you need the money instead....

2. Refinancing for cash is one the cheaper options available out there.. it is cheaper than personal loan, hire-purchase, cc... if you have the cash to fund your business/studies/etc. sure, don't refinance, don't reset and extend your mortgage... but at this point you need the money to continue your studies... you have the option between:

a. personal loan, 10 year tenure and 8%~ above rate (unless you get good deals from your company)
b. friends/family loan, which is dependent on the situation
c. refinancing, 35 year tenure (you can choose to take 10 years by paying more each month through a flexi account) and rates start at 4.25%...

Sure you are resetting your mortgages and paying more interests, but you if don't need the money from a loan you wouldn't need to discuss it anyway... keep in mind that not everyone is in the position to refinance their properties, many people don't have any asset to mortgage, so they need to take personal loans or credit card cash advance instead
Yes, can, not an issue. The only issues would be to show proof that you have enough income vs banking commitment, also referred to as debt-service-ratio (DSR), to fund the refinancing of the properties.

Your incomes can be in the form of business income, employment income, investment income, or a combination of them

Here is the processes ya:

Application - Approved, LO issued - LO signed/accepted - Sent signed-LO to the bank - Bank accepts, issue Letter of Isntructions (LI, along with original LO) to law firm (and instructions to valuer) - law firm applies for consent from land office (if needed) - law firm drafts the Loan Agreement (LA) - have you come over for LA signing - send the LA and LO for stamping - send the stamped documents to bank for execution - bank accepts the documents and execute the loan - bank asks how much is the settlement amount for the previous loan - law firm sends the settlement amount request to previous bank - previous bank sends letter to the law firm lettering them know the settlement amount - the law firm sends letter called the Advise to Release telling the bank the settlement amount - bank releases 1st payment, called the 1st draw down - paid to law firm - law firm pays to previous bank - previous bank sends letter to law firm acknowledging the payment - law firm sends another Advice to Release to bank to release the remaining money - bank releases the cash out...

I hope I didnt miss anything

Anyhow, the reason i wrote all that is to illustrate the pathway of communications in the transaction. It may not be the most efficient but that is how it is....

so to answer your question, which process consumes too much time? Well all of them... any party that doesn't play ball delays the process as a whole.

1. The valuer did his job quickly; but their part is easy, they come, visually inspect the house, write a report, get paid, release the report to the bank and send you a copy. Their job ends there.

2. Now the delayed part in your case is most likely gettin the consent of charge, but that is really beyond your and the lawyers' power. Some lawyers claim that they can "bypass" the process with "money", but that is outside the book and I will not comment on that.

3. Since this is not a purchase, the delay caused by the consent of charge may matter, but not too much since there is no vendor-party waiting for your money.. its is only your money that is being delayed

The problem with consent is that because you are dealing with government offices, and they may be understaffed, and/or their performance don't affect their bottom line, so there may be some slack there.

4. 2-3 months is doable, especially if the property is freehold, or not encumbered (free of any charges from banks) and/or the bank that releases the redemption letter does not take too much time out of that

At this point you may realize that due to the multiple parties involved in the process, any of them delaying their work will affect the rest of the processes. The lawyers job is to help you with everything, but sometimes the lawyer is the one that is slow hahahaha
1. Oh yes, banks nowadays are being encouraged to offer reducing balance loans... even personal loans are being slowly introduced to the reducing balance calculations.. however they are being advertised as simple interest loans... for example, a Bank Islam personal loan is being advertised at 3.89% flat-rate for 10 year repayment... but if you look at the LO, it is actually being calculated at 6.2% per annum (p.a., meaning it is a reducing balance loan)... which is GOOD, that's the best practice for loans...

but why advertise it as 3.89% flat? well they are not being dishonest, that is exactly the rate and installment you pay if you compare the rate to other fixed-rate loans... and they need to compete against other banks that are still using fixed-rate... so if Bank Rakyat advertise their fixed rate loans at 4.0%, and BIMB advertise their at 6.2% p.a. (3.89% fixed/flat rate), then BIMB would lose out eventhough their offer is much better than Bank Rakyat's

2. On to your second question, refinancing your properties would cost you about 1-2% of the house value due to the associated moving costs - valuation, legal fees, stamp duty, these can be financed into the loan but they are still costs that you have to pay one way or another. I can't really compare the options that you have without really knowing the MV of the house as well the price of the car that you are buying...

take it this way, if you are buying a BMW... RM200k loan... rate is 2.5%... for 7 years, the efective interest rate p.a is 4.69%... while refinancing can net you a rate of 4.35%, will the difference of 0.35% p.a for 7 years cover the cost of refinancing? errmmm... maybe provide me the numbers and we can learn together. What car are you getting, how much are the cars...

btw, for the reducing balance loans offeredby the banks for car purchase... what are the rates like? im not into cars so Im not in the market for their loans hahahaha
yes, but the answer should be beyond gut-feeling, there are calculations that one can perform to decide financial matters.

Also, i think you are confusing OD facilities with reducing balance term loans.. with OD you dont have to pay the principle balance, you just serve the interests till you die or bank withdraws the facility. With reducing balance term loans, customers still need to pay the installments which are divided into 2 portions, the capital repayment AND the interests/profit... the capital repayment will zerorize the outstanding loan you have with the bank. While the insterests/profit are the banks' profit for providing you the facility, no different to installments for mortgages (property loans)...

If you want to learn more about mortgages, you can ask about them here in the these thread below, I help forummers and non-forummers alike all the time there for close to a decade...

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2759418?author=wild_card_my
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3437581?author=wild_card_my

Faiz Azmi

You need to get the government consent first for any transaction involving leasehold property where its a buy sell or Refinancing because there is a clause on restriction within the property title.

And  keep all when you deal with the government, expect delays in the handling of paperwork

All these paperwork are still done by human, whether it involves the bank officer, lawyers or the government, if you need to rush to get through to the final process then by all means call the lawyer, bank officer in charge and the government bodies daily and do the follow up yourself.

Think of it another way is that, why not do everything yourself right ?

Depends on speed of your lawyer, betwee 2weeks to a month.

Are you refinancing? If you are, you can get a copy of the letter form the law firm that is doing your loan agreement. If you want it to be quick, take that letter and bring it over to the insurance company to get your surrender value on the MRTA

When you are refinancing you will need a bank lawyer to do the paperwork for you. They will have a copy of the redemption statement and you can use this to claim back from the insurance company.