Bridging a short dry spell

Hello everyone,

We have set our financing amount for an existing house quite tight in order to still overcome the next equity hurdle. It has now turned out that the payout of the balance on my Wohn-Riester account, which I applied for (and which has also already been approved by the ZfA), is only possible with a 3-month notice period to the end of the quarter, so at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I was not aware of this. We get the equity agreed with the bank and the incidental costs together, but then pretty much everything is gone. However, we also wanted to do a bit of renovation on the house. The handover is at the beginning of November. So we are only talking about 2 months that we have to bridge, and need about €10,000 for the conversion. We wanted to have a little done by a company in the bathroom and then some paint, etc. I am not quite sure what the best option would be, simply overdraft? Or a small loan?

Best regards

I don't really know what the best option would be, just an overdraft? Or some sort of small loan?

Just go to a direct bank and have them grant you a revolving credit line. Whether it's Ing-Diba or VW Bank – they easily give you €15-20k without much checking (unfortunately). The interest rate doesn't really matter if it's just for bridging. Otherwise, actually increasing the overdraft is also not a problem.

I had the same situation, withdrawal of an amount from a Riester contract. I simply informed the bank that this part of the equity would only be available from... on. This was not a problem, meaning that parts of the loan were paid out and I provided the rest of the equity later. However, this was about the purchase price and then a construction phase that extended over a total of nine months. So I always had something to pay, where I could then use the equity.

Well, we are simply buying an existing house and the purchase price is due at a specific time. The prerequisite for the disbursement is the equity provided. I don’t think I can submit anything later. At most, they might offer me a short-term loan.

I would really just start by talking to the bank first to see what options they can offer you. You can always look for another loan etc. afterwards!

Although, personally, I would have some reservations if I had practically no freely available reserves left. Or will there still be a reasonable cushion once the Riester is freed up? Because you always have to factor in that additional costs may arise.

Oh, we had that problem too. Purchased inventory, beforehand told by the banker "yeah, no problem, we'll pay you out then." Well, in the end it just took over 6 months^^. We partially bridged with overdraft and for the rest we were just lucky that some invoices came later than expected. Talk to the bank, they are only human as well, there’s surely a graceful solution for this relatively small amount.