At times, getting a home loan to buy a new property can be a daunting task. To make the process easier, we have compiled a comprehensive guide to make the journey of buying a home completely hassle-free.
Home Loans for New Borrowers:
If you have been planning to buy a home for quite some time now, this is the most appropriate time to buy one. Though the interest rates are rising, but the rise may be quite steep in the near future. Thus, all you new home aspirants don't wait. In case you want to opt for a home loan to buy your dream home, the best thing to do now is to take the teaser loan being offered by some of the banks.
These involve fixed EMIs for the initial 13 to 36 months, depending on the bank.Earlier, many banks were offering teaser loans, but most of the banks have discontinued offering them in the recent past.
Other popular home loan products include Floating and Fixed home loan interest rates. As the name suggests, Floating rates fluctuate in accordance with base rates or the BPLR (whatever the case maybe). As far as fixed home loan interest rate products go, you can avail of two types - fixed for the entire tenure or fixed for a certain period of time.But if the interest rate is fixed for the entire tenure of the loan, then the EMI of your housing loan will be fixed for the entire tenure of the loan. But in case the interest rate is fixed only for a specific tenure say 5 years, the bank can change its interest rate every 5 years.
Home Loans for Existing Borrowers:
If you are an existing home loan borrower with a good track record, you may consider shifting to a teaser rate scheme. The time and effort you will devote on shifting your existing loan to the new teaser home loan will definitely be worth it. Along with that, the first thing to do is to shift from the old BPLR system to the new base rate regime, which is not automatically applicable to the existing users and requires a separate application. For this you will have to lodge an application with the concerned bank. The banks will change the base rate, and this system of setting up the base rate is more transparent than the system of fixing up BPLR. Thus consider converting your existing home loan to a base rate system which will be much more beneficial to you than to stay in the old BPLR system.
Home Loan Application Process:
From applying for a home loan to getting it approved, involves various stages:
Step 1: Filling the application form
Step 2: Personal discussion
Step 3: Bank's Field Investigation
Step 4: Credit appraisal by the bank and loan sanction
Step 5: Offer letter
Step 6: Submission of legal documents & legal check
Step 7: Technical / Valuation check
Step 8: Valuation
Step 9: Registration of property documents
Step 10: Signing of agreements and submitting post-dated cheques
Step 11: Disbursement
Applying for a loan:
Filling up the application form is the first step. The type of the application form may differ from bank to bank, but nearly 80 percent of the information they need is similar. Most of this is basically your personal and professional information, details of your financial assets and liabilities and the details of the property (if finalized) including the estimated cost and the means of financing the same.
Documents to submit:
While submitting the application form, every bank asks for several documents. Most banks these days offer doorstep service, however, some banks still insist on a personal visit to their office at least once.
The bank statements you submit are scrutinized for:
Processing Fee:
Along with the application form and the credit documents, banks ask for a processing fee. This fee varies from bank to bank, but is usually around 0.25% to 0.50% of the total loan amount. For instance, if you take a loan of Rs. 10 lakh, you will have to pay around Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5,000 as processing fee. The agent dealing with you earns a commission from the bank, which to some extent is also affected by the amount of fees paid by you.
Most banks have flexible fee structures, and it is advisable that you negotiate hard to find out the bank's minimum possible fees though it is unlikely that a bank will agree to provide a loan without any upfront fee at all. Some banks have zero upfront fee loans, but that advantage may be negated as their other charges such as "legal charges" and "stamp duty" are normally higher.
This fee is collected to maintain your loan account, and includes work like sending Income Tax certificates every year, maintaining post-dated cheques, etc.
Quick Tips:
Acceptance copy
If you agree with what is mentioned in the offer letter from the bank, you will have to sign a duplicate letter of the same for the bank's records. Earlier, banks used to charge administrative fees along with the offer letter. However, with rising competition, administrative fees have virtually disappeared from the home loan market.
Check if the rate of interest mentioned and the loan amount on the letter is the same that was discussed and agreed upon. Home loan rate of interests can be negotiated, use the fact to your advantage.
Legal check:
Every bank conducts a legal check on your documents to validate their authenticity. Even the draft sale documents that you will be entering into with your seller will be scrutinized.
The documents are sent to a lawyer on their panel (either in-house or outsourced) for a thorough scrutiny. The lawyer's report either gives a go-ahead if documents are clear, or it may ask for a further set of documents. In the latter case, you are expected to hand over the additional documents to the bank for a clear title.
So, if a bank decides to disburse your housing loan, you can safely assume that your property documents are clear and the transaction is safe. Sometimes the bank may ask you to pay for the legal verification. However, most banks cover the costs in the upfront (processing) fee that you pay. Property documentation in India is non-standard and, in certain cases, non-transparent. Hence, it helps to buy property from a reputed developer since they know the process inside out, and keep all the documents ready. Due to the heavy transfer charges on sale of property and/or very heavy stamp duties, some people conduct sale of property by showing "lower consideration" than agreed for, with the balance being paid either on an amenities agreement or in cash. Also the concept of sale by executing "irrevocable power of attorney" has gained ground especially in the National Capital Region. All this could restrict the choice of your lenders and may therefore increase the cost of the loan, which you might want to keep in mind while finalizing such properties.
Site visit:
The site visits to your property are conducted to verify the following:
In case of under construction property is ready/resale construction :
Do not circumvent or skip this stage and ensure that it is completed as early as possible. As a buyer, it gives you confidence that your property has been inspected by experts and that you are buying an asset that is legally clear and technically sound. The fee for this service, like the legal check, may either be absorbed into your upfront fee or be charged separately by the Bank.
Valuation - A Reality check:
Since housing loans are cheaper than other loans, there have been cases where individuals have shown purchase of properties from related entities at inflated prices to obtain loans at a cheaper rate.
Since the risk associated with the diversion of funds is higher than if the loan was used for genuine purposes, banks carry out an independent valuation to find out whether the transaction is in line with the existing market price of the area.
Valuation has become a key parameter in determining the loan amount that can be sanctioned by the bank. The valuation process is quite subjective and depends on the quality and ability of the person sent by the bank for valuation.
Valuation of real estate as a profession is still in its infancy in India and is still non-standardized. In many cases, the valuer determines the value of the property at an amount that is lower than the documented cost of the property and this would result in the loan amount being lowered, since the bank funds a certain percentage of the cost or valuation of the property, whichever is lower.
This practice has led to severe consumer issues in an increasing number of cases, as the valuation is normally done only after the consumer takes a sanction (by paying a fee) and after identifying and committing to buy the property.
The valuation issue rarely arises when a property is purchased through a reputed builder directly or if the property is pre-approved. In both the cases, the banks would have already completed the valuation and therefore, you can safely assume that there is no difference between the documented cost of the property and the bank's valuation amount.
Some banks will charge a special fee to cover these costs or may ask you to pay the valuer directly, though for most banks, the upfront fee covers these fees as well.
Approach banks which are willing to do the valuation even before the sanction process and before you pay any fee to the bank.
Registration: Sealing the deal
After the legal and technical / valuation check, the draft documents as cleared by the lawyer need to be finalized and signed and the stamping and registration of the documents need to be done. Also, if any NOCs are pending, these need to be obtained in the format approved by the bank's lawyer.
Signing the home loan agreement- In black & white:
All borrowers need to sign the home loan agreement. You also need to submit post-dated cheques for the first 36 months (if that is the agreed mode of repayment). The original property documents have to be handed over to the bank at this stage. Some banks also create a document recording the handing over of the property documents to them as security for the due repayment of the home loan.
This document is also called a memorandum of entry and attracts significant stamp duty depending on the amount of the loan in some states. The stamp duty payable on such a memorandum is naturally recovered from you.
Not all banks create this memorandum and hence the stamp duty may or may not be payable, depending on the practice of the specific bank. However, even where no such memorandum of entry is created, the State Government concerned may, in the future, demand a stamp duty on the loan transaction, which naturally is recoverable from you as per the home loan agreement signed by you.
Disbursement:
After the bank has ensured that the property is legally and technically clear, all the original documents pertaining to transfer of ownership of property in your favor have been submitted and all the necessary loan agreements have been executed, it is time for disbursement. Before this, you need to submit documents to prove that you have paid your personal contribution towards the property, since banks normally finance only up to 85-90 percent of the total cost of the house. In case you are expecting money from other sources to fund your own contribution, you need to provide sufficient evidence for the same. It is only after submitting this proof that the bank will release part-disbursement of the loan.
The cheque will be in the name of the reseller (for resale flats), builder, society or the development authority. It is only in exceptional circumstances, that is, if you provide documents to support that you have made an excess payment from your own account that the cheque will be handed over to you directly by the bank.
All banks charge interest on the loan amount from the day on which the cheque has been made and not from the day on which the cheque is handed over to you/seller. So, take delivery of the cheque the same day or the very next day to avoid paying extra interest on money.
Disbursement in stages
Usually, loans are disbursed on the basis of the stage of construction of the property. So, in case of resale or ready possession properties, the disbursement is full and final. However, in case of under-construction properties, the payment is made in parts, also known as part-disbursement. Each option would have different disbursement processes.
Part disbursement:
When a loan is partly disbursed, the bank does not start EMIs immediately, since it is calculated on the total loan amount at a particular rate of interest and for a given tenure. Moreover, it normally does not start breaking up the installments into its principal and interest components until the entire loan amount is disbursed.
To overcome this difficulty, banks charge simple interest on the partly disbursed loan amount. For instance, if you have a sanctioned loan of INR. 10 lakh, but the property is under construction and the bank has disbursed only Rs. 4 lakh, you will be charged a simple interest only on the disbursed amount. This process continues until the final disbursement takes place. The simple interest paid is called Pre-EMI interest or Pre-EMI. At this stage, banks may take only around three to six post-dated cheques on account of Pre-EMI.
Full and final disbursement:
If it is a ready-possession property, the bank disburses the entire loan amount in favor of either the reseller or the builder.
Take your time to fill in the loan documents before you sign them. Some columns may have to be kept blank as the exact amounts may not be known, but this should be limited.
The bank is supposed to return a copy of the loan documents signed by its authorized signatory but that rarely happens in practice without sustained follow-up.
Keep photocopies of all documents/agreements/letters submitted to the bank to avoid any misunderstandings later.
The relationship continues…
The final disbursement does not end your relationship with the bank. In fact, it is just the beginning. And there are various issues / situations that arise in between the beginning of the relationship and its end. These include:
Payment receipt:
Once the bank hands over the payment order to you, you in turn are expected to hand it over to the reseller or the builder. You should get a receipt from them for the payment and hand it back to the bank, as it will become part of your mortgage documentation.
Share certificates: In case your property is part of a society, you will need to get the flat transferred to your name by asking the society to issue the share certificate in your name and recording the transfer of ownership in their books.
This normally happens at the first AGM/EGM after the sale transaction. This transferred share certificate also happens to be a part of the mortgage documentation and has, therefore, to be handed over to the bank after the transfer takes place.
Repayment:
The loan is generally repaid by equated monthly installments, using post-dated cheques. Banks usually ask for 12, 24 or 36 postdated cheques, after which you need to repeat the process until you have repaid the loan. Some banks may also insist on a cheque for an amount equivalent to the loan outstanding at the end of PDC period to ensure timely replenishment of PDCs for the next 12, 24 or 36 months as the case may be.
In case your installments are to be deducted against your salary, you need a letter from your employer accepting this arrangement and directly remitting the amount to the bank every month. This is possible only if your organization has an arrangement with the bank for all employees.
Some banks allow you to give standing instructions to the bank where you have your savings/current account to deduct money each month crediting your home loan account.
Some banks allow the monthly installments to be paid by convenient ECS facility. Another possible mode of payment is by cash or demand draft (not all banks offer this). You can deposit the EMI every month at the bank's office.
Income Tax certificate:
Every bank issues an income tax certificate that serves as requisite proof to let you avail of tax benefits that accrue on repayment of a home loan. This will typically contain the total amount of interest and capital repaid during the year. This is mandatory to claim the tax benefit in respect of self-occupied property. You will have to file this with your tax returns and submit this to your employer or chartered accountant to calculate your tax liability.
Prepayment:
You can prepay a loan either in part or in full at any given point of time. You can also prepay it even when it is only partly disbursed. However, most banks have an upper limit on the number of times a person can prepay his loan in a year as well as on the minimum amount you can prepay each time. Until recently, banks charged a penalty for part or full pre-payment. But increased competition has forced most banks to allow partial pre-payment free of charge. Most banks levy a pre-payment charge if you make full repayment and ask for the release of your property documents.
Loan pre - closure/satisfaction:
You also have the option of completely repaying the loan at any time. Of course, each bank has its conditions for pre-closure. Also, the loan will get completely paid off on the expiry of the tenure of the loan if you have paid all your installments on time.
Once you have completely repaid your loan, ensure that the entire set of original property documents is handed back to you. You should also ask the bank for a No-Objection Certificate saying the account has been cleared. As an option, the bank may issue a consent letter stating that the property is now free from mortgage. If you have guarantors, the bank will issue a separate letter to each of the guarantors stating that their liability has come to an end. Only after you receive these documents can you say that the property is now completely free of mortgage.
At this stage, in some cases, you may discover that the original documents have not yet been received by the bank from the registrar. In such cases, you will need to follow up with the registrar and get the documents from them directly by showing them a copy of the bank's clearance certificate.
Sometimes, (and we must stress only sometimes) the bank may misplace your original property documents leading to unavoidable stress. In fact, the bank may claim that these documents were never given to them at all. Hence the importance of insisting on a proper receipt of the title documents while handing them over to the bank.
Remember that receipt will come in very useful when the loan is fully paid off. Also, it is extremely useful when you want to shift your loan to a new lender.