Planning to buy a flat? Brother-sister combine cannot be co-applicants for home loan | Your Queries

By Chaitali Dutta

I plan to buy a flat in Goa where my sister will stay. Both of us are married. Can my sister and I buy a flat in our name? Do we need to add our spouse for loan processing/approval? Can I take the loan while my sister pays EMI?

—Rahul Sharma

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If you are not availing of a loan, the purchase of property in the joint name of brother and sister is possible. However, a brother-sister sibling cannot be co-applicants in a home loan. Co-applicants are typically individuals who would stay together— spouses, son with parents, unmarried daughter with parents, brothers who live together. Let us consider that the property is in a single name and the other sibling takes the responsibility to repay the loan, there could be chances of dispute later. The liability to the bank would be yours. In case the EMIs stop getting paid, the bank will reduce your CIBIL score, and chances of a loan getting sanctioned to you, in the future, would be difficult.

I regularly paid my EMI during the lockdown. I have now shifted my home loan to another bank. Will I get mora-torium interest in my old account?

—Sanket S

The benefit of simple interest over the compound interest for the moratorium period is for all regular loans (not NPA) as on March 2020. This facility is applicable even if the loan is closed between March to August 2020. So your old loan should get the credit. If you do not have a bank account with the old bank, apply to them with details of your loan account, and balance transfer, savings bank account along with cancelled cheque.

I have a PPF account with my wife as nominee. With all activities in SBI computerised, will it allow change to include one more nominee? Do I have to define percentage of money against nominees?

—Rajendra Rajyaguru

You can have two or more nominees in PPF account but it is not possible on the netbanking site. Visit your bank branch to register this. Define the percentage of the asset to be paid to each nominee. If the percentage is not defined then balance is equally divided amongst the nominees. However, for nominees, the former or survivor clause does not work. Yes, 99% and 1% will work. The concept of cascade nomination does not exist now.

The writer is founder, AZUKE Personal Finance Advisory (www.azukefinance. com). Send your queries to fepersonalfinance@expressindia.com