I am a single woman. I have agreed to buy a house for Rs 50 lakhs in my name. The flat is in a 25-year-old building. The building is in very good condition. I need to take a home loan for this purpose. Which banks will give me the home loan in a single name?
Reply By Balwant Jain, a tax expert
If your income is sufficient to justify servicing the EMI of the proposed home loan amount, you should not have any problem getting a home loan. The tenure of the loan and feasibility of getting the home loan itself depend on the physical condition of the property. The tenure of the home loan cannot extend beyond your retirement or the remaining life of the building.
The amount of loan available would depend on the value estimated by the engineers appointed by the bank as well as your disposable income. Lenders normally consider 40-45% of your take-home salary available for servicing the loan requirement. If there is already a running loan being serviced, your loan eligibility will decrease accordingly.
There are no hard and fast rules about the age of the property making it eligible for a home loan as long as the remaining life of the property appraised by the bank is at least equal to the loan tenure requested. So, if, in the opinion of the engineers appointed by the bank, the remaining life of the property is at least equal to or more than the loan tenure, then in my opinion, you should not have any problem getting the desired home loan. A conservative lender may not grant a loan on a very old property.
Banks are normally wary of lending to a single borrower (whether male or female). So, it may be ideal if you could get either of your parents to be co-borrowers (their incomes and age are not relevant for this purpose). The lender is just more comfortable knowing that somebody else will be responsible for handling the repayment of the loan in the event of the death of the main borrower. Having said that, if you take an insurance policy to cover the home loan amount and assign the policy to the lender, it might be possible to get the loan even without a co-borrower.
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