'Can my mother-in-law repay our home loan?'

Do you have queries related to any aspect of home loans?

Gaurav Mohta, chief marketing officer, Home First Finance Company (external link) will answer your home loan queries.

Kamlesh Kumar: I'd like to post one query regarding home loan. If the land is in my grandparents’ name, can I take a home loan to construct the building and also will I get the tax benefits?

Gaurav Mohta: In order to apply for a home loan against a particular property, it is mandatory that the said property is in the name of the applicant. Hence it is imperative that you get the property transferred in your name as a sale or gift. 

Anne Bala Aravind: I had taken a home loan LIC Housing Finance last year for amount of Rs 39 lakh and starting paying EMI Rs 25,567 for part payment Rs 27 lakh during COVID year i had not applied for moratorium but paid all EMI as per my salary credit to me and I had paid the EMI with in the same month with penalties for 3 months July, August, September until salary are regularised and now manager is not willing to pay final amount of Rs 12 lakh to me again putting grace period of 3 months and in that case if my builder will cancel my agreement then I will lose my money.

Please advise what to do and my flat is ready to occupy, but the final amount of money stopped by LIC and the 90 days period by the builder is going to get completed by this month end. 

Gaurav Mohta: Firstly, you should ask your lender for a loan account statement such that you can assess and do a proper reconciliation to clarify the payments made and what is actually due.

Meanwhile, you can negotiate the time to make your payments till you can sort the issue with the lender.  

SANJAY AWASTHI: We have a home loan of Rs 55,00,000 (55 lakh) from SBI. It’s in my and my wife’s name jointly. My Wife is a homemaker.

I want to know whether my mother-in-law can repay our home loan. Can she issue a check to repay our home loan? She is a tax payer. Please let us know. 

Gaurav Mohta: In order to pay the EMI for a home loan, the payer needs to be a part of the home loan and property ownership.

So you have two options here: you can either add your mother in law to the home loan as a co-applicant whereby she can pay the EMI and claim tax benefit on the same. Else she can be added as a guarantor to the loan in which case while she can make the EMI payment, she will not be able to claim the tax benefits.

You can find more of Mr Mohta's answers here.

Note: The questions and answers in this advisory are published to help the individual asking the question as well the large number of readers who read the same.

While we value our readers' requests for privacy and avoid using their actual names along with the question whenever a request is made, we regret that no question will be answered personally on e-mail.