Thanks to swelling competition in the housing loan industry, the home loan process in India has become considerably streamlined. Despite shaking off the tag of a long and tedious documentation process, the housing loan procedure still requires one to go through certain mandatory stages.

After choosing a particular home loan, the customer submits the application form to the housing finance company (HFC) along with other relevant documents as required by the HFC. They comprise documents to establish income, age, residence, employment, investments, etc. The customer also needs to hand over a cheque for payment of an up front (non -refundable) processing fee of about 0.5-1% of the loan amount to the HFC.

In the next stage, HFCs validate the information provided by the customer on the application form. They usually conduct checks on the residential address of the customer, the place of employment of the customer, and credentials of the employer. Some HFCs may insist on a personal interview with the customer and perform a reference check on the references provided by the customer on the application form.

After due appraisal of customer profile, a sanction letter is issued which contains details such as loan amount, rate of interest, annual / monthly reducing balance, tenor of the loan, mode of repayment and general terms and conditions of the loan.

The customer is required to leave the entire set of original documents pertaining to the property being purchased with the HFC as security for the loan amount sanctioned. These documents remain in the custody of the HFC till the time the loan is fully repaid. Once the documents are handed over to the HFC, they send all the documents for a thorough legal scrutiny.

Prior to disbursement, the HFC also conducts a site visit to the customer's property to ensure that all construction norms have been adhered to properly. Once the HFC is satisfied that the property is legally and technically clear, they disburse the loan amount. The disbursement from the HFI is on the basis of the stage of construction of the property.

Until such time that the entire sanctioned amount is not drawn, the customer will pay a simple interest on the Actual Amount drawn (without any principal repayments). The EMI payments will commence only after the entire Sanctioned Loan Amount is drawn.