The dark side of easy home loans

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Keywords: Fraud, Banks

Mumbai: The real estate industry is witnessing a major boom but with this comes another unwanted upsurge - the increase in home loan frauds.

Recently the police arrested a couple for allegedly duping over 25 banks of close to Rs one crore.

Earlier this month, the police received complaints against a couple - Shantanu and Shammi Parab - from the Greater Bombay Co-operative Bank, Federal Bank and Bank of Baroda for procuring home loans by using forged documents.

Police say the duo have duped more than a dozen banks by mortgaging the same property over and over again.

Says Inspector, Naupada Branch Thane, Bhaskar Pingat, "They would produce forged documents in the bank and would buy a house from the loan that the bank would give them. They would thenn open a bogus account in the name of the builder and would deposit the cheque that they would receieve in the name of the builder there. After that they would withdraw that money."

And this is not a one-off case. The police have many more such cases to worry about.

Vasant Rao More, a builder, was arrested by the Mumbai Police just two weeks ago for cheating banks of over Rs one crore.

Police say More forged documents like income tax returns and salary slips to procure home loans from the State Bank of Mysore.

The COO Home Finance, ICICI Bank, Rajiv Sabharwal says, "It would be prudent for all the banks that have faced this problem to share it with other banks so that no one has to go through this charade again."

While reporting the crime is one way out of the mess, other industry watchers say banks need to tighten their checks before eagerly dolling out home loans to customers.

(With inputs from Mehak Kasbekar)