Housing Finance Companies

How to File Complain Against a Housing Finance Company?

National Housing Bank (NHB) has been established under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987 to operate as a principal agency to promote housing finance institutions and to provide financial and other support to such institutions. But what if you are dissatisfied with the services of your Housing Finance Company (HFC)? There are instances when a customer who has taken a housing loan from a housing finance company (HFC) is dissatisfied with its services. In such a situation, the customer can make a complaint to the grievance cell of the HFC.

But how can you do it? In this blog we would discuss about how you can complaint against a Housing Finance Company in case you are not satisfied with its services.

Where can you complaint against Housing Finance Company?

You can file a complaint to the grievance cell of the HFC, better known as Grievance Registration & Information Database System (GRIDS) which is established as the NHB’s Grievance Redressal Mechanism.

It helps in providing a simple, speedy and cost effective mechanism to the aggrieved parties of the customers of the Housing Finance Companies.

Please note that there is no other authority available in India which would deal with the aggrieved customers of the Housing Finance Companies.

Features of Grievance Registration & Information Database System (GRIDS)

The RBI has made it mandatory for the NHBs to form a Grievance Registration and Information Database system (GRIDS). Some of the features of GRIDS are:

• It facilitates online registration and tracking of complaint for the complainant.
• It not only brings transparency in our Grievance Redressal Mechanism but also designed for online updating of responses by National Housing Bank or Housing Finance Companies.
• Complainant can make use of this portal by providing the required information like name, contact details, application number, account number etc for the registration and subsequent tracking of status.

Procedure of filing complaint against Housing Finance Companies

The following online procedure needs to be followed while filing a complaint against a Housing Finance Company (HFC):

• Access the grievance handling portal of the National Housing Bank by accessing the link https://grids.nhbonline.org.in.
• The complaint should be made to the concerned HFC grievance redressal officer or cell.
• The HFC is expected to resolve the issue within a time period of 30 days.
• Further, you need to complete the online form and attach the relevant documentary evidence to prove the case. Please note that the maximum 4 files of up to 1 MB each can be attached.
• Once a complaint is lodged on the portal, a complaint acknowledgement number is generated. This number can be used to track the status of resolution of the complaint in future.
• In case, there is no response or you are not satisfied with the resolution offered by the Complaint Redressal Cell (CRC) within 30 days of filing the complaint. Post which a further complaint can be made to the Chief Grievance Redressal officer of National Housing Bank.

Offline procedure of filing complaint against Housing Finance Companies

The customer can also make a physical complaint against the Housing Finance Companies and send the same to the following address:

“Complaint Redressal Cell Department of Regulation and Supervision,

 National Housing Bank, Core 5 A, India Habitat Centre,

Lodhi Road, New Delhi

110003.” 

The above address is of Regulatory Authority of Housing Finance Companies – National Housing Bank.

Points to be noted:

You must note down the following points before you take the step against a HFC

• In case you cannot approach the NHB personally you can also send an email stating your problem. You can send the email to crcell@nhb.org.in.
• Your nature of complaint could not be only loan related complaints, but it can also be related to fixed deposit complaints like non receipt of principal amount, interest, deposit certificates etc.
• The NHB will ensure to take a look at whether the provisions of the National Housing Bank have been violated and take action against the company accordingly.
• The NHB also takes-up loan related complaints. However, it must be noted that the NHB may not intervene in terms of interest rates charged, prepayment of home loan and charges therefore, recovery etc.
• The loan is a contractual obligation between the customer and the HFC. Hence NHB may have a limited say in many respects.
• Most of the housing finance companies have a complaint redressal system and individuals can first approach them to address their grievances.
• Only, if there is an unsatisfactory resolution to the entire matter, individuals can then approach the NHB.

Conclusion

It’s not always your home loan affair will be a smooth one. At times you could run into problems with regards to a host of issues . That can bedue to the wrong charges levied, breach of trust etc.

You may have complaints against your home loan company or housing finance companies which can sometimes take an ugly turn. These days matters are solved by companies very quickly and mechanisms are much more transparent then before. It’s best to take up your complaint with the company directly and only later approach the NHB.

For more details regarding Housing Finance Company and its registration process you can refer to the below articles:

1. Housing Finance Company Registration
2. Compliance of Housing Finance Companies in India