Housing loan relief expires on June 30

The National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMfC) has called on its some 200,000 housing loan borrowers to avail themselves of the agency’s loan penalty condonation program which is set to expire on June 30.

Lawyer Angelico Salud, NHMFC president, said that NHMFC will waive up to 100 percent of accumulated loan penalties on delinquent accounts, or proportionate to the loan arrearages to be updated.

To avail of the benefit, a delinquent borrower may either fully pay his outstanding loan balance, update the unpaid monthly amortizations, or restructure the loan upon payment of a nominal downpayment.

The loan relief is provided under Republic Act no. 8501, the Housing Loan Condonation Act of 1998, and is available to loans availed of under NHMFC’s Unified Home Lending Program, Community Mortgage Program, or under its old Pag-IBIG/Open-housing loan program (Folio I), Salud informed.

The grand of loan penalty condonation and provision of loan updating assistance facility to economically-distressed borrowers has been implemented since March 1998, the effectivity of R.A. 8501 and was extended up to June 30 this year to provide delinquent borrowers ample opportunity to restructure their loans within affordable repayment levels, he pointed out.

All concerned borrowers may apply for loan updating and penalty condonation with any NHMFC zonal offices nearest the borrowers or to the NHMFC One-Stop-Shop Center located at the ground floor of Filomena Bldg., 104 Amorsolo St., Makati City.

Upon expiry of the loan relief program, NHMFC will start foreclosing the mortgages of housing loans with arrearages of at least 24 months to assure the recovery of funds and enhance the quality of NHMFC’s mortgage loan portfolio, Salud added.