24 January 2015
Can anyone tell, whether interest on housing loan can be claimed by husband, if the loan is in husband's name and house is in wife's name?????
To answer to the above question, first you need to understand how the property was actually acquired and what is the loan structure (like holder/holders of the loan)?
Situation 1: The property might have been acquired by wife through gift from parents or inheritance property.
In such case any loan taken jointly with husband or singly, husband will not be entitled to get any tax benefits of principal repayment u/s 80C and interest deduction u/s 24b even if he serve the loan repayment from his income. It doesn’t matter whether husband makes all (or part of) the repayments. It is even immaterial whether he is a first applicant or sole applicant or not an applicant at all. To claim tax benefits, husband needs to be the owner (or co-owner) of the property.
The solution may be; if both the spouse enter into an agreement where wife declares to sell and transfer part of the ownership of the house property to husband, then husband will be able to claim the tax benefit. Such sell/transfer requires prior permission of the lender.
Situation 2: The property has been acquired in the name of wife only, but source of fund is husband.
Here the fact is that the property may have been purchased in wife’s name may not mean that the property belongs to her. If the said house property has been purchased out of husband’s own funds (but property in wife’s name) then husband becomes the actual owner of the property. To claim income tax deduction, husband needs to make a declaration with the Assessing Officer (AO) under Benami Transaction Act 1998, stating that he is the real owner of the property though registered in his wife’s name. Once it is done, he will entitled to all deductions available to an owner of the Property relating to repayment and interest on housing loan under the Act.
25 January 2015
Since the house is in wife's name, income chargeable under the head 'income from house property' has to be declared in wife's name against which interest can't be claimed since she has no loan in her name.
25 January 2015
Where the loan is jointly taken by husband And wife,and where the wife is the owner of the property, only the interest serviced by the wife will be available for deduction against her income
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