The home loan file: every document, and why the lender wants it

A home loan is three appraisals running in parallel: you, your income, and the property. Each one has its own document set, and the file moves at the speed of the slowest.

About you (KYC)

• PAN — mandatory, and the file cannot even be logged without it.
• Aadhaar, passport, voter ID or driving licence for identity and address.
• A recent utility bill or registered rent agreement if your current address differs from the ID.
• Passport photographs, three per applicant.

About your income

Salaried: three months of salary slips, two years of Form 16, six months of the salary account statement, and an employment certificate. The bank is checking that the credit is regular, from a named employer, and that the slips reconcile with the bank credits — a mismatch is the commonest reason a clean-looking file gets queried.

Self-employed: three years of ITR with computation, two years of audited P&L and balance sheet, twelve months of current account statements, GST returns and business registration proof. Lenders average two or three years of declared income rather than taking the best year, so a spike does not help as much as consistency does.

About the property

• Allotment letter or agreement to sell.
• Approved building plan and commencement certificate.
• RERA registration number and the project's authority page.
• For a resale: the chain of title / mother deed, the latest tax receipts, the society NOC and an encumbrance certificate.
• Receipts for everything you have already paid the builder — the lender funds the balance, not the total.

Consent and your data

A bureau pull is a hard enquiry and needs your explicit written consent; several pulls in a short window shave a few points off your score, so do not let four banks pull simultaneously — get indicative offers first and let one pull. Never hand raw bank statements to an unverified intermediary. A legitimate lender or channel partner will collect them through the lender's own portal.