Six flats in a four-storey building were allegedly sold to 125 “buyers” who took home loans from a private bank and later allegedly defaulted on their monthly repayment.
Acting on a complaint by a private bank on Theatre Road, which sanctioned the loans, Kolkata police have started a case and arrested eight persons for the alleged cheating.
A woman who is suspected to be the joint owner of the building and the alleged mastermind is missing.
The building has 12 flats and is located in Khardah on the northern fringes of the city. The police said the bank that lodged the complaint had found that at least six of the 12 flats had been sold to 125 “buyers” using “genuine documents”.
“The buyers used their genuine KYC documents to take bank loans from different branches of the same bank. Once the bank loan was sanctioned the bank would transfer the money to the developer as per protocol. The developer would sell the same flat to another buyer who would also take a loan using genuine KYC documents. However, as the nomenclature of the property and the size of the property would be changed. This made it impossible for the bank to identify that different buyers were taking loans for the same property,” said a police officer.
“Till now it has been found that the bank had been cheated of around Rs 1.12 crore by the developer and the associates by taking loan against six flats and defaulting on the loan amount,” the officer said.
According to the rule, if an individual fails to pay back a home loan, after a stipulated time and number of notices served to the person who has taken the loan, the bank is free to take possession of the property against which the loan has been sanctioned.
In this case, however, the bank failed to initiate the process, as it was found that multiple buyers — other than the ones who had taken loan from this bank — had taken home loans from other banks against the same property.
“Home loans from multiple banks for the same property restrict the access or possession of any of the banks on the property as all banks have equal claims on it. Thus the bank could not take possession of the flats even when its purchasers had defaulted on the loan,” said a police officer.
The eight persons who have been arrested recently are allegedly part of a large racket comprising the developer and a battery of fake purchasers who use genuine KYC documents to take home loans against the same property and help the developer get the loan amount.