An awareness mail cautioning against lamination of important documents has been doing the rounds on the internet for sometime now. In one mail a property owner from Bangalore described his arduous search to de-laminate 20 documents relating to his property.
His search ended in Mysore and cost him heavily. Bank managers, builders and loan counsellors have different takes on the subject, though. While bankers say they would accept such documents, LIC Housing Finance Limited officials say they would not.
According to N.V. Narasimhan, area manager, Teynampet branch, LIC HFL, “The tendency is to get colour photocopies laminated. We have to be wary of double documentation.” Home loan counsellors say property owners face a problem when they try to mortgage it. “Clients laminate their old documents to preserve them. Though we advise them to de-laminate the documents we also warn of the possibility of damage,” says LIC Home loan counsellor S. Sudhanandan.
S. Subramanian, a loan counsellor for private banks, has dealt with at least six cases in the last 15 years. “Most such clients are builders. We verify by cross-checking the details with the certified copies, the valuation of the property and the name of the claimant in the two documents. A mistake in any of these would alert us,” he says.
Counsellors say they generate a credit information report through Credit Information Bureau (CIBIL) to corroborate the claims of the client. Nationalised banks rely on their in-house legal team to verify documents. The Paper Safer is one of the two units in the city which specialises in de-lamination. S. Rajendran has in the last 10 years de-laminated documents for 700 clients. “. Lamination sheets are made of polymers and excess heat during lamination will fuse the paper to the polymer and make it difficult to remove. Inferior polymers can also cause damage during removal. We can ensure only 80 per cent success in such cases,” he says.
