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ECONOMIC CRISIS

Real estate, home restoration and solar panel loans amended

Real estate, home restoration and solar panel loans amended

A newly installed set of solar panels on a house in Komatiyeh, Baabda district. (Credit: Mortada Rammal, special to L'Orient Today)

BEIRUT — Some conditions of the real estate, home restoration and solar panel loans were amended Wednesday after a meeting took place between Chairman and General Manager of the state-owned Housing Bank Antoine Habib and the head of “Federation of Beirut Employees' Syndicates,” Shafik Sakr, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Here’s what we know:

    • According to the NNA, Habib said in a statement following the meeting, that the housing loan to purchase a house will extend to include homes in “various regions, including Beirut, Tripoli, Zahle, Jounieh, Saida, Halba, Baalbeck and all Lebanese cities … as well as increasing the maximum housing area to 150 [square] meters instead of 120 [square] meters.”

    • Habib also added that the Housing Bank will now accept “applications for solar energy loans for individuals who previously benefited [from] subsidized loans.”

    • According to the Banque de L’Habitat’s website, the conditions previously agreed on to apply to the housing loan specified that the total area of the house should not “exceed 120 square meters and that it should be within the villages and rural areas, where the areas don’t have a municipal council or where the number of municipal council members does not exceed 12 members.”

    • According to the website, the conditions previously agreed on to apply to the solar energy loan specified that the applicant should not have previously “used a subsidized home loan.”

    • Habib explained that those amendments were made on account of “the high demand for loans for [house] purchases, restoration and solar panels from all villages and cities.”

    • The Housing Loan, which will fund real estate, home restoration and solar panel installations was relaunched on June 20 after a three year halt.

    • Habib had said that the housing loan “is exclusively for Lebanese citizens with low income, if they have not previously benefited from any housing loan, and do not have a house registered in their name in Lebanon.”

    • A spokesperson for the Finance Ministry had told L'Orient Today earlier this month that the loans will be funded by the The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development in Kuwait and Banque du Liban.

    • “For the home purchase loan, the Housing Bank has allocated a maximum amount of LL1 billion to be repaid in installments over 30 years and with an interest rate that does not exceed 4.99 percent,” Habib had said.

    • He had also stated that for the home renovation loan, a maximum amount of LL400 million will be repaid in installments over 10 years, at an interest rate of 4.99 percent.

    • For the solar energy loans, he had said the financial ceiling ranges from LL75 million to LL200 million to be repaid over five years at an interest rate of 4.99 percent.

BEIRUT — Some conditions of the real estate, home restoration and solar panel loans were amended Wednesday after a meeting took place between Chairman and General Manager of the state-owned Housing Bank Antoine Habib and the head of “Federation of Beirut Employees' Syndicates,” Shafik Sakr, the state-run National News Agency reported.Here’s what we know:    • According to the...