When I tried drawing money from an old account,which I have not accessed over a year,the transaction got declined. Bank claims the account is inactive. When I have idle cash,how can this be so? Rajiv Sharma,Dhanbad If you do not use a bank account for over a year the bank can declare the account inactive inspite of the fact that you have idle cash in the account. The time frame after which its declared inactive however varies from bank to bank. As a best practice,use all your bank accounts once in while,perhaps draw some cash at the ATM or keep depositing cash on a regular basis or use it for some kind of banking transaction etc to retain its active status. Since your account has been declared inactive,you need to visit the bank branch where you hold the account and request for reactivation through a formal request. I took a home loan five years back from SBI; then I took a top up loan on the same. I also took a car loan from the same bank. Can I get another home loan? Manjunath Musaguppi,Mumbai Ofcourse you can,provided your income can support the EMIs of all these loans you currently have. Your bank will exclude the total EMI outgo for all these loans and base your loan eligibility on the remaining amount. Generally,banks fund around 40-50 per cent of your income. In your case,the EMIs you pay will be excluded and 40-50 per cent of the remaining income will be considered. The rest is considered as your routine monthly expense. It would be wiser to use the extra money you have currently to make some lump sum prepayments on your home loan or close out your car loan quickly. I am having difficulty managing loans since my wife had to quit her job due to health problems. Will credit counselling help? Piyush Kumar,Lucknow The Banking Codes and Services Board of India offers a free of cost credit counseling service to individuals who have taken a home loan,car loan,personal loan etc. The service is available only if you have taken a loan from member banks of BCSBI. There are also other credit counselling agencies like Disha and Abhay associated with banks,which can help you restructure your debt. Try approaching them and hope this will solve your debt hassles. The expert is CEO,Bankbazaar.com For your personal finance queries please email at expressmoney@expressindia.com
