What can you do if your landlord does not give his PAN number?

View Comments

• Hi Amit..
  I appreciate your willingness to help the tenants who are facing the issue of landlord's not giving their PAN numbers to tenants. I am also facing the same problem.

  You have written something like 'claim the tax paid back while filing tax return for the year.' . Can you please suggest me how can I do this?? I am happy if I get the tax paid in the form of returns at least.

  Thanks,
  Bharath

  • You can claim HRA while filing you tax returns. You would be asked no further questions and excess tax paid would be refunded.

    The problem arises if your ITR comes up for scrutiny or your assessing officer find your returns doubtful. In that case you would receive notice and you would have to reply with proof of rent payment and that your landlord is not providing his PAN number. The final decision to give you tax benefit or not would rest with the assessing officer. The drawback is if tax authorities decide against you, they might levy additional penalty and interest.

    If you have enough evidence that you have paid rent, you should get the tax benefit and would land your landlord in trouble. So its not a easy process but if you have any proofs I hope the tax exemption should be in your favor.

• Hi Amit, thanks for such a useful post. I have been loving in a house since April 2015, the agreement expired in March 2016 but we continued to stay in the same place. We asked owner to extend the agreement to which he refused and said he would need the flat in end of June. I just had a tussle with my landlor since he is refusing to extend the.agreement even till the.month of June(we have already stayed till June). Please help me with the actions that I can take.

  • You cannot take any action as its landlord to decide if he wants to extend the lease of not after expiry of the agreement. The only option you have is to shift to a new place.

• I got owners wife pan card number,but in rental agreement owner name(husband) is present,so can i use same rental agreement with her wife pan card number?

  • Ideally the PAN number should be of the owner of the house (i.e. name on which house is registered). But if the landlord has given his wife's PAN number you can quote that. Also it would be good to get the rental agreement in owner's wife name and give rent in owner wife's account.

    As a renter you are not suppose to know who between husband/wife owns the house and would believe in their words.

    • Hi

      I pay Rs 15k as house rent to my landlords account through net banking.
      Can i take my bank account statement print out as proof and claim for the HRA exemption?
      Will the landlord know about it? if so, i may get into problem? Any solution for that?

      • Employers might not agree to this as proof of HRA. But while filing your Income tax return you can take claim HRA. In case your case comes for scrutiny, you would have proofs of rent payment. But do remember that your assessing officer may deny this benefit based on his interpretation.

• Hi Amit, Thanks for blog, My question is Once the rent receipt are submitted to Employer, how will IT department collect it, My assumption is the details are not shared with IT department, but kept for future reference in case any inquiry comes from IT dept. In all, the employe keeps the data for future and it doesnt get shared with IT dept at the end of the year,

  • Your understanding is correct. It's employer responsibility to verify the correctness of rent receipt. In case of any dispute, employer might share it with I-T department.
    My guess is the PAN number of landlord for rent exceeding Rs 1 Lakh might be quoted to I-T department.

    • appreciate your prompt reply, Thanks

• Hi,

  I pay 15000 as rent per month. My landlord initially agreed to provide PAN no and now did a complete U-turn and refusing to sign declaration or provide PAN. I transfer rent to his bank account every month and so it all the more doesn't make sense as to why he is not providing his PAN no. I have however figured out his PAN number from a neighbour to whom he had sold the flat. So my question is

  1. Will he get to know if I submit his PAN number without him knowing about it? Will it have any implication on me?

  2. Or should I make the declaration of no PAN with his signature missing, and attach my bank account statement of transfer of rent every month to his account along with rent agreement?

  I want to get the legitimate tax relief under HRA that I am entitled too at the same time don't want the owner to ask me to vacate.

  • Vignesh - What you are going through is very common for people living on rent. The important thing to note is - it's your landlord who is at fault. Here are answers to best of my knowledge:
    1. You would submit PAN number to your office, so your landlord would not know about it. But if he has not declared the rental income to income tax department, he might receive notice for the same. He might come to know about this then. But as you say you transfer the amount to his bank account so IT Department may anyway send him notice about this income.
    2. You cannot make declaration on landlord's behalf. So this option is ruled out.

    My opinion is to give your landlord's PAN number to your employer and that is perfectly legal!

    • I pay 12000 as rent per month. My landlord initially agreed to provide PAN no and now did a complete U-turn and refusing to sign declaration or provide PAN. I pay rent amount in cash and also not having any rent agreement. I have however figured out his PAN number from a google. So my question is

      1. Would I able to claim HRA .?

      2. Or should I make the declaration of no PAN with his signature missing, and attach my bank account statement of transfer of rent every month to his account along with rent agreement?

      • PAN declaration without signature is not valid. So you can give his PAN number (only if you are sure about it) to claim HRA.

• I am in this house from past 3 years and this rule came into place only from Oct 2013. Last year my HRA was not more than 8,333 INR so I was not worried about it. It is the landlord who is cheating on income tax and when asked for no pan declaration form, the answer was to vacate the house. I am already in search of a new house and I am asking these rent form, pan card number with the new landlords as well. But my question is how to report this to income tax department as he is the one who is cheating the income tax department and not me.. Moreover this man works in a government office and shows on his income tax that he is staying in a rented house. Please let me know if you have any source for complaint. If not, lets not continue this discussion as the above answer given by you is not a solution.

  • You can definitely file complaint with the Income Tax Department about Tax Evasion. I am not sure if that can be done anonymously or online. I was able to dig out some online forms and contacts.

    The good news if your information proves right and Income Tax department is able to recover their taxes, you can be rewarded up to 20% of tax collected but in case IT department finds nothing wrong with your landlord, you can face criminal prosecution u/s 182 of IPC for giving false information to Public Servant.

    Hope it helps!

• My landlord is not ready to sign the declaration form not give the pan card number. He asked us to vacate the house.Now I am worried about my advance amount and the second thing is I want to compliant against him. Please help

  • @ krithi

    I understand and this is the problem faced by most of tenants. You cannot do much about it other than taking matters to local police. The lessons learnt is Next time you rent a house beware to take PAN number of landlord in advance!

• In most of the cases, landlords are unwilling to give PAN card copy, any kind of declaration saying he has no PAN if has one/none. There is a landlord, he takes only in CASH and not even through any other means of payments, because does not want to leave any kind of proofs, like emails/letter, absolutely no proofs.

  Basically point here is, when landlord is unwilling to give any kind of documents, what tax payer should do to get HRA exemption? (Landlords directly say, they wont give any docs or signatures. They say to tenant, either they have to agree to their terms OR can vacate the house. Given the condition of homeless citizens, tenants have no other means escape from exploitation by Landlords and Govt).

  Even if you try to ask some form of document with new landlord also issue is same.

  This is totally inability of Govt to punish tax evaders like Landlords. And making tenants pay for its inefficiency.

  Regards,
  Markson

  • I totally agree with you... the only precaution that can be taken is if you are shifting to a new house tell landlord about this new rule and take his PAN card copy while signing lease agreement.

    • Amith,

      taking precaution!!!, yes though if you want, circumstances of not getting new house as per your requirements, will more probably make you to agree to landlord's terms.

      there was one event, when a tenant tried take such precaution, landlord said, he won't give any kind of declaration, PAN copy, nothing. If you want to take house on rent, you are welcome, else get out, said on his face.

      Regards,
      Markson

      • The salaried person is always the scape goat. How difficult is it for the government to have the PAN card number/no PAN declaration made mandatory in rent agreement forms?

      • I understand ... I myself am on rent and so know what's happening :)

        Thankfully my Landlord is not that fussy!! But I know he is more an exception than rule ...