“NHA now approves the two-month suspension for amortization or lease payments from residential account holders in all existing NHA projects, as well as commercial, industrial and institutional (CII) accounts,” General Manager Marcelino P. Escalada Jr. said in a statement.

Adding that, “this is our gift to our housing beneficiaries to aid them in this coming Christmas season.” 

This after the National Housing Authority (NHA) issued a Memorandum Circular on October 9, 2020, in the spirit of and pursuant to Republic Act No. 11494 — The Bayanihan to Recover as One Act — dated September 11, 2020, to help NHA housing beneficiaries and CII awardees/lessees heave a sigh of relief and recover from the burden they have experiencing in these trying times.

The moratorium will cover payments from November 1 to December 31, 2020. Resumption of payments is on January 1, 2021. Qualified in this scheme are individual accounts or Community Associations; estate and non-estate-based CII accounts in the regions with updated accounts as of Oct. 31, 2020 and active accounts with arrears of up to three months as of Oct. 31, 2020.

The program specifically emphasized that there is no need for housing beneficiaries to apply for this measure as this will automatically be processed for all existing residential and CII account holders. Furthermore, suspended amortization due will not incur delinquency or additional interest charges.

Meanwhile, for CII accounts, delinquency interest will be waived.

It may be recalled that NHA first suspended the collection of amortization payments from housing beneficiaries for three months — from March 16-June 15, 2020 — after the pandemic hit the country early this year.