New Personal Loan Regulations in Qatar

make sure u dont owe them money if u are leaving Shatar, u cant transfer your account to another country, you have to pay off all u owe first....i have just learnt that with only 2 weeks to go !!!!

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Has anyone had any experience with commercial bank for personal loans?

good stuff, bad stuff, procedures, hidden cost etc?

Would love to hear some stories as I have been contemplating taking out a personal loan for a house back home.

I just want to make sure things would go smoothly as everyone seems to have a gripe about the commercial bank.

I thought they had amended the rules for the ownership of pick-ups for expatriates if it was meant for their personal use. I remember reading this in Gulf-times maybe around a year back back not sure exactly but I believe the authorities had announced it. Maybe they have not yet implemented it???

license plates? maybe thats what the qr.450 is for....

actually they need to follow the right steps to regulate licensed/unliecenced business. They should keep giving green plate numbers to people who wish to have liecensed hauling, and white plate numbers (just like ordinary cars) to people who are using their pickup truck as private family cars. This way when a policeman notice a white plate pickup doing commercial hauling, he can stop the driver. This is what they do in other countries. This is the 1st time I see (here) that a commercial big rusty 2-ton Toyota Dyna truck has the same plate number of a luxury 1/4 million QR Caddilac pickup truck

My understanding of the 'no truck for foreign individuals' law was that it is intended to prevent unlicensed business use.

Good to know that Qatari Law is so considerate :-)

Banks want an official price offer from a showroom. An idividual can not provide an official price offer. Plus, some people ask the bank for a 100,000QR car loan for a used car that is not worth more than 70,000QR for example. They want the extra 30,000QR for themselves. This causes mistrust. This makes ALL banks buy cars thru showrooms only.

Oasis Cars charged me QR1400 for exactly the same process. My car purchase was also through a private seller. I decided to pay the dealer myself rather than finance it through the loan. You paid some of the fee yourself and financed the remaining QR1,000 through the loan.

However, CBQ will only give you a loan for a second hand car if it is bought through a dealer. This is the reason why you had to use this Salwa Road guy.

Its a stupid system I know but I don't think you have been ripped off because I had exactly the same experience.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. Mahatma Gandhi

Dealers/showrooms sell cars for private owners and expect to make a profit, their own arrangement fee, so I supposer that's what the 1000 Riyals is for. He shouldn't have charged you an "admin" fee.

You know what they say about car salesmen.

Welll...the bank finally called me back to update me.

It turns out that they paid the middle-man car dealer (Mohammed, at Bin Eid Car Showroom on Salwa) an extra QR 1,000 than what the owner of the vehicle wanted from me (and the rest was just bank charges).

So say the car was selling for QR 45,000, Mohammed-the-dealer told the bank the car was valued at QR 46,000 so instead of loaning me 45,000 the bank loaned me 46,000. Except that I never saw the extra 1,000. Because the bank paid 46,000 to the car dealership, who then went and paid the private vehicle owner just 45,000.

So mystery solved...Bin Eid Car Showroom has pocketed 1,000 rials for himself. Even though I paid him his ''admin'' fee separately so there should be no extra charge.

I called the vehicle owner, and he swears he only received 45,000 into his account from the car dealer. He's a bit annoyed, because he never wanted to go through a dealer anyway - he was selling his car privately by putting a note up on the window!! Why be forced to go through a dealer that absolutely did nothing to help you sell the car!!!

It all seems rather dodgy to me that the bank pays a random car dealer the money instead of paying the owner of the vehicle direct when a vehicle is being sold privately. Is this so that the Qatari running the shop can look like he's selling cars when in actual fact he's doing nothing and even pocketing an extra 1,000 here and there? Plus charging a 'fee' aswell?

I'm not really sure what to do about this extra 1,000 because to be honest I can barely communicate with Mohammed the dealer, its a real struggle with the language barrier -(ah! my inspiration to learn arabic!!)

Is it wrong that I'm so exhausted by this whole process I almost can't work up the energy to go and confront Mohammed about this pocketed 1,000 rials? (its the principle of it i suppose...)

x mp

You have to be a company or a citizen! This is the traffic police law since years! Dont know what so special about pick up trucks. Had 1 reserved lately from Mannai, I was not allowed to buy it, the company I work in refused to buy it for me, now it's sold! Gone :-(

(have to seetle for a white Toyota Land Cruiser (typical local guy...hahaha)

But CBQ is giving me a hard time financing a car loan!

I know a British guy who owns a Chevy truck.

can only be owned by Qatari citizens? Say it ain't so. Is that true Airsupply? What's the reason for that?

My redneck friend had a huge Chevy 4 wheel drive truck but I think it is owned by the company he works for. So the ones at Mannai can only be bought by Qataris?

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. Mahatma Gandhi

don't you think so, AirSuplly?

Goodness knows how ANY bank works these days - they certainly fill their trousers with our money, though, and ain't that a fact!

They financed my car loan in 2005 (which should finish in 2010). I was working then with an employer (who was my sponsor at the same time...typical). I moved now to a new employer … and a different sponsor (unusual here, except for females who are usually sponsored by their husbands/fathers).

I asked CBQ to finance a new car loan for me. They checked the financial issues & had no problem as long as my installments of both cars are still not even 50% of my income. BUT...."SORRY! WE CAN NOT HELP YOU BECAUSE YOUR SALARY IS BEING TRANSFERED TO US BY AN EMPLOYER WHO IS NOT YOUR SPONSOR"!!!

"But guys...hello!!!.. my 1st car is still being financed by you although "my employer is not my sponsor". I mean what the hell do you care as long as my employer has provided you with the "standard salary letter" that you asked for?"

So here I am still driving 1 of those rented small, disposable Japanese cars & not being able to buy my (2nd best) dream car (my dream car is one of those BIG American pickup trucks. But you are not allowed to own them if you are not a Qatari citizen).

I don't know if there is any other bank in Qatar that would finance my new car loan (they advertising in newspapers: No Salary transfer required! No sponsor required! No down-payment required!...etc, etc, etc). All I know that, if there is another bank that will finance my new car, then I'd make this bank MY bank instead of CBQ.

Well not exactly normal but it is how Commercial Bank operates. In other words CBQ will not lend you money to buy a car from a private owner, they will only do it through a dealer.

The QR450 you paid the dealer was the dealer's fee for running the car through his books. Effectively, the former owner sold the car to the dealer and the dealer sold the car to you. That is how it will appear on a an audit trail. The QR3542 is probably the first repayment plus arrangement fees.

I had exactly the same experience but the dealer in my case was Oasis cars even though it was a private sale. Oasis charged me a lot more than QR450 so I think you did okay.

I used the car loans people at the CBQ airport branch. The guy I dealt with (indian) was excellent. He was very efficient and helpful. Oasis was crap.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary. Mahatma Gandhi

Good thing i screwed the bank before this law was bought up!! When they come looking for me u guys never heard this!

I bought the car from the owner directly...the owner himself was surprised he had to go through this random dealer who had nothing to do with anything. The dealer was also required to provide the bank with a quote to prove that the car really was worth the amount of the loan.

It was quite the ordeal, because the vehicle owner had to be by my side for every appointment -

1. the bank (all three of them)

2. the random qatari car dealer middle man (several times)

3. back to the bank to finalise

So the two of us (both in very busy jobs) always had to try and co-ordinate time off work together it was a riot.

3542 seems like a hefty processing fee. Yes, I will persist with trying to get onto the bank...

x mp

There could be an arrangement fee for the loan.

If I were you I'd persist in finding out exactly what the breakdown of the loan is. You are entitled to a print-out of the loan structure.

If the owner of the car placed the car for sale at the dealer's showroom (common) then it's normal for the bank to pay the showroom owner who'll take his cut and pay the owner of the car the agreed-upon amount.

But get back to CBQ and demand a detailed breakdown.

and you haven't been in to see them yet??????

Could be some sort of double entry I suppose. I think I've seen similar on my bank accounts in the past, but I never understood ledgers anyway!

Hopefully someone will pop up on here and help you - sounds like a weird process.

Can anyone help with info?

2 weeks ago I received a car loan with Commercial bank, and it was the strangest process I have ever gone through to get a loan.

For one thing I personally never dealt with the money.

Even though I was buying the vehicle from a private seller, the bank paid the money to a Qatari car dealer down salwa road. Apparently the bank paid the amount for the car directly to this Qatari car dealer, who then paid the money to the private owner. (I'm assuming this has all happened, because I have the car, and have not been phoned by the previous owner with any complaints)

I was required to pay the Qatari car dealer the amount for full-insurance, and a 'fee' of 450 rials for i dont know what (?) It all seemed a little weird to me (is this the norm when buying from private owner??)

Today I checked my online banking and noticed that I have an outstanding bank loan that is QR 3,542 in excess what the loan was for.

What is this extra 3,542 for?

Seriously, it was the strangest process - this Qatari car dealer (that never turned up to his shop when we arranged to meet - i had to go back 4 times)...When I paid him the 'fee' of QR 450 he just popped it in his wallet ... I was like...err, are you going to give me a receipt for that???

The Comm Bank was absolutely useless in explaining this process to me. They actually sent me on a wild goose chase to 3 different banks until I arrived at the one that does the car loans (all you ppl out there looking to get a vehicle loan thru commercial, if you go to Landmark they will tell you to go to Al Sadd, and Al Sadd will then tell you to go to Salwa Road. So just go straight to Salwa Road and save yourself the time)

I don't mean to complain (too much) but i just thought I'd ask if my experience was the norm.....

x mp