In Sri Lanka obtaining a Housing Loan

 

• Ensure you have at least 25 – 30% of the total value of the house you are trying to buy.

• To get a loan different parts of Sri Lanka to have a different minimum requirement in land size to be qualified for a loan. E.g.: Kaduwela Biyagama a land should be over 6 perch to qualify for a loan.

• Make sure from your salary you do not take salary advances for 6 months before applying for the loan, as they check up to 3 months if the exact total amount to the digit is deposited.

• Make sure your company does bank-to-bank transactions and not cash deposits; very important.

• EPF and ETF should be shown and paid for to qualify for ANY loan in Sri Lanka.

• They check your salary with your HR, not only giving salary slips is not enough.

• Interest rates there is TWO, fixed means a fixed amount is a charge, or a variance means it can go high but can down too as per bank, economy and other situations of the country.

• If under a mortgage, they have a valuation process done, they have government officials to check on the deeds, House insurance charges, legal charges, stamp duty, and many others they slowly charge too, so have a buffer of money too.

• When the loan is approved and the house is bought, they do not hand over your deed. The deed is handed over once the loan amount is paid in full. You can request a copy certified by the bank for your use e.g.: visas and land tax to be changed to your name so on so forth.

This is my personal experience of things :)

Hope this helps!

Youtube has advice for loan and outright purchases : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoAbCtz9ID0

Cheers!

Liswith

Improving the Visa and Booking Process Post Covid for Sri Lanka

 

Due to ever-changing rules, and approval confusion where there is no reference to the forms submitted by Travel agents in Sri Lanka. Most travel agents I speak to are very discouraged to sell or promote Tourism now in Sri Lanka.

Excepts for big players who already have taken a big stronghold in specific markets.

My suggestion for improvements, remove all the Form A and Form B and using Google Forms. We are tech-savvy than that as a nation.

I shall guide step by step how it can be improved, using ONLY the immigration site :

• Use existing immigration visa site

• Client applies for Visa, gets a reference.

• Using the Visa reference, agents have a backend portal where they fill in client details confirming this is their client.

• Using the Visa reference, Tourist Board (assign people specific market-wise) approves agent details.

• Using the Visa reference, the immigration officer confirms the visa once the tourist board official approves the workflow chain.

• Once Visa is approved, travel agent fills in a detailed summary of places visited, driver details so on using the same Visa reference number.

• Before clients arrive using the same Visa reference number, they fill in an online declaration to reconfirm their arrival and details, this is to be done 24 hours before arrival.

That Singular Visa Reference number can be used to track each step by client, travel agent, tourist board, and immigration.

You want it to can one extra step when PCRs are taken of tourists use the same Visa reference as identification.

The entire process can be handed over to a company in Sri Lanka that can develop this overnight.

My process might be flawed, but it will improve workflow structure, there shall be one reference to identify the entire process and tracking of a booking.

This is how you improve tourism in Sri Lanka.

More references on my vision for Sri Lanka Tourism : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whom-may-concern-my-vision-sri-lankas-tourism-liswith-obinamuni

Cheers!

LISWITH

Should we have "Local Private Universities" in Sri Lanka?

 

So there is a big argument going on about Free Education in Sri Lanka.

When it comes to Higher Education, there should be free education as it currently applies like Colombo, J'pura, and other universities.

This does not mean Local Universities should not be given the chance to open up for things like Medicine, Engineering so on "Local Private Universities" this should be an option to chose too.

Why is this important:

• Amount of students traveling to countries like Bangladesh, Russia, and China will reduce as this would be locally available.
• With riots, rag, and the rallies make years spent longer, one who wishes can go for an option where they skip that and finish their given degrees and the promised time frame. 
• Why is this important: this gives opportunities for new batches to continuously join in than current students wasting many more years in university.
• This opens a whole new revenue scheme for Sri Lanka as a country, where we can attract students globally from other countries "Sri Lanka an educational hub" within South Asia.
• They will rent housing, support our economy in USD paying to universities, and living costs too which get injected into our economy.

This does not limit us as a country but helps us expand as a country, fewer students spend money in our countries for education, Sri Lanka gets accredited as an educational hub for higher education in South Asia, we get influx and support the local economy opening doors to the rest of the world too to study and live within our borders. Long term, as a community we get to be inspired by other cultures and people, these universities do not need to be based within Colombo either. Our lectures are teaching in other countries, our Deans and heading administration in other countries time we attract our fellow citizens to earn better and serve our home.

This is my two cents on what could be done to expand who we are as a country.

Do think about it.