Can I claim a tax benefit on rent paid in the same city where I own a house?

livemint.com:

—Arindam MukhopadhyayWe assume that you are in employment and are paid a house rent allowance (HRA) by your employer. As per the provisions of the Income Tax Act, exemption towards HRA received from an employer can be claimed subject to fulfilment of the following conditions:1) The residential accommodation for which rent is being paid should be actually occupied by the assessee;2) The assessee has incurred actual expenditure towards payment of rent for said accommodation; and3) The said accommodation is not owned by the assessee.These provisions do not expressly stipulate that the HRA exemption would not be available if the assessee owns another house in the same city and earns rental income from the same.However, such claims may be prone to scrutiny by the income tax authorities.

In order to justify a claim of HRA exemption, it is important that all the conditions specified above are fulfilled and can be further substantiated with documentary evidence (viz. rent agreement, rent receipts, bank transfer proofs, etc.) and reasonable explanations as to why the taxpayer could not occupy the property owned by him (other than the reason of tax benefit) if queried by the tax authorities.—Name withheld on requestWe understand that you have given the sum of money under a loan to your brother at a nominal interest rate for a certain period and he would be repaying the loan to you along with the prescribed interest.

The interest received by you from your brother on the loan would be taxable in your hands. The clubbing provisions of the Income Tax Act do not cover the situation of clubbing of income derived by your brother from the investments made by him, through the loaned funds received from you.However, please note that there