The plan designed between the Government and the bank to help clients with difficulties to pay their mortgage payment due to the rises in interest rates is failing. More than a month has passed since the launch of the so-called Code of Good Practices and applications are rare. just joined 1,000 requests to the main financial entities in the country, according to sources from the financial sector itself.
Although the requests increase in the coming months, especially if the ECB continues to raise rates, the final number of beneficiaries of this ‘mortgage bailout’ will fall well short of a million potential homes announced by the government.
The Spanish Consumer Association He has denounced the “true failure” that, in his opinion, has led to the implementation of this measure. Mortgage redemption requests “have been minimal” and users “are suffocated by rises in the Euribor.” According to the association in a statement, it had already warned that the measure “was going to be a real failure and was not going to have any impact on solving the economic problems of citizens.”
After nine consecutive months of the increase in the price of the Euribor and therefore of the variable mortgages, the citizens have hardly resorted to the so-called ‘mortgage rescue’. “They have been very scarce” says the Association. “The bank itself has admitted that it has received very few applications and, therefore, the figures are very far from the million users that would benefit according to what the Government indicated.”
Rating @MARUIZANILLO on the balance of the application of the Code of Good Banking Practices https://t.co/OUnDZMfrOH
— Spanish Association of Consumers-Asescon (@consumoasescon) February 13, 2023
Lack of information
Among the “causes of failure”, the entity cites that “it has been left all the information in financial institutions without counting on consumer associations”, which has caused, in his opinion, “a significant deficit of information regarding the rights of these consumers”.
Along with this, it ensures that the conditions to qualify are “very demanding, leaving out a good part of the citizens who suffer economic problems as a consequence of this crisis”.
Among these conditions, let us remember that there is a family income limit (25,200 euros for vulnerable families and 29,400 for those at risk), the mortgage payment must exceed certain family income limits (between 30% and 50%) o one limit of 300,000 euros for habitual residence, among other requirements.
For all these reasons, the association called for “a greater range of typologies so that a greater number of affected families benefit” from this tool.
In addition, sources from the financial sector suggest that the Mortgages with a higher interest chargewhich coincide with those formalized in the last five years, those of fixed rate, so they are not experiencing changes in their quota. Meanwhile, most variable-rate mortgages have a good part of their interests already amortized, since they were hired ten or more years ago.
For CCOO the aid is insufficient
He CCOO General Secretary, Unai Sordo has been very critical of this help to mortgage families. The measures taken by the Government to contain the rise in mortgage prices are “clearly insufficient” has said this week, and they will have a “minimal effect” on the economy and the fees paid by families.
According to the union’s own calculations, close to two million families with a variable mortgage will suffer a 10% reduction in your rent due to the increase in the fees.
Sordo recalled that CCOO proposes to “intervene in an ambitious way” to force entities that “compete with each other” to lower fees and facilitate the change from variable to fixed mortgages.
The CCOO leader has assured that the “fundamental problem” is the increase in the cost of house prices, which “continues to be nonsense”.
