Deudores hipotecarios sin recursos

Membership is notified to the General Secretariat of the Treasury and International Financing. To find out if your institution is signed up, consult the list of signed-up institutions published in the Official State Gazette.

The regulation refers to the income of the entire household unit. Therefore, all such income must be taken as a whole.

Following the latest amendments to the Code of Good Practice, the annual income limit for beneficiary households is calculated based on the annual 14-payment IPREM.

1. Five-year interest-only period.

2. Lengthening of the repayment term to a maximum of 40 years from the loan origination date.

3. Reduction of the applicable interest rate to Euribor + 0.25% during the interest-only period.

Any floor clauses set out in the mortgage contract shall not apply.

And if you decide to repay the mortgage in advance during the ten years following approval of the restructuring plan, the bank will not be able to charge you any compensation fee.

The measures envisaged are to be applied successively. The first is debt restructuring. If this is not viable, you can request a debt reduction, i.e. a reduction in the capital, or a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Lastly, if the house has been foreclosed, you can apply to rent it at a favourable rate.

Financial difficulties can result in failure to keep up with mortgage repayments. These can build up and generate late-payment interest and arrears charges. If the bank takes legal action, court fees will be accrued in addition to the debt.

The restructuring plan must cover the entire mortgage debt, including the past-due principal, late-payment interest, arrears charges, fees and costs.

The bank cannot demand that you pay all outstanding instalments prior to applying the Code, since these amounts constitute “mortgage debt” and must likewise be subject to restructuring. See the Oversight Committee´s response  (70 KB).

Further, the bank may consolidate the borrower's debt - credit cards, overdraft, personal loans -, but it is not required to do so. See the Oversight Committee´s response  (78 KB).

Not necessarily. If a new deed setting out the new conditions of the loan – the restructuring plan – is not executed, those conditions will be binding between the debtor and the institution. That said, the agreement could not be recorded in the real estate registry, and therefore it would not be enforceable against third parties, who would be unaffected by the changes.

If, conversely, the restructuring plan is public deeded, the new conditions will be enforceable between the parties to the agreement and also vis-à-vis third parties, once it is filed with the real estate registry.

While deed execution is voluntary, either of the parties (the borrower or the bank) may request the same. In this case, the cost of that deed execution shall be borne by the party that requests it.

See the Oversight Committee´s response  (113 KB).

No.

Mortgage priority refers to the position of each mortgage in the real estate registry and determines the priority of certain loans with respect to others.

A mortgage can lose priority when the loan conditions are changed so as to increase the mortgage liability figure or extend the term of the loan. Priority may only be preserved with the consent of the subsequent lenders.

However, any lender adhered to the Code of Good Practice is required to offer the borrower a restructuring plan that satisfies the requisites, with no exempting provision set out in the regulation.

The institution will have to find the means of fulfilling its obligation, duly considering, if applicable (and if the mortgage loses priority), the possibility of reducing or consolidating the debt, securing the consent of higher-priority rights holders, or any other suitable arrangement in the circumstances.

See the Oversight Committee’s response.

Yes, provided that you are within the exclusion threshold you will be eligible for restructuring, but not the supplementary or replacement measures.

• Check if your bank is signed up to the Code of Good Practice.
• If so, find out more on its website or at its branches.
• Submit an application, along with the documentation evidencing that you meet both the economic and housing price requirements.

The bank must provide you with all the help you need, both with the application form and with the supporting documents to be submitted in order to request the application of these measures.

A restructuring plan is not viable when, although the debtor reaches the so-called "exclusion threshold" and the purchase price of the primary residence meets the limit, the instalments payable under this plan exceed 50% of the household unit's income.

Yes. The fact that a mortgage loan has been securitised does not in itself exclude the application of the Code.

See the Oversight Committee´s response  (74 KB).

Yes. If the bank claims payment of the debt from you as guarantor and you reach the "exclusion threshold", you can benefit from the measures established in the Code of Good Practice.

That said, before the bank claims payment from you, it must first exhaust the principal debtor's assets.