mortgage

New accommodations expected by 2026 as Catalonia leads evictions in Spain

7,683 new mortgages in Catalonia, 9.3% more than a year ago

Tribunal believes lenders lacked transparency but rules against potential payouts of millions to customers

Spanish judges set doctrine after EU court labelled previous ruling on mortgages “abusive”

European Court of Justice opens door to compensation after deciding banks may have misled customers over loans tied to fixed index

Council of Ministers approves royal decree after controversial court ruling

Supreme Court comes under fire as some call for the resignation of the head of Spain's highest judicial authority

Judges reverse earlier decision favoring clients following negative impact on markets and prospects of big reimbursements costs

The European Commission (EC) urged Spain to “enact EU rules on mortgage credit” and to “fully transpose EU-wide rules on mortgages”. “If these Member States fail to act within two months, they may be referred to the Court of Justice of the EU”, the EU executive said this Thursday. The warning was extended to eight more countries Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden. Member States had to implement these rules in their national law by the 21st of March 2016, but having missed the original deadline, the EC warned them through letters of formal notice last May. The Mortgage Credit Directive (Directive 2014/17/EU), which was adopted on 4 February 2014, aims to “improve consumer protection measures across the EU by introducing EU-wide responsible lending practices”.

The annual rate of mortgage borrowing increased substantially in the last 12 months, thanks to increasing confidence in the economy. The average amount borrowed for a mortgage in Catalonia in June was €134,509, according to figures published by the National Institute of Statistics of Spain. This figure is higher than the average Spanish mortgage, which stands at €112,516. In total, the amount borrowed in Catalonia for mortgages in June was €559.7 million, a 72.7% increase in comparison to June 2015 and a 10.8% increase in comparison to May 2016. Up to 4,161 mortgages were sold in Catalonia in the first month of summer.

A wake up call from the European Parliament to the Spanish government regarding the evictions and the ‘preferential shares’ scandal, which offered high rates of return but ended up with thousands of savers unable to recover their money four years ago. MEPs approved this Thursday a resolution which urged Spain to “drastically” reduce “the unacceptable number of evictions” and to “supervise” whether the communitarian legislation in relation to mortgage loans is correctly applied in order to “solve the current problems and prevent abusive practices”. This resolution was approved on the same day that Spain’s Constitutional Court accepted the Spanish government’s appeal to stop the Catalan law which would fine the owners of empty flats and deal with the situations of housing emergency. 

The number of mortgages on homes in Catalonia increased by 35.1% in March compared to figures from March 2014, data from the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE) show, with a total 3,229 mortgages approved. This yearly increase strengthens an uninterrupted trend of 11 consecutive months of annual growth, following 44 months of uninterrupted decline. In Spain as a whole, a 19.71% annual increase in March on figures from March 2014 was registered and 19,806 mortgages on houses and flats were granted. These figures represent the 10^th consecutive month of annual growth at Spanish level. In all the Catalan Provinces, an annual increase was also recorded: Lleida came top with a 76% increase, followed by Barcelona (35%), Tarragona (28%) and Girona (22%).