EU MORTGAGE CREDIT - BEUC reports and gives its initial comments on the EU’s white paper on mortgage credit. We call on ECRC members to share their views on this White Paper and on any arguments they have for ensuring that the Commission does indeed need to suggest a directive in this area. The APR and early repayment fees are evidently a recurrent theme which the technocrats are refusing to deal with. BEUC summary: On the 18th December, the European Commission published the White paper on mortgage credit. In our view, the result is disappointing. As far as a Mortgage directive is concerned, the white paper concludes that yet another impact assessment is needed because implementation cost might be significant. At the same time, the executive summary confirms that APRC and early repayment can only be solved through legislation. In our view, the Commission should have suggested a Mortgage directive. If EU action is the only way to harmonize early repayment and APRC in order to achieve a harmonized and proper functioning EU mortgage market, which would lead to an overall increase of the EU GDP, why is yet another impact assessment needed? Furthermore, the White paper does not give enough weight to the issue of early repayment. In the section customer mobility, provision of information and fighting tying are stated as the means to arrive at increased customer mobility. Early repayment is only mentioned afterwards, seemingly unrelated to any of the objectives stated before. Early repayment is nevertheless crucial in bringing forward competition in the EU mortgage market. The White papers considers the consumers a being passive, whereas for a consumers taking out a mortgage credit is the single biggest investment in their life. Many initiatives are nevertheless announced for 2008, unfortunately with a focus on analyzing the problems in the mortgage market. We will follow the working of the Commission and keep you updated. The ECRC view will be formulated and published on the website in due course. ID: 40768 Author(s): SCR Publication date: 14/01/08     EU White Paper on Mortgages: BEUC comment (Dec 2007) (198656 Bytes) URL(s): Link to previous ECRC news entry on the EU White paper (18 Dec 2007)

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Created: 14/01/08. Last changed: 14/01/08.
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