Can’t Afford Your Mortgage in Spain: What Are Your Options?
Saturday, January 9th, 2010When money is tight, many people end up in a situation where they cannot pay their bills, sometimes including their mortgage. If you find yourself unable to pay your mortgage on your primary or second home, you may face major consequences. These consequences vary by country and can even vary by state or province within the same country, so it is important to understand them fully.
Defaulting on a Spanish mortgage, for example, has very specific consequences. In past years, it was possible to default on a Spanish mortgage with little to no loss at all to the homeowner. People who were not Spanish citizens but owned a vacation or second home in Spain could default on the mortgage with little or no cost or repercussions. But now Spanish mortgage holders can and do pursue every legal means necessary to collect on their mortgages.
In case a homeowner must default on a mortgage in Spain, turning over the home to the bank is often an option. Turning the home over to the bank will save you a lot of money, as the bank will not have court costs associated with pursuing you for the mortgage, and your interest will stop accruing sooner. You cant just turn the keys over to the bank without arranging it, however. The bank has to accept your offer, and they are under no obligation to do so. They will be rather unlikely to take the home back without good reason such as a hardship. An example of such a hardship would be the death of a spouse or another situation that has caused your income to be drastically cut.
If you cannot negotiate a home turnover with the bank that holds your Spanish mortgage, you will need to sell the home as soon as possible. You should try to get as much from the home sale as you can, as you will still be responsible to the bank for any shortfall between the home sale amount and the remaining amount on your Spanish mortgage. The bank will be most likely to aggressively pursue you for a large shortfall on the Spanish mortgage. But the bank can legally attempt to collect any amount from you. The bank may collect money by placing liens on any and all assets of the homeowner. Although it may take years to collect on the shortfall by going through the court systems, the bank that holds your Spanish mortgage will not give up until they do.
Defaulting on a mortgage in Spain is an extremely serious situation, so it is essential that the homeowner work as closely as possible with the bank as soon as it is evident that defaulting is going to be unavoidable. Showing a willingness to work with the bank can allow a homeowner to walk away from a Spanish mortgage with as little financial cost as possible and still retain full ownership of all his or her other assets.