Consumer Protection in EU Residential Mortgage Markets: Common EU Rules on Mortgage Credit in the Mortgage Credit Directive

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 223-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatjana Josipović

AbstractFor many years now, there has been an attempt in the European Union to create a common legal framework for mortgage credit contracts and cross-border activities in the mortgage financial sector. One of the greatest challenges has been the establishment of a corresponding level of consumer protection in EU residential mortgage markets. This issue has become particularly important at the time of financial crisis. Consumers are increasingly exposed to the risk of losing their homes because of failing to fulfil, in due time, their obligations arising from mortgage loans, and thus losing confidence in the EU financial sector. Therefore, the European Union has intensified its efforts to improve consumers’ ability to inform themselves of the potential risks when entering into mortgage loans and mortgaging their real property. On 4 February 2014 the EU adopted the new rules on mortgage credits in the Mortgage Credit Directive. The main objective of the Directive is to increase the protection of consumers in EU mortgage markets from the risks of defaults and foreclosures. A higher level of protection must be ensured by consumers’ increased information capacity related to mortgage credits, as well as by developing a responsible mortgage lending practice across the EU. The Mortgage Credit Directive is also aimed at contributing to the gradual establishment of a single internal market for mortgage credits. In this chapter, the author analyses previous and current attempts by the EU to establish a uniform market of mortgage loans, and assesses the possible impact of the Mortgage Credit Directive on the protection of consumers in the market of mortgage credits and on the development of cross-border activities in the mortgage financial sector. Special emphasis is placed on the possible impact of the new EU rules on mortgages on national protection measures aimed at consumer protection at the time of financial crisis. The transposition of the Mortgage Credit Directive will undoubtedly contribute to a higher level of consumer protection when consumers enter into home loan contracts. However, the question arises whether, because of different levels of harmonisation of some rules laid down in the Directive, its implementation will actually contribute to an increase in cross-border home loans. The possibility for Member States to opt for increased consumer protection in some aspects of credit agreements when implementing the Directive, or the existence of different options for the exercise of individual rights that they may use cannot bring about an integration of mortgage credit markets.

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-454
Author(s):  
Natalie Staff

For different reasons, such as the financial crisis of 2007, the eu has adopted a directive with the purpose of harmonising consumer mortgage lending law whilst ensuring a high level of consumer protection. This article assesses the impacts of the Mortgage Credit Directive in Sweden and the United Kingdom. The focus is residential mortgage lending from a consumer protection perspective on the basis of the main areas of the directive; communications, advice, information, disclosure, responsible lending and repayment. The practical processes of mortgage lending and the ways these fields are regulated are significantly different in the two Member States; however, many similarities on a principle level can be found. The study is an example of how harmonisation is made within the eu and how two Member States with almost opposite starting points are able to harmonise law and still preserve the characteristics of their own solution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (Vol 18, No 4 (2019)) ◽  
pp. 439-453
Author(s):  
Ihor LISHCHYNSKYY

The article is devoted to the study of the implementation of territorial cohesion policy in the European Union in order to achieve a secure regional coexistence. In particular, the regulatory and institutional origins of territorial cohesion policy in the EU are considered. The evolution of ontological models of cohesion policy has been outlined. Specifically, the emphasis is placed on the key objective of political geography – effectively combining the need for "territorialization" and the growing importance of networking. The role of urbanization processes in the context of cohesion policy is highlighted. Cross-border dimensions of cohesion policy in the context of interregional cooperation are explored. Particular emphasis is placed on the features of integrated sustainable development strategies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-43
Author(s):  
Elena Grad-Rusu

Since the beginning, the European Union has believed and promoted the idea that an increase in cross-border cooperation contributes to enhanced European integration. This means that cross-border cooperation supports sustainable development along the EU’s internal and external borders, helps reduce differences in living standards and addresses common challenges across these borders. The aim of this paper is to examine the cross-border initiatives between Romania and Hungary with a special focus on the INTERREG projects, which have provided new sources of funding for cross-border activities and regional development in the RomanianHungarian border area. In this context, the cooperation has intensified in the last two decades, especially since Romania joined the EU in 2007. The research proves that cross-border projects and initiatives represent an important source of funding for this type of intervention, when no similar funding sources are available.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiel De Muynck ◽  
Diederik Bruloot

AbstractIn February 2014 the European legislator adopted a directive on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property, which had to be implemented by the member states by March 2016. This paper starts with some fundamentals on the policy objectives underlying this so-called „Mortgage Credit Directive” (MCD) and further provides an overview of the specific regulatory framework that has been developed for credit intermediaries. This serves as the starting point for an assessment of the level of consumer protection that has been established while regulating the activities of credit intermediaries. Particular risks for credit intermediaries’ clients stem from incentives caused by the way in which they are traditionally remunerated by consumers and/or creditors. Whereas information disclosure obligations included in the MCD are an insufficient means to mitigate some potentially harmful consequences of intermediary compensation, the authors argue for the introduction of targeted remuneration regulation.


Author(s):  
Thomas Faist

Europe, and the European Union in particular, can be conceived as a transnational social space with a high degree of transactions across borders of member states. The question is how efforts to provide social protection for cross-border migrants in the EU reinforce existing inequalities (e.g. between regions or within households), and lead to new types of inequalities (e.g. stratification of labour markets). Social protection in the EU falls predominantly under the purview of individual member states; hence, frictions between different state-operated protection systems and social protection in small groups are particularly apparent in the case of cross-border flows of people and resources. Chapter 5 examines in detail the general social mechanisms operative in cross-border forms of social protection, in particular, exclusion, opportunity hoarding, hierarchization, and exploitation, and also more concrete mechanisms which need to be constructed bottom-up.


2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 1582-1600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Thomas Kramsch

Notions of immanence provide the implicit theoretical grammar for much work exploring the political terrain of an active transnational or radically cosmopolitan society in our day. In this paper I attempt to problematize such a gesture in the recent ‘turn to cosmopolis’, arguing that its conceptual frame fails to specify adequately the geohistorical preconditions for a politics capable of mediating between nationalizing and cosmopolitanizing tendencies at work in a globalizing world. For the case of Europe, I argue such a legacy may be more productively located in the ‘border work’ of mid-20th-century anti-imperialism and decolonization, whose struggles to redefine the postcolonial couplet of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ haunt current attempts by the European Union to craft a more inclusive and cosmopolitan transboundary future. I explore how such governmentalizing phantasms specifically inform attempts to create viable cross-border regions ( euregios) within the EU, and continue to gnaw at attempts to negotiate boundary disputes at the outer limits of the continent. In conclusion, a cautious rite of exorcism is ventured by engaging with the elusive anti-imperial cosmopolitanism of Frantz Fanon.


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Elschner ◽  
Jost H. Heckemeyer ◽  
Christoph Spengel

AbstractEU law demands that the allocation of factors and goods within the European Union shall not be distorted by taxes. Efforts to formally harmonize corporate tax regimes in Europe have, however, stalled in recent years. What is more, the source principle has prevailed over residence based taxation which is seen to be more in line with EU law. Tax induced distortions of cross-border investment decisions are supposed to be the consequence. Based on country-specific effective average tax rates from 1998 to 2009, this article shows that there is, however, non-coordinated convergence of tax burdens within the EU. Thus, distortions of cross-border investment decisions are limited and decreasing even without formal harmonization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 01013
Author(s):  
Mária Dzúrová

Consumer protection is a very wide-ranging issue and needs to be given due attention. It concerns the safety of consumers in the environment of individual countries of the world, it concerns the consumer safety of certain groups, such as the European Union. The basic frameworks of consumer protection are set by the guidelines of world organizations - the UN, WHO, but also the European Union and individual member states. In the area of consumer protection, attention is paid to major health problems caused by unsuitable food, such as food scandals, various types of diseases - mad cow disease, swine fever, covid 19.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-348
Author(s):  
Hany Guirguis ◽  
◽  
Glenn R. Mueller ◽  
Joshua Harris ◽  
Andrew G. Mueller ◽  
...  

Concentration amongst the top 100 mortgage originators rose substantially during the Great Recession. Furthermore, Originator Profits and Unmeasured Costs (OPUCs), a proxy measure of the profit from originating residential mortgage loans also rose over the same period. Recent studies suggest that these increases are only partially explained by rational factors such as rising costs from increased regulatory burdens and changes in risk. We find statistically significant evidence that increasing concentration raised loan costs by 97 basis points using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models during the Great Recession. This finding suggests that banks are exploiting increasing monopolistic power to increase profits and as such, consumers face rising costs as competition amongst lenders declines. Further to this issue, this study suggests that mortgage markets are not fully competitive and that the rates and fees charged to borrowers are in fact impacted by the level of competition amongst lenders.


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