The consumer protection association wants the next Government to make definitive some of the temporary measures that were adopted to help families with mortgage loans.
Deco wants to put an end to the commission for early repayment of housing loans, making definitive some of the temporary measures adopted by the Government to support families with loans to purchase a home, in a scenario of inflation and high interest rates. For the consumer protection association, this step is necessary to encourage savings in households.
As part of World Consumer Rights Day, Deco presented a set of 45 measures to the parties that it considers should be followed in the next legislature, covering sectors such as telecommunications, energy, water, but also the financial sector.
“The increase in interest rates had a direct impact on home loan contracts and created a kind of domino effect in the lives of consumers”, says Paulo Fonseca, coordinator of Deco’s legal and economic department, to Jornal Económico, recalling that Home credit represents a significant “slice” of families’ monthly budget.
It was to overcome this impact that the Government of António Costa adopted a set of measures, namely the suspension of the commission for early repayment on housing loans, a support that ended up being extended until the end of this year. Early repayments of housing loans rose from 5.5 billion euros in 2022 to 10.1 billion euros in 2023, almost doubling between the two periods.
But Deco wants the new Executive to go even further, making this measure definitive, eliminating commissions for early amortization in the variable rate regime and reducing their value to 0.5% in the fixed rate regime, compared to the current two%. “What we are asking for is nothing more than to make definitive what is transitory”, says Paulo Fonseca.
“If we are encouraging consumers to be more concerned about saving, we cannot allow them to pay for being able to make these savings”, emphasizes the coordinator of Deco’s legal and economic department, noting that it also ends up being a “disincentive to consumer mobility when they want to transfer their mortgage loan to another bank that offers better conditions and have to pay this commission”.
The consumer protection association also wants the possibility of deducting interest on personal and permanent housing loans to be resumed for all loans and the 30% limit restored. “The Government allocated a type of compensation that ended up being a reduction in withholding tax to safeguard families’ situations on a monthly basis, but we are talking about a withholding tax that will be reflected this year in the IRS that is presented. Consumers who would receive more will receive less. Those who didn’t pay will probably have to pay, as it ended up having no direct impact on taxation,” he says.
On the other hand, Deco warns of the need to create a list or database of IBAN and Multibanco references used in fraud, through a centralized registry, in what is a problem that cuts across various sectors. “Fraud has resulted in an increase in complaints received by Deco”, says the person in charge.
These measures, he states, “are already being discussed in Brussels to some extent. It is necessary to distribute responsibility among everyone and not just consumers to bear it”, which means that “banks must take more responsibility for situations in which consumers are victims of fraud or scams”.
