Blanket 'stay of grace' on mortgage and rent payments agreed due to 'Covid crisis'
Tuesday, January 19, 2021 @ 4:40 PM
LEFT-WING Podemos has won its battle with coalition partners PSOE (socialists) to bring back an optional nationwide 'payment holiday' on mortgages and rent.
Economy minister Nadia Calviño (pictured) has agreed to re-launch the moratorium on housing costs for those facing financial difficulties as a consequence of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
At present, this will run for a maximum of three months, until March 31.
The previous stay of grace offered for home loan repayments and rental costs finished in September, when it was thought the SARS-CoV-2 crisis, in Spain at least, was coming to an end – but when it became clear this was not the case, Podemos and its leader, deputy president Pablo Iglesias, started putting the pressure on the centre-left PSOE.
Podemos has long stressed that the whole idea of politics is for parties to disagree with and debate with each other, and that a successful coalition thrives on this rather than suffering a rift and split as a result – the bipartite national government has proven to be able to publicly disagree and resolve matters between them, Iglesias says.
Nadia Calviño's ministry says the new moratorium on mortgages and rent has been made possible thanks to facilities provided by the European Banking Authority (EBA), and which also allowed a new 'payment holiday' for utility bills for those suffering financially through the pandemic, from December.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com