Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1019

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1019
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 is the willingness of agreeing to an out-of-court settlement procedure prior to filing a lawsuit, at no additional cost for the consumer and which credit institutions must heed.

On 16 March 2019, the Official Gazette of the Spanish State published the new Law 5/2019 of 15 March on Credit Agreements Relating to Real Estate Property, which partially transposed the Directive 2014/17/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 February 2014, on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property. The most relevant modifications included in the new law are:

• it covers credits and loans to individuals in connection with residential real estate properties (including land and the preservation of real estate properties), excluding reverse mortgages;

• establishes a seven-day period for consumers to evaluate the mortgage-related documents, supervised by a Notary Public (Notario Público);

• clarifies some controversial issues in which litigation has arisen in the past years (mainly, benchmark interest rates references, foreign currencies submission and default interests);

• establishes the possible fees that may be charged on borrowers;

• forbids linked sales; and

• settles rules regarding the early termination of mortgages based exclusively on the amount of defaulted payments by the borrower (in light of recent court decisions declaring null and void some early termination clauses for their abusive terms).

On 24 November 2021, Royal Decree-Law 24/2021 (RDL 24/2021) on covered bonds (implementing Directive 2019/2162) was approved in Spain and it entered into force on 8 July 2022 replacing Law 2/1981, of March 25, on the regulation of the mortgage market, article 13 of Law 14/2013, of September 27, on support for entrepreneurs and their internationalization, Article 13 of Law 44/2002, of November 22, on financial system reform measures and the fourth additional provision of Law 5/2015, of April 27, 2015, on the promotion of business financing which constituted, among others, the former regime of covered bonds. Covered bonds issued prior to 8 July 2022 pursuant to the former regulatory regime are, as from 8 July 2022, governed by RDL 24/2021 and its implementing measures.

New covered bonds regulation introduced by means of RDL 24/2021 provides for significant changes in relation to the issue and maintenance of these type of instruments, including