Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 1017

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 1017
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 to certain limitations on the types of businesses in which they may engage directly, but they are subject to few limitations on the types of businesses in which they may engage indirectly. Law 10/2014 and Royal Decree 84/2015 established the regulation for governance, authorization, supervision and solvency for credit institutions.

Mortgage legislation

Mortgages and mortgage loans in Spain are subject to extensive and scattered regulation. Several reform efforts in recent years have resulted in changes to mortgage regulation in Spain. Key aspects of such regulation are described below.

Royal Decree-Law 6/2012, of 9 March, on urgent measures to protect mortgage debtors without financial resources introduced measures to enable the restructuring of mortgage debt and easing of collateral foreclosure aimed to protect especially vulnerable debtors (as amended by Royal Decree-Law 5/2017).

Such measures include the following:

• the moderation of interest rates charged on mortgage arrears;

• the improvement of extrajudicial procedures as an alternative to legal foreclosure;

• the introduction of a voluntary code of conduct among lenders for regulated mortgage debt restructuring affecting especially vulnerable debtors; and

• where restructuring is not viable, lenders may, where appropriate and on an optional basis, offer the debtor partial debt forgiveness.

Law 1/2013, of 14 May, on measures to protect mortgagees, debt restructuring and social rents, introduced important modifications to mortgage law and civil procedure law (as amended by Royal Decree-Law 5/2017). The most relevant modifications are:

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• broadening the potential beneficiaries of the moratorium of Royal Decree 6/2012;

• limitation of the interest rates applied for delay or arrears;

• in the context of an auction, the base value of the property shall be the value set forth in the relevant mortgage deed and in no case shall it be less than 75% of the official appraisal value of the property;

• the possibility of suspension of enforcement proceedings when the loan or credit facility secured by the mortgage contains abusive clauses; and

• modification of the out-of-court notarial procedure.

Royal Decree-Law 11/2014, following the judgement of the EU Court of Justice of 17 July 2014, regarding Spanish foreclosure processes, allows debtors to appeal against a court’s resolution which