Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
I am trying to understand all this. My husband is Spanish and I don't want to put him down or anything but he seems to have the attitude of 'they are the bank and they know best'. I am spoken to by them as though I am completely irrelevant and they talk over me and any questions I have....

We have a mortgage of 115,000 costing 706 euros a month at 4.88% and for another 27 years. Our yearly revision is in July.

Could we watch the Euribor rate and wait for a month where between the dates 1 and 5th of that month the rate is low and then use the new law of a free extension of the mortgage up to the maximum we can two months after the lower Euribor rate. My husband is 31 years old so would it be until he is 60 or 65? If we then sign for this extension of the mortgage time in a notary, which is free I have read, would the rate for the Euribor be from the previous 2 months - a time which we have noted is a lot cheaper than our 4.88% we have now. Or would our Euribor rate be fixed to July still?

The bank manager keeps telling us to wait until July but I believe that if we extend the mortgage sooner and lower the monthly payments we will save more money on the next six months payments than we would do if the rate is a slightly bit lower in July for the forthcoming year?

Can the bank decline the request for an extension? We understand that the extension will mean that our mortgage will cost more but I keep on trying to say to the bank manager that we want to sell the flat... but realistically this won't be for two, three, four or maybe five years time. We don't want to be paying the mortgage on the flat in thirty years time as we want to sell it. We want and need (!!) to pay less each month now to be able to survive. We cannot become bankrupt as the mortgage has my father and mother-in-law as guarantors so the bank would make them pay and that is something we would never allow to happen as it would not be fair. We therefore want to keep paying but want to pay less each month until we are able to sell the property.

I feel that the bank are putting up a bit of a wall and just want to make the most money out of us. I have noticed recently extra '9 euro' maintenance fees which didn't appear last year, or 2 euro to transfer between two accounts. Also my request to cancel the paper in post bank statements came back with a no, they are automatic. We check them online so why do we have to pay 31cents each to receive them in the post to England?

Why are the banks trying to grab as much money from the poor customers as they can....they were the ones who gave out mortgages overvalued at 40,000 euros above and then wonder when those people do a runner with the cash the banks are left with the debt. The Spanish banking system makes me very, very angry.

I just wonder if anyone knows whether we can then ask to extend our mortgage soon, say in March and therefore gain the low Euribor rate from January as well as lower payments due to extending the time frame from 27 years to 35 or even 40 years?
Dear Madam,

Further to your queries:

1.- As you've already read in our website a law came out by which the extension, no other modification, of the mortgage repayments is free for the borrower. For more details on the law just follow this link and scroll downwards.

2.- Regarding your July revision it will depend on the clauses of your own Mortgage deed. As stated in other replies to similar queries banks usually takes the average Euribor of the two months prior to resetting your annual mortgage interest. So if yours resets in July it would be fairly common to assign as reference May's average Euribor rate.