- This topic has 9 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
-
We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Does anyone know how one can find out which Spanish banks are most at risk of insolvency? I don’t have the time or know-how to go through their published accounts, but someone, somewhere, must have done. I’m hoping there is a report online that ranks Spanish retail banks by riskiness. Any ideas?
Mark
-
At least Spain’s Finance minister Pedro Solbes is being honest enough to finally refer to it as “Spain’s home-grown housing crisis”.
He then spoils it all by saying “…….the property boom had degenerated into a “bubble” but there was little the government could reasonably do about it. What was the state supposed to do? Stop people building houses? That wouldn’t be reasonable”.
What is reasonable is to expect the regional governments to have ensured the strict building laws were adhered to instead of busily lining their pockets. Safeguards like the PGOU’s, requirement of legally approved building licences before the diggers moved in (as against the bribed-whim of the local mayors), heavy fines imposed for developers building where they shouldn’t etc. were all in place but were ignored and taxes happily stashed in the State’s pot.
Don’t cry ‘it wasn’t our fault’ now, no-one buys it.
As for the banks – they deserve all they get. In my opinion they have been as much involved in all the corruption/recklessness as anyone and their chickens are now coming home to roost. A list of those most at risk of insolvency? That would make interesting reading if anyone’s got one.
-
Well to add a bit to the pot, I heard today there is an EC directive being rushed through to enable a member state of the EC to take legal action for recovery in another member state.
IE. People who default or who give back the keys to the banks will be chased in their home country for assets to clear any outstanding loans after the property is sold.
No idea if it will be retrospective or actionable from the date of passing, but its something I have been warning many about for a long time.
Several people I know have given up and just handed keys back to banks, and some of these only took their loans out a year ago!
This is only the start.
-
IE. People who default or who give back the keys to the banks will be chased in their home country for assets to clear any outstanding loans after the property is sold.
That has always been the case. Very stupid to hand back the keys. You will be hammered for the debt, the legal costs, interest and penalties. If anyone is in this situation they should go for personal bankruptcy, maximise pension payments (which can’t be claimed) and transfer assets into the spouse’s name.
A debt can be pursued ANYWHERE in the world, not just the EEC.
I cannot beleive there are d*ckheads who think they can walk away from their foolishness.
-
-
-
” If anyone is in this situation they should go for personal bankruptcy, maximise pension payments (which can’t be claimed) and transfer assets into the spouse’s name.”
I, don’t know the bankruptcy laws in Spain. But I am sure that all assets transferred prior to declaration of bankruptcy, will be looked at very closely & any effort to prejudice a creditor will & can be reversed.
The other matter to consider is that, credit will be very difficult or near to impossible to obtain.
-
When I read the article this morning my thoughts were exactly the same as Charlie’s. Where have these politicians been for the last few years ?
On the subject of chasing debts I was surprised to read an article yesterday that stated that in the USA lenders cannot chase defaulters for mortgage arrears. Homeowners can simply hand in their keys and that is that. It went on to say that this obviously encourages more defaulters as the price of houses falls.
In the UK and Spain I do not know who has been the dafter, the banks for lending the money without due care or attention, or the mortgagees who borrowed the money without giving any forethought to what would happen if the economic cycle turned. On reflection it is probably the mortgagees because the banks were canny enough to realise that they could go cap in hand to E.U. governments for taxpayer’s money to bail them out when things turned sour.
Richard
-
@mark wrote:
We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Does anyone know how one can find out which Spanish banks are most at risk of insolvency? I don’t have the time or know-how to go through their published accounts, but someone, somewhere, must have done.
I think the problem is that nobody knows and we won’t know for certain until people actually default on their loans. They used to have an accurate model based on historical data but now they have lent to every Tom Dick and Harry so that model is broken.
In Spain it shouldn’t be as bad as in the States because:
The banks certainly dodged the US sub-prime debacle, thanks to restrictions by Bank of Spain on the use of off-books investment vehicles.
But although Spanish banks didn’t have the quantity of loans that they have in the States do they have a better or worse quality of loan? And even if they didn’t have these off-book investment vehicles did they buy any of the ones that American banks were selling?
Even the ECB won’t tell us, they just tell us how much they are lending to banks but not which banks they are lending to, as this might cause a run on those banks.
Banco Popular have an increase of 30% in non performing loans to the end of 2007 and Banesto have increased non performing loans which show a sharp increase in the first half of 2008, although still below the average.
And who is going to take a hit from the failure of Martinsa Fadesa?
@mark wrote:
I’m hoping there is a report online that ranks Spanish retail banks by riskiness. Any ideas?
Mark
Well, even the credit rating agencies made mistakes but they do seem to be a bit more thorough now that the horse has bolted but see this report
http://uk.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUKL0267026520080402
Nobody is admitting anything so how would anyone know?
-
- The forum ‘Spanish Real Estate Chatter’ is closed to new topics and replies.
