Extract of the Introduction

The efficient functioning of the residential immovable property market is highly important for economic wealth and social progress, both at the level of individual Member States and at the level of the entire European Union. Only a well-developed residential immovable property market with properly balanced protection of the interests of all participants can contribute to economic and social welfare. The establishment of well-balanced protection of all participants is particularly sensitive in the residential mortgage credit market where it is very important to balance various rights and interests: economic interests and the functioning of financial institutions on the one hand, and the human rights and social and economic interests of debtors (consumers) on the other. The problems connected with the establishment of balanced protection of all these rights and interests have in the past few years mostly arisen from the global financial crisis. The most recent statistics of 2013 in the residential mortgage market have shown that because of the financial crisis, in some EU Member States, these markets are developing at a different pace. In some, a modest increase in residential lending has recently been observed, while in others the impact of the crisis on the residential mortgage market is still negative. This is most probably only one of the reasons why, at this point, there is no integrated residential mortgage market at the European level.

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