“5.2.8.2 Termination following early repayment
(…) In all analysed Member States, the early repayment of the mortgage is allowed by national provisions, in accordance with the requirements of the MCD, albeit the national legislation may impose certain conditions.
In particular, early termination may be subject to the payment of compensation to the lender. When consumers discharge fully or partially their obligations under a mortgage credit agreement, the creditor is entitled to a “fair and objective” compensation for possible costs directly associated with the early repayment of a credit.
Member States that made use of such option offered by the MCD have regulated in different ways the conditions under which such compensation can be required by the creditor. In Italy and Romania, the law expressly prohibits the lender to charge a compensation fee to the borrower for early repayment of the mortgage, with no exception. In addition, in these two Member States early termination is always possible without any restrictions. It has to be noted that, in Italy, no specific increases in the costs of the mortgages or of interest rates was observed following the introduction of the switching legislation with no fees for early repayment. As confirmed by the consumers’ association, banks are competing to attract clients with switching packages.
Some Member States have only literally transposed the Directive, generally stating that the compensation shall be “fair and objective” and “not exceeding the financial loss of the creditor”, therefore leaving to the creditor to establish the due compensation. Violations of the fairness and objective elements may only be ascertained by a court (e.g. AT, DK, IE, UK).
The majority of the Member States have established in detail the ceilings that shall not be exceeded (e.g. BU, CY, CZ, FI, FR, HR, LU, NL, PT, SL, SE, DE, PL, ES).
In these Member States the maximum compensation is capped with the indication of a percentage (usually 0.5 or 1 per cent) of the amount repaid. In Cyprus the law sets a fixed compensation that will never exceed the amount of 100 EUR.
In other Member States, this can be charged only when the mortgage agreement has certain features, such as fixed interest rate (in Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia, Sweden), or when the amount of the granted credit or of the repayment exceeds a certain threshold (see Box 5.2) and if repayment is not justified by a legal reason such as the sale of the property, a change of workplace, a forced termination of professional activity, or other circumstances personally affecting the borrower such as the death of the cohabitant (as in the case of France).
In addition, early termination may also be subject to other conditions imposed by lenders, such as time limits (DE, MT, UK), a specific justified interest of the borrower (DE, UK), a different treatment depending on the type of the borrowing rate (fixed or variable, such as ES) or on the moment the consumer exercises the right, or restrictions with regard to the circumstances under which the right may be exercised (MT). (…).” (p. 61-63) (onderstreping toegevoegd; plv.)