2024-04-30 10:50:08
Stop clapping for the bill that aims to reform HCSF. The text, which aims to modify the function of the High Financial Stability Council, to facilitate the granting of real estate loans to households, was withdrawn on Monday by its author, the deputy. Lionel Causse (Renaissance) during its consideration in the assembly.
“I ask for the withdrawal of this text which no longer has any meaning and no reason to exist,” declared Lionel Causse after the adoption of amendments that greatly distorted the bill.
Reform criticized by the ECB
Originally supported by Bercy, but criticized by the Banque de France as by the European Central Bank (ECB) as reported by “Les Echos” on Monday, the text had been put on the table to deal with the fall in the production of mortgages, 40% last year . The reason is in particular the increase in interest rates, which has caused the costs of property loans to skyrocket since the summer of 2022.
On social networks, brokers clearly showed their disappointment this Tuesday morning. “This would not have solved the problem of shortage of goods, but it could have increased demand especially from investors and first-time buyers, solvent of course,” Sandrine Allonier, spokesperson for Vousfinancer, responded on LinkedIn.
“The HCSF therefore retains all powers and can continue to block access to credit under the special pretext of protection against household over-indebtedness, knowing that household over-indebtedness concerns renters in almost 9 out of 10 cases,” said Maël Bernier, its spokesperson. for Meilleurtaux.
HCSF was created in 2013 to learn from the financial crisis, and regulates the conditions for granting property credit with the aim of limiting household over-indebtedness – started to rise again (+8%) in 2023 . Since January 2022, banks no longer have the right to take out property loans if the debt interest rate exceeds 35% of income, or if the loan has a duration of more than 25 years. Terminals that can be bypassed 20% of the time, under certain conditions.
“Democratic Legitimacy”
The bill aimed to bring parliamentarians into the HCSF, one from the Senate and the other from the Assembly, on an equal footing, to “reinforce the democratic legitimacy of the measures taken”, argued Lionel Causse, refuting any threat to the independence of the HCSF .
The second flagship goal of the text in its first version provided the opportunity to deviate from HCSF standards in terms of conditions for granting credit, but it had been rewritten to maintain the “efficiency of the powers” of the High Council. By ensuring that the latter could “set the conditions” under which credit institutions “can deviate from their decisions”.
For the socialist Philippe Brun, this text was “an imperfect, insufficient and perhaps dangerous answer to a real problem, namely the lack of housing production in our country”. “We will not solve the housing crisis by pushing households into more and more debt,” also criticized the communist Nicolas Sansu.
The Governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau had in mid-March expressed their opposition to the first reform. He emphasized in particular that the banks did not make full use of the flexibility that is already permitted.
With AFP.
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