UVA mortgages: the government has limited the problem to less than 1% of the 120,000 loans granted

The self-styled “groups of UVA mortgage borrowers” have long insisted that they feel “robbed” after taking out a loan whose capital is adequate for inflation. And they encourage the state to solve their problem, by way of forgiveness plain and simple of an important part of the debt, or a contractual modification that transforms the indexable credit into a standard credit, in which – they do not say – inflation is liquefying debt until each installment becomes insignificant.

Alberto Fernández’s government took the concept of “fraud” for itself, to blame the government of Mauricio Macri, who was the one who launched the UVA credits.

But this week the same Chief of Staff, Giovanni Manzur, he communicated the official figures of the “problematics” in the report he handed over to the senators. And by the way, from these data it can be concluded that it is an insignificant problem.

What did Manzur say?

That after having given the possibility to the debtors, -from Legislative Decree 767 / 2020- that the financial institutions allow an instance to consider the situation of those customers who demonstrate that the amount of the fee to be paid exceeds (35%) of your current income, this reality was achieved at the beginning of 2022:

– Financial institutions received a total of 1,471 requests for assistance in the aforementioned framework, out of a total of 120,000 UVA debtors.

– From the same, 1,030 were rejected, 280 approved, 138 were being analyzed upon receipt of the information, 19 have been completed and 4 have been withdrawn by the debtors themselves (after the deposit, the people desisted from them).

With regard to the 1,030 rejected applications, the information received from the entities indicates that the reasons for the rejection were: 1) in 747 cases the customer would not have complied correctly with the presentation of income; Two). In 144 cases, the analyzes carried out by the institutions emerged a Share-Turnover ratio of less than 35%; 3). in 126 cases for other reasons (among which the customer does not accept the extension or the proposal / lack of life insurance coverage / loan cancellation / death of the person / lack of duration / among others) and 4 In 13 cases the person customer owning more than one home.

For its part, of the 19 completed applications, 11 would have been approved (after the analysis, the institutions accept the request in whole or in part) and 8 would have been rejected or suspended (for obsolete documentation, canceled debt, higher income, among others ). .

Manzur’s numbers are overwhelming, and are related to the delinquency of banks’ mortgage portfolios. The latest information from the BCRA states that the active mortgage portfolio has a crime of 1.3%. This is despite the fact that wages have lost 20% compared to inflation since 2018. Nearly 120,000 UVA mortgage loans have been granted. A default rate of 1.3% equates to 1,215 outstanding loans. A figure similar to the 1,471 requests for reconsideration referred to by the Chief of Staff.

In the Senate, representatives of the “collective” UVA highlighted that the main reason for the modification of the credits was that the previous government had not complied with its “promise” to lower annual inflation to single digits. Which is true. But just as inflation has risen, wages have grown nominally, even though it is true that they have been losing ground over the past three years.

Indeed, the government is saying wages are beating inflation and should make up for lost ground.

The characteristic of UVA mortgages is that, accompanying inflation, the capital does not melt. For this reason – because the creditor bank does not have to defend itself against this liquidation with high rates and very high initial installments – UVA lowers the barrier to accessing credit and makes it available to more families.

after reaching become hosts UVA groups and their anti-UVA militancy intend to break a valid tool for providing mortgages in times of high inflation. An instrument that has been successful for example in Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. They forget, for example, that the tenants they have suffered the same problems and moreover they do not have a home of their own.

Today there is talk of freeing up credits from inflation and linking them to the wage coefficient of variation. It is a risk: if wages, from now on, beat inflation, as everyone wants, debt indexation will be a heavier and heavier backpack on the shoulders of debtors.