Beneficiaries of Prima Casă (First Home) demanded authorities’ intervention in connection with the sharp increase in the cost of mortgage lending under this program.
Participants of the state mortgage program Prima Casă registered a petition in which they noted that, because of the increase by 5.35 p.p. of the indicative rate of NBM, hundreds of families will not be able to pay the interest on loans. The petition says more than 350 families of university teachers and professors, 330 families of police officers, 200 families of doctors and social workers, nearly 2,000 families with two or more children, etc. are receiving compensation under the program. In the current circumstances, most teachers, doctors, police, cultural workers and families with many children are at risk of losing the purchased housing, and the state will have to repay the banks these guarantees in the amount of 50% of the cost of housing. The authors of the petition asked the government to help find a solution to the situation, reconsider the increase of the interest rate on Prima Casa loans, identify solutions to support the beneficiaries of the program and return to the margin applied in 2021. At the same time, the head of the parliamentary commission on economy, budget and finance, Dumitru Alaiba, said on Monday that a targeted program of support and compensation of the Prima Casa beneficiaries is currently being developed. According to him, experts are working on the project and the compensations will be provided within the limits of available resources. Earlier, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita asked the Ministers of Economy and Finance to present the variants of support for the participants of the program. As InfoMarket agency earlier reported, the indicative rate of the National Bank (the weighted average interest rate on newly attracted deposits in national currency for the period from 6 to 12 months), which is part of the interest rate on loans provided within the framework of Prima Casa, has increased from 4.12% to 9.47% from July 1, 2022. It will be valid until December 31. Accordingly, all beneficiaries of the program received a new loan repayment schedule in the second half of this year. Currently, 6 of 11 Moldovan banks (Eximbank, Energbank, maib, Moldindconbank, OTP Bank and Victoriabank) participate in the program. Since 2018, under the Prima Casă program, 8030 beneficiaries - 5511 families and 2519 young people without families - have purchased housing. The average age of program participants is 31.5 years. The total amount of Prima Casa loans granted by banks is 4.39 billion lei, and the total amount of guarantees in force is 2.12 billion lei. // 04.07.2022 - InfoMarket
