Recent key developments in the area of Spanish financial regulation
Prepared by the Regulation and Research Department of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks (CECA)

Royal Decree-law 1/2024 extending the measures suspending evictions from regular abodes for qualifying vulnerable households (Official State Gazette: 15 May 2024)
With the aim of extending the extraordinary protections afforded to the most vulnerable households and preventing situations which could lead these borrowers and their families to social exclusion, the suspension of evictions from regular abodes for ‘particularly vulnerable groups’ contemplated in Law 1/2013 has been extended to 15 years from its initial entry into effect, i.e., for four more years from its last amendment (via Royal Decree-law 6/2020), until 15 May 2028. The applicable circumstances are unchanged. The Royal Decree-law took effect the day of its publication.

Royal Decree-law 4/2024 extending certain measures for tackling the economic and social consequences of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and introducing urgent measures around fiscal, energy and social policy (Official State Gazette: 27 June 2024)
Among other matters, Royal Decree-law 4/2024 amends Royal Decree-law 20/2021 in order to initiate a new window for applying for the moratorium on (mortgaged and unmortgaged) loan principal and interest payment obligations granted to the victims of the seismic movements and volcanic eruptions in La Palma Island from 19 September 2021. This is the fifth such window for applying for this moratorium and in the preamble to this new piece of legislation the legislator estimates that further extensions will not be needed.

Specifically, the new legislation allows the borrowers in a range of municipalities in La Palma that applied to have their payment obligations suspended (or to have that suspension extended) under Real Decree-law 20/2021 to apply, up until 31 July 2024, for an additional six-month suspension of their payment obligations under mortgaged or unmortgaged loan or credit agreements. Royal Decree-law 4/2024 took effect the day after its publication.