Mortgage moratorium extension to be priority after elections says PM

An extension of the mortgage moratorium will be one of the Law and Justice's (PiS) first initiatives in the Sejm, the lower house, after the elections, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister said on Wednesday.

Poland goes to the polls on October 15, and just who will win remains unclear.

The Polish government brought in the moratorium, which allows mortgage payers to skip four monthly payments both in 2022 and 2023, to help borrowers cope with interest rates that hit 6.75 percent this year.

Earlier this month Poland's central bank cut them to 6 percent

Morawiecki told the private broadcaster Polsat News: "Even though interest rates are falling, they are still at a level where some households may experience problems with repayments of loan obligations."

Inflation next year is expected to be at a level of 6.5 percent, but loans were taken when it was at one, two or three percent, he said. "Because of these differences, we propose an extension of the mortgage moratorium."

Morawiecki said that the moratorium would not apply to consumers with high incomes. "Definitely not for everyone," said Morawiecki, adding that "wealthy people who can afford to repay their loans should be able to do so." 

He said that the threshold was now being worked on by the Polish Financial Supervision Commission, which would identify at which levels there were problems with repayment.

"This is our post-victory announcement and we will implement it as one of our first initiatives when the new Sejm is established," Morawiecki said.

The initiative will apply to 2024, because the current regulations are in force until the end of 2023, he added.

"We plan for inflation to fall below 4 percent and then in 2025 there will be no need to extend the mortgage moratorium," Morawiecki said.