Mutui.it and Facile.it have analysed the situation
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Have you agreed to take out a mortgage but the coronavirus crisis has got in the way of the paperwork? Or were you still considering what kind of loan to take out? Here's what you can and can't currently do regarding mortgages right now.

According to the analysis of Mutui.it and Facile.it, there are different consequences of the health emergency and the "Cura Italia" decree for mortgage holders or future mortgage holders. Let's have a look at the potential difficulties.

  1. Slowdown in the real estate market: purchase requests have decreased for obvious reasons. Added to this are the provisions on security and the prohibition of group meetings, which make it impossible to visit houses or apartments (if not online through virtual visits on portals with such capacities, such as idealista).
  2. More complicated work for experts: even from the point of view of professionals, security measures hinder the work of property valuations, if they cannot be carried out remotely through photos and videos. This is, however, not necessarily enough for the bank to start the mortgage process.
  3. Restricted access to bank branches: once again because of safety regulations, although financial services remain accessible to the public, the recommendation is to limit the influx of customers into branches except for urgent matters or by telephone advice, in order to protect the health of workers and customers themselves. Therefore, those who are at stage zero of the mortgage process may have to postpone the decision until after the health crisis.
  4. Organising documents at a distance: what you can do, however, is to start collecting the information and documents necessary for the process of taking out a mortgage also at a distance, given the possibility of remotely contacting your advisors and online banking functions always available. In this way, as soon as the emergency is over, you will be immediately ready to get the process underway.
  5. Possible isolation of the parties involved: if the notary, seller, buyer and  bank workers are in quarantine, they will have to stay there and therefore it will not be possible, until their release from that state, to conclude the contract with the signature. However, for those who had started the mortgage process before the emergency, "they will be able to continue to move it forward, however, taking into account a possible lengthening of the timing that separates the future mortgage holder from the time of the disbursement of the loan by the bank," explains Ivano Cresto, head of mortgages at Facile.it. "All the operators involved in the deed and in the paying of the mortgage continue to work, perhaps with a reshaping of working hours, so there should be no issues in completing the process, apart from a possible time delay."