Mortgage law in Europe

The chapter provides an overview of the past and present state of European mortgage law. In it, a review of the different initiatives that have been carried out at European level in order to harmonise European law is carried out, distinguishing for this purpose those that tried to promote a specific guarantee, different from those already existing (the so-called Euromortgage) and those based on the technique of mutual recognition. In addition, the Mortgage Credit Directive and its transposition by the Member States are examined, a task that allows us to speak of a certain contractualisation of European mortgage law, as legislators seem to be more focused on the protection of over-indebted mortgage consumers (a trend that is in line with the CJEU case law on the Unfair Credit Terms Directive) than on the harmonisation of the substantive aspects of the mortgage.