To repay or not to repay: financial vulnerability among mortgage debtors in Spain

Abstract

In the framework of the current wave of home repossessions, many Spanish households struggle to keep up with repayments before going into arrears. Their financial vulnerability is not a simple function of the availability of income as they are repaying debts. Rather, it is to be understood in combination with a differential access to other resources that may help households to cope with hardship. Factors that help to keep up with repayments may include the availability of material aid and non-economic resources, such as information or social connections. But, at a certain stage, debtors may benefit less from aid to keep up with repayments, than from the advice to give them up, a decision that implies challenging the moral obligation to repay and devoting much time and effort to negotiation with the creditor. The availability of these resources needs to be considered in order to understand the (re)production of social inequalities linked to financial vulnerability as a result of mortgage default.