Will Slovaks earning a low salary face a rise in their monthly mortgage payments by as much as EUR 500? No, that's not true: According to mortgage experts interviewed by the Slovak Daily Denník N, this scenario would only apply to those seeking a mortgage or balance of 265 thousand euros. To be eligible for such a mortgage, an applicant would need a net income of 2,850 euros, which is considered an above-average income in Slovakia.
Former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico's false claim that people with a net income of 700 to 1,000 euros would experience a significant increase in their mortgage payments is misleading. In reality, individuals with these income levels would not have been approved for such high mortgages in the first place. Therefore, they cannot face an increase in their mortgage payments by several hundred euros.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published by smer_sd_tiktok on July 5, 2023, without a title. Translated from Slovak to English by LeadStories staff, it opened:
The ordinary person sits at home, looks at his salary, and sees a net income of EUR 1000, which is a good salary in Slovakia. He paid EUR 500 in mortgage payments until now and someone mails him a letter saying, sorry, from next month you will be paying EUR 800 or 900... [Mr. Fico later continues by saying]... when your under-one-percent fixation is ending, the banks will just send you a letter saying, from next week, or month you will be paying EUR 300, 400, 500 more every month...
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Jul 17 15:04:00 2023 UTC)
According to Denník N, the median, i.e. the middle mortgage amount, or its balance, was EUR 45 thousand in Slovakia at the end of March 2023.
If someone had a net income of a thousand euros, they could get a mortgage of no more than EUR 96 thousand. With an interest rate of one percent and a 30-year loan maturity, this person is currently paying roughly EUR 308 a month. If the bank gave him a new interest rate of 5 percent after the end of the 3-year fixation, his repayment would go up by EUR 185, but not EUR 500. This calculation created by experts for Denník N is further supported by an online mortgage calculator. Although the calculations differ slightly (by EUR 15), they still prove that Mr. Fico was spreading false information.
