MOSCOW, April 22 (RAPSI) – The upper house of Russian parliament, the Federation Council, on Monday approved a draft law on mortgage holidays for citizens found themselves in a tough life situation.

According to the bill, mortgage holidays with a running time of up to six months may be granted to loan recipients found themselves in a difficult life situation including loss of breadwinner, temporary disability over a period of two months, certification as disabled persons of groups I and II, reduction in family income by more than 30%.

A loan debtor would be able to choose whether to withhold performance of debt service obligations or to decrease the sum of periodical payments. However, a person would be allowed to take such a privilege only once in terms of one credit. The loan maturity would be extended tacitly for the mortgage holidays’ duration period, the draft law reads.

To the second reading the bill has been amended by an exhaustive list of documents required for the approval of mortgage holidays. This provision would eliminate the risk of banks’ malpractice in reaching the decision on granting a grace period to borrowers.

Moreover, a high credit allowing credit users to request mortgage holidays would be fixed by the document.

However, mortgage holidays would not be applied to the fancy pads credits.

According to the State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, the proposed provisions would be applied both to people, who took a real estate loan earlier, and those, who would take out a mortgage after the entry of this legislation into force.

The State Duma adopted the initiative on April 18.