The citizen petition entitled "After the hunt for the unemployed, the hunt for owners begins" was presented Tuesday morning to the office of Prime Minister Charles Michel, said the initiator Lotfi Mostefa via a press release. This petition is in opposition to a potential royal decree aiming to limit the amount that future purchasers will be able to borrow for mortgages to 80% of the value of the property, with the burden of providing the remaining 20% from the purchaser's own funds. Mr Michel refuted at the end of April that the government was preparing such a project, calling it "fake news".
The petition has collected more than 12,000 signatures in less than ten days, emphasised Lotfi Mostefa, also a municipal councilor. The signatories are concerned about a royal decree which is being drafted and which would require the owner to contribute 20% of the value of the property he wishes to acquire from his own funds, following recommendations from the National Bank of Belgium.
In late April, the Prime Minister denounced false information. The Council of Ministers took no action or even discussed the credit restrictions.
"It is in a preventive way that I wanted to take action to raise awareness of the Belgian population. The fact that the federal government has worked on this issue demonstrates that this is not fake news, but that the risk has indeed been proven", said Mostefa, who asks the government to respect the households signing his petition.
The Brussels Times
