Your Local Legal Magazine
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Just lately I have had many clients requesting assistance with regards their mortgages and the minimum interest rate clause, or la "Clausula Suelo" in Spanish.
Female Focus La Clausula Suelo or the minimum interest rate clause. by Ana Gay
The great majority of those of you who have a mortgage with a bank or lender may not have realised, up until all the publicity it's received, that you have a clause within the mortgage whereby you pay a minimum of interest (and also a quite high maximum). So this means that for how ever low the interest rates are you will never benefit from the downward turn of these. This has been challenged by various associations and battled in court and won, especially where the client was old or foreign. This clause was ruled abusive, and that therefore it must be eliminated. Ultimately, the clauses have been challenged, regarding whether the client was aware or not of its existence. In May 2013 the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled against the BBVA, Novagalicia and Cajamar, declaring the clause unclear. This judgement gave way to an avalanche of judgements against the banks, making Bankia and Caixabank withdraw this clause in October 2015. That launched a further judgment from the Supreme Court against Banco Popular at the beginning of this year and that has led to the Company Tribunal number 11 in Madrid to declare null and void all these clauses in all the banks in a macrocase with 15.000 claimants. The bank has been quaking in its boots as what was now in doubt was whether the banks would return the monies overcharged possibly back to 2007, to their thousands of clients. The banks would have to possibly return as much as 3.000 million Euros. But last month the General Lawyer for EU Tribunal, Paolo Mengozzi, made his conclusions known regarding the retroactiviaty of this judgement. Whilst, the General Lawyer does not have the final say, his opinion certainly holds a lot of weight. And what was his opinion? Infact, it was in favour of the banks, declaring that their responsibility should be limited to the date of the original and precendential judgement of May 2013. The final verdict should be out sometime in October, but at present the banking system has let out a sigh of relief.
Please contact Link Point Legal on 96 626 0500 or email
anagay@linkpointlegal.com for any further information.
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