As was expected after EU Court of Justice ruling in December of 2016, Spanish banks have little hope of defending themselves against legal claims brought by clients with abusive clauses in their mortgages.
Although most of these claims refer to the so-called floor clauses, there are also claims for mortgage expenses, multi-currency mortgages, for delinquent interest or for early maturity.
According to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), banks lost 98.3% of the 9,326 judgments handed down by courts specialised in mortgage matters during 2017.
The extrajudicial agreements:
The effectiveness of the extrajudicial methods for avoiding going to court is limited. According to the newspaper El País, the Commission in charge of evaluating out-of-court settlements in its report last November concluded that: for 1,052,789 requests for reimbursement, 395,135 were resolved with an agreement between the parties. Of these agreements, in 350,404 the money was returned for abusive clauses and in 33,329 cases, other compensatory measures were taken. 50,817 cases are pending.
Trying to settle out of court is not as effective as you might think. In addition, some clients have been offered low compensations that were well below expectation. However, clients taking their bank to court might find the delays in the Spanish judicial system maddening. That said, the accumulation of legal interest in the process plays an important role in the final amount that the client is awarded, and the final guarantee that the bank will definitely cancel its abusive clause by judicial decision.
To date we at Del Canto Chambers are delighted to report that our floor clauses claims against banks have been successful and our clients are recovering their overpaid mortgage plus obtaining the reduction of their mortgage instalments after these abusive clauses are cancelled.
Get in touch with us for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your mortgage contract with a view to making a claim against any abusive clause. You can contact us here.
Laia Fernandez
Lawyer Del Canto Chambers.
Read more:
- CJEU ruling in December of 2016
