2023-08-10 06:00:35
A client of Crédit Mutuel has just won, after those of BNP Paribas, a victory against his bank in a case of real estate loans in Swiss francs. July 12 (2023, 22-17.030), after nine years of proceedings, the Court of Cassation definitively ruled in his favor.
In 1999, to finance the purchase of a studio in a nursing home, Mr. X tried to borrow 660,000 French francs (100,616 euros). On the advice of Crédit Mutuel, he took out a home loan denominated in Swiss francs, for CHF 165,000.
But, with the subprime crisis, the euro depreciated against the Swiss currency. On August 31, 2014, the maturity date of his loan, Mr. X will have paid the equivalent of 34,455 euros more than if the currencies had remained at parity.
He assigns Crédit Mutuel and asks that two clauses of his contract be recognized as abusive. The first says that all refunds “will take place in the borrowed currency”so the Swiss franc, which is prohibited.
The second states that “the borrower assumes the consequences of the change in parity between the currency borrowed and the French franc or the euro” – without providing any cap.
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The High Court of Creteil (Val-de-Marne) dismissed it on December 19, 2019, judging that this request was time-barred, on the grounds that it should have been made within five years of the loan offer.
imprescriptibility
To appeal, Mr. X takes on a new lawyer, Me Charles Constantin-Vallet, who defends the Collective Helvet Yes, made up of borrowers victims of the loan in Swiss francs marketed by BNP Paribas. The latter, in his conclusions, emphasizes that the Court of Justice of the European Union has judged, June 10, 2021 (C-776/19), that the challenge of unfair terms cannot be subject to “any limitation period » : it is imprescriptible.
The 30 mars 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal therefore admits that Mr. X’s request is not time-barred, and that the two disputed clauses are unfair. With regard, in particular, to the second, she indicates that she “ creates a significant imbalance between the lending bank and the borrower.. She declares the two clauses unwritten and, after observing that they “constitute the main object of the contract”, cancel the contract. It therefore condemns Crédit Mutuel to restore “ all the sums he has received in execution of the loan (interest, insurance premiums, exchange rate risk), i.e. the sum of 118,000 euros. Mr. X will therefore only have disbursed the capital initially borrowed, of 100,616 euros.
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