Blow to banks: Europe declares the nullity of loans granted without solvency analysis

2024-01-14 07:05:58

He Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued a new ruling, to which Diario16 has had access, on responsibility in the provision of credit. The decision of the Luxembourg High Court is forceful: Loan contracts granted by banks that do not have an adequate report on the solvency of the clients will be void.with direct consequences such as the impossibility of collecting interest on the credit or imposition of sanctions.

Specifically, the ruling states that “the answer to the preliminary question is that articles 8 and 23 of Directive 2008/48 must be interpreted in the sense that they do not preclude that, when the lender has failed to comply with its obligation to evaluate the solvency of the consumer, that lender is sanctioned, in accordance with national law, with the nullity of the consumer credit contract and the loss of your right to payment of the agreed interesteven when that contract has been fully executed by the parties and the consumer has not suffered harmful consequences due to that breach.

The procedure refers to the credit that a Czech consumer subscribed for approximately 2,000 euros with the company JET Money, which was succeeded by EC Financial Services, with the particularity that said credit was satisfied for a total of 3,500 euros. In this sense, the CJEU establishes the possibility of annulment of the contract that extends even when it has been fully executed by the parties and the consumer has not suffered harmful consequences due to this breach.

In fact, the CJEU insists that this task of evaluating the consumer’s solvency “to avoid the mere risk of over-indebtedness or insolvency as a consequence of insufficient verification of the consumer’s ability to repay the credit and his propensity to do so” also may occur after repayment of the credit.

According to Patricia Suárez, president of the Association of Financial Users (ASUFIN), “this decision opens the door, in our view, to review credit products that have been extremely harmful due to incorrect risk assessment, such as mortgages. growing.”