If you once paid the agent, appraisal, or notary bills when you signed your mortgage, you can still ask your bank to refund that money to you. And this is not little. There are estimates that talk about an average of 1,500 euros. Although the issue of abusive mortgage charges has been on the table for several years and has led to numerous decisions by both national and social justice, an important question remains that is difficult to answer: How long can these claims be claimed? ?bills? The scene is slowly clearing.

What does justice say? What about the calendar?

What can you claim? Certain costs you may have incurred when signing your mortgage, such as recording fees or administration and valuation invoices. This right is by no means new and, as Efe recalls, is based on various decisions made years ago: In 2020, the Supreme Court agreed to refund 50% of notary fees and 100% of registration fees, and months later added the administration. Agreed to repay 100% of the valuation in 2021.

“A long struggle”. OCU insists the fight to obtain these refunds has been “long”; OCU reminds that at the end of 2015 the Supreme Court had already issued a decision concluding that “the banks’ assumption of all formalization costs is bad faith and therefore invalid.” “. The result, after a “long judicial journey” and various decisions, is that financial institutions have to bear half of the cost of Property Registration, management, appraisal and notary costs, while consumers who sign mortgages pay the remaining 50% plus the Documented Legal Transactions tax. is faced with.

The Catalan Consumer Agency states that in the latter case, if the mortgage is signed after 10 November 2018, the financial institution must bear the AJD tax. “This corresponds to the consumer before that date,” he explains.

But… Who can complain? The distribution is recommended for mortgages signed before June 2019, when the Real Estate Loan Agreements Law, also known as the “Mortgage Law”, came into force. This rule went into effect on June 16 and clarifies who must cover every expense during the mortgage formalization process. OCU states that “there is nothing to claim” in subsequent contracts and as long as the planned distribution is adhered to. In any case, the association is aware that banks already pay the notary or registry fees for the latest loans.

Stating that approximately 8 million consumers bore the mortgage expenses before this law came into force, Efe explained that the average amount that financial institutions had to refund was around 1,500 euros. According to their data, there are still thousands of families who can make requests from their banks.

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Until when can you make a claim? Great question. Especially because some banks, based on the Civil Code, refuse to pay notary and registration fees, claiming that the five-year request period has expired. The scenario gradually clarified, sometimes with the help of fairness, making the calendar more flexible for users.

It was initially proposed that the deadline for claims would expire on January 23, five years after the Supreme Court ruled on January 24, 2019 that the provision had been misused. Later, due to the deadline freeze imposed during the pandemic, the margin was extended by several months for a further 82 days. With this extra, the claim limit will be valid until Sunday, April 14 of this year. This is the date on which OCU is still encouraged to make claims.

What does Europe say?. But at the beginning of the year, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) published a decision explaining that a key criterion must be taken into account when calculating the period for claiming expenses on a mortgage loan: there was awareness of the bad faith of the expenses affected. To be more precise, the CJEU judges recognized: “The information available to the consumer, no less than that of professionals, cannot be assumed to contain knowledge of national case law.”

“Therefore, the CJEU rules that the limitation period will begin to run only from the date on which the consumer becomes aware of the abusive nature of the provision and the consequences arising from it, regardless of the existence of unified case law on the subject.” He comments on Facua.

...and consumers. This assessment is in line with OCU’s reading, which up to that point acknowledged that the deadline for requests had led to “uncertainty and despair” in users. According to him, the European court “says that there is no deadline set for this claim.” “We hope that this is also the interpretation of the Spanish courts,” he concludes.

The Catalan Consumer Agency assumes that as of today “there is no single, specific deadline for everyone and it will be different for each affected person.”

And the opening commission. Another expense that can be claimed according to the CJEU criteria is the opening commissions. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not abusive, but the European Court opened the door to claiming invalidity if a key condition was met: lack of transparency.

“Courts must consider whether the consumer has assessed the economic consequences of paying an origination fee and understands that its purpose is to recoup the costs of reviewing and evaluating a credit application,” the OCU said, calling it “another abuse.” It warns of “single premium insurance” and that “banks cannot tie insurance into their financial products” and force them to take out their own insurance. “If they forced you, that’s harassment.”

Image | Erwan Hesry (Unsplash)

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