The forgotten ones of the ground clauses still try to recover their money

The forgotten ones of the ground clauses still try to recover their money

There are still almost 200,000 cases pending trial and only 44% of the claims have caused their banks to return the amounts

  In the last round of appearances by the presidents of the big bank there was not a single mention to the 'floor clauses'. The conflict that once was a headache for most of the sector, with few exceptions, has been officially marginalized after the implementation of the extrajudicial mechanism. But unofficially, the invoice derived from the limitation of interest rates on mortgages continues to increase with the trickle of judgments that, for the most part, give reason to customers affected by that practice, and who dared to sue.

  Two years have passed since the then Minister of Economy, Luis de Guindos, approved the decree establishing the conditions under which mortgages with a floor clause could request their banks to return the money, if that was theirs. The latest updated statistics of this mechanism reveal that, until August 31, 2018, the bank had estimated 517,502 requests from consumers affected by the commercialization of mortgages with limited rates. They represent 44% of the 1.16 million complaints received by the entities until then. This is the same percentage of cases assumed by the sector since this initiative was launched.

The bank has reimbursed 2,292 million, far from the estimated 4,000 million in the worst case

With these figures on the table, the total amount disbursed by financial institutions through this mechanism stands at 2,292 million euros, which means a reimbursed average amount of 4,430 euros for each mortgage. However, 237,213 applications that had been studied by the bank have ended up in the paper, because they did not meet the criteria of the entities to approve their return to customers. They represent 31.5% of the cases analyzed by the specialized departments in this conflict.

The mechanism's follow-up commission itself, in which the Ministry of Economy, the Bank of Spain and consumer associations participate, recognizes the "gradual reduction" in the number of applications . In principle, the mechanism has no expiration date, until the time when the Government decides otherwise, something that is not foreseen.

97% of failures in favor
Until the third quarter of last year, more than 225,000 claims for this conflict had been filed in the courts in the same period. But 55,528 cases have barely been resolved. Of course, 97% of the total have been failures favorable to consumers.

The issues related to the land clauses are being settled in a specialized court network that was launched in June 2017 in response to the avalanche of lawsuits that began to pose a large part of the mortgaged affected by the ground clauses, which opted for this via the extrajudicial mechanism, or whose request to return the money has been rejected by the bank.

These are judicial bodies that deal with the abusive clauses of mortgages, such as issues related to early maturity, late interest, formalization or multi-currency expenses, as well as land.

From Adicae describe as "incomprehensible" the attitude of "some banks" that pursue "buy time" by prolonging the causes in the courts. They believe that "they are losing a magnificent opportunity" to recover from this conflict and their bad reputation, because they will arrive at the Supreme sooner or later and will have to pay, according to their criteria.