‘ABUSIVE’ MORTGAGE FLOOR CLAUSES SPAIN: Are you entitled to compensation plus interest – even if you have sold your property and paid off the mortgage? They had taken out the mortgage through Bankia in 2004. The villa in Mojacar, Almeria, was the home they had always dreamed of buying for their regular trips south for the weather. With its sizable garden and sea views, it was the perfect place to unwind during the hard winters of northern England. But the Thompsons, like so many buyers who took out mortgages in the happy days between 2002 and 2009, soon found out that their mortgage was not fairly setup. While initially the […]
With a ruling that left both banks and consumers claiming victory, Europe’s highest court waded into a legal dispute in March over allegedly unfair home mortgage plans Spanish banks used during a housing boom that imploded with the 2008 financial crisis. The European Court of Justice found that clauses Spanish banks used in adjustable interest rate mortgages may have been abusive. But it stopped short of issuing a blanket rejection of the mortgages and told Spanish courts to examine them on a case-by-case basis to see if consumers clearly understood what they were signing up for. Some housing advocates called the ruling a win in their long-running campaign against banks […]