just been out in Spain and i'm reading and hearing a lot of adverts for lawyers willing to chase mis-sold mortgages in Spain after an EU ruling..
this is what happened...
Many Spanish Banks will face a bill of €5bn after a Spanish Court ruled that millions of fixed minimum rates sold during the property boom are null and void due to a lack of transparency.
The mortgages contain what is known as a ‘clausula suelo’ which fixes the minimum mortgage payment. Therefore, the product is still a variable rate mortgage but the Bank sets a cut-off point below which your mortgage repayments will not fall.
It is estimated that 40 Banks are involved including pillar lenders. The clauses were put in to protect banks from negative interest rates, which we have seen come into play this year.
Most of the 4 million mortgages estimated to be effected by this ruling were sold during the 1997-2007 property boom when buyers were paying over the top prices for property throughout Spain.
Whilst the ‘clausula suelo’ type of mortgage is not outlawed, the court has said the existing mortgages sold are null because of a lack of transparency on the part of the Banks, which failed to adequately inform clients what they were signing up to.
Only 15,000 homeowners who were part of the class action which took this matter to court are aware of this ruling and this leaves upwards of 3.75 million people who could benefit from this ruling, including overseas borrowers.
Our repayment mortgage started back in 2005 and the interest rate is changed annually and we have no options to change banks and remortgage to a lower rate, which seems to fit the criteria for mis-selling.
However, our initial mortgage bank HalifaxUK changed to Banco Halifax Hispania, which then was sold to LLoyds Bank and finally onto Banco Sabadell.
Sabadell are obviously "Holding the Baby" if there are any mis-selling issues for all these old banks customers, and when i went in to discuss the situation with them one branch claimed not to have heard anything about the EU legal ruling in Spain, the other branch said it was an English mortgage anyway so the rules didnt apply, however Banco Halifax - is a separate company to its UK counterpart and its mortgage products are subject to the regulations and requirements typical of all Spanish mortgages.
So are Sabadell being clever and trying to put claimants off - or are they telling the truth?
Has anyone started a claim yet?
Who did you use, expected % fees the are looking for and how has the experience been so far?
Look forward to hearing from people in the same boat!
This message was last edited by promedia on 15/09/2017.