What the bank owes you: Mortgage expenses, IRPH and floor clauses
European justice has been emphatic in recent years: Spanish banks introduced abusive conditions on a massive and opaque scale. Reclaiming your money is not a favour you ask of your branch manager; it is a right recognised by the highest courts. You need to know exactly what to claim.
1. Mortgage Arrangement Fees: For years, the bank forced you to pay the 100% fee to set up the loan. The Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) have ruled that this is invalid. You are entitled to a refund of the 50% charged on the notary’s invoice, 100% of the Land Registry fees, 100% of the administrative agency’s fees and 100% of the property valuation fees, as well as statutory interest accrued from the date you paid.
2. Ground clause: If interest rates (Euribor) plummeted for years, yet your monthly payment never decreased, you are a victim of a floor clause. The bank secretly imposed a minimum limit on you. We can nullify this clause so that your payment immediately decreases and force the bank to refund all overpaid money retroactively.
3. The IRPH index Some banks sold the IRPH as an index that was «more stable and safer» than Euribor. The reality is that it was much more expensive and entirely manipulable by the financial institutions themselves. If your mortgage is referenced to this index and you were not transparently explained how it was calculated, nor were scenario comparisons offered, we sue the bank to replace it and recover your money.
We act from the out-of-court claim to the court
The bank will always try to exhaust your patience so that you give up. Their strategy is based on attrition. That's why, at FA Abogados, we follow a relentless methodology structured in three very clear phases, taking on all the bureaucratic burden ourselves so that you don't have to set foot in your branch again.
The first step is the free feasibility study. We need you to bring us your mortgage deed and your expense invoices. We analyse each line of the contract to identify abusive opening fees, usurious default interest or early repayment clauses. With this clear x-ray, we present a strong out-of-court claim to your bank's Customer Service Department, demanding the nullity of the clauses and the repayment of the amounts.
If the bank gives evasive answers or offers you a settlement that does not cover 100% of what you are entitled to, we do not hesitate for a second: we file a legal claim. Our banking lawyers in Seville have an extremely high success rate in the Courts of First Instance specialising in unfair terms. The judges are already familiar with these practices and, in the vast majority of cases, order the bank to pay you and also to bear the costs of the proceedings.
This is how we have won to the big banks in Seville
Banking institutions often appear untouchable, until they face a specialised legal team. The following real-life examples illustrate how we have protected our clients' assets in critical situations against banks.
The end of a foreclosure A family came to our office in despair. They had become unemployed, had not paid their mortgage for four months, and the bank had initiated foreclosure proceedings on their primary residence, demanding the full amount of the debt. After reviewing their deed, we detected that the «Early Repayment Clause» was void according to European standards. We objected to the execution in court, and the judge ruled in our favour, halting the eviction and ordering the bank to renegotiate the debt month by month.
Payment in lieu of foreclosure and social housing A couple from Seville were struggling under a crushing debt following the closure of their business. The mortgage was unpayable and the debt exceeded the current value of the property. We arranged for them to negotiate directly with the bank’s legal department to sign a ‘dación en pago’ agreement. They handed over the keys, thereby settling 100% of the debt (without the guarantors being affected), and we also secured a very affordable social housing tenancy agreement for them so that they would not have to leave their home.
The full refund of expenses and fees A client was charged an opening commission of €1,500 simply for being granted the mortgage, in addition to all the notary and valuation fees. The bank argued that the time limit for claiming had expired. At FA Abogados, we demonstrated that the action to declare the nullity of an abusive clause never prescribes. We won the case, and the bank returned more than €3,200 to the client, including the principal and legal interest accumulated over more than ten years.
Which mortgage expenses The bank must return it to you
So that you have no doubt about which claims we can make on your behalf before the Sevillian courts, we outline below how the Supreme Court's case law has established the legal distribution of expenses when formalising a mortgage loan:
| Mortgage expense concept | It corresponds to pay the bank | The customer must pay. |
|---|---|---|
| Notary Loan Documentation | The 50% on the invoice. | The remaining 50%. |
| Land Registry | The 100% on the invoice. | 0% (Nothing). |
| Advisory Services (Procedures) | The 100% on the invoice. | 0% (Nothing). |
| Property Valuation | The 100% on the invoice. | 0% (Nothing). |
| Tax on Documented Legal Acts | 0% (Before the 2018 Act). | The 100% (This is the only cost that the law attributes to the borrower if the mortgage was taken out before November 2018). |
| Arrangement fee | 100% (if it is shown to be abusive and does not correspond to actual services provided). | 0% (Subject to annulment on grounds of lack of transparency). |
