Claiming against banks for mis-selling financial products?

2 noviembre, 2018 Creador por: mariola

FLOOR CLAUSES, SWAPS, BANKIA AND POPULAR SHARES, PREFERENCE SHARES

In the last time, banks have received a significant amount of court claims for some of the unprofessional ways they have tried to use with customers to get money from them. Lawyers have been realising that the methods used by the banks to sell bank products to consumers were not always legal. That could be the case of floor clauses in mortgage deeds, swaps, preference shares, subordinated debentures, convertible bonds, and multi-currency mortgages.

Regarding floor clauses in mortgage deeds, have been one the of the main sources of conflicts between banks and consumers in the last few years as floor clauses have been included in hundreds of thousands of mortgage deeds. That is an abusive bank practise that consist of fixing a minimum interest rate even if it was arranged with the bank variable interest rate. For instance, in a time when interest rate like Euribor was in a historical low of 0,54% as it was on Septembre 2013, a floor clause that keeps the interest rate fixed in 3%, 4% or 4,5% may result in monthly payments around 250 € higher for an average mortgage for 150.000 € to be reimbursed in 20 years and subject to Euribor plus 1. If a mortgage has been in force for a few years, for instance a mortgage signed before the historical drop of Euribor that took place in the 4th quarter of 2008, with a floor clause of 4%, by now the client may have already paid an accumulated excess of 10.000 € or more.

Spanish law according to EU legal grounds,  considers abusive the fact that Banks included floor clauses in their mortgages at the time of signing the deed, without providing the adequate information to guarantee full consent by the client. For that reason, Spain’s Supreme Court has ordered the country’s banks to refund their customers all the money they earned from applying floor clause that were often hidden deep within contracts and deeds only in small print. The amount estimated to be refund could be between €3 billion and €5 billion, and affecting some 2.5 million mortgage holders.

Other example of bad banking practise would be the mortgage swaps called clips as well, which were sold to unprofessional clients with no finantial knowledge as kind of insurance policy, something that it was not like that. The way to offer that was under the pretex that it was to protect borrowers in case that the interest rate index was over the rate agreed by  both parties, that it was usually 5%, in which case the bank would pay the difference. However,  banks perfectly kwew that interest rates were not going to be higher than 5% which it means that there were not need of selling that product and on the top of that, they did not informed about the costs of the cancellation.

With regard to Bankia shares, as the accounts filed prior to the public offer of Subription in June 2011, did not show the real image of the finantial situation of the bank, that give investors the possibility to claim for this in order to get their money of the investement back and in the same way, for Popular Bank shareholders, who invested in shares after may 2016.

Said all that, any victim of banking bad practice is entitled to claim against the bank for defend its interests, and NH Lawyers, is a law firm specialized in banking and insurance law among others matters, running by the founder partners Maria D. Hernandez Ruiz and Gemma Navarro Gomez, both lawyers registered at Orihuela Bar Association. For further information, visit its website www.nhabogados.com or contact them through the email abogados@nhabogados.com

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