Judge Limits UVA Credit Installment in Precautionary Measure Against Bank in Tierra del Fuego

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he Judge Sebastián Osado Viruel of Tierra del Fuego ordered a precautionary measure in the case of a lawsuit filed by a resident of Ushuaia affected by the UVA credits. This is Melisa Solís, a case in which it was resolved that the monthly credit installment does not exceed 35% of the woman’s salary; the first measure of this type recorded in the Tierra del Fuego capital.

Solís is one of the hundreds of neighbors, families from Tierra del Fuego who were affected by the taking of UVA mortgage loans in the province whose installments became unpayable. He took out a UVA mortgage loan in 2018 for two million pesos and a monthly installment of $16,000 and now he pays a monthly installment of $162,000 and owes $17 million. Each month they increase what you must pay between $8,000 and $10,000, which consumes between 40 and 50% of your income, when at the beginning of the credit, it was 20% of the monthly income of two people.

Last month, in Río Grande, another precautionary measure was issued like the one in this case. In said resolution, the judge also ordered that no more than 35% of their salary be taken from a family to pay the monthly UVA fee. “They were taking 100% of the husband’s salary with the quota and the wife was taking charge of the loan and the family’s monthly expenses. Beyond the precautionary measure, the Bank did not contact the family, despite that there be a measure signed by a judge. The Bank did not abide by the precautionary measure,” the resident of Ushuaia, also a reference to the UVA TDF movement of affected residents, told this outlet.

Melisa’s case began in 2018, when she requested a loan of two million pesos to build a house in Ushuaia. The credit covered 80% of the house, since the other 20% was paid in cash. Back then, the teacher by profession paid a monthly fee of $16,000, which meant no more than 20% of her income. At that time, Melisa was also married and their salaries totaled $60,000.

Given the accelerated inflationary process that the country began to go through, Melisa said: “We knew that the quota was going to rise but not to these levels. The pandemic worsened and aggravated the situation. During the isolation, the national government issued aid to pay the credit, but that help was at the end of the installment plan with interest”.

“This month I paid $162,000 in fees, between 40 and 50% of my current salary, and I owe $17 million. Every month my fee increases between $8,000 and $10,000, and the debt also increases, because next month I’m going to owe $18 million and I can’t even imagine how much I will owe in 10 years, which is what I have left to pay the loan,” he went into detail about his case.

“I never stopped paying the loan. I am a teacher, but in one way or another I figured it out so as not to owe the Bank of Tierra del Fuego a single peso, but the debt continues. In 2022 I managed to contact three lawyers from Tierra del Fuego that were the only ones that were made available. Last year there was a class action lawsuit in Río Grande in which 56 families sued Banco Tierra del Fuego, but still no answers. We want the Bank to sit down to renegotiate the loan to not have more excessive increases like these that we are having and be able to pay the credit,” he said.