The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has launched a campaign to require banking entities to assume the obligations accepted in mortgage loan contracts, specifically, those that result from the clause that regulates the applicable interest rate . The OCU claims that the contracts are fulfilled, and that therefore the interest resulting from the sum of the index plus the applicable spread be applied, even if the result is negative.
According to OCU analysis, in many of the mortgages signed between 2006 and 2010, the applicable spread is less than 0.5%. Taking into account that the Euribor is currently at levels close to -0.5%, when it comes time to review many of these mortgages, they will have a negative interest rate.
For the OCU, and for legal certainty, the contracts are to be fulfilled, so in all these cases the entities must apply the corresponding interest after the review, even if it is negative. The fulfillment of the contract cannot be left to the discretion of one of the parties just because the result is unfavorable to them.
This Organization has consulted the Bank of Spain, the supervisory body of the financial sector, in whose response it confirms that, prior to the entry into force of Law 5/2019, «there is no regulatory provision in our legal system that would regulate the possible application of negative interest rates in mortgage operations with consumers ”, and also refers to the judicial interpretation the fulfillment of the loan contract because it is of a private nature.
The OCU considers that the application of a negative interest rate does not alter the nature of the loan contract and therefore it is mandatory for the bank that has agreed to do so. The president of the European Banking Authority himself has stated that banks will have to pay their clients for mortgages that yield negative interest rates after adding the differential, unless there are any legal restrictions.
For the OCU, it is intolerable for the bank to invent a condition according to which interest is reduced to zero at most. Therefore, The OCU has approached the main banking entities of our country, so that they inform us if they are applying negative interest when appropriate, in line with the recommendations of the European Banking Authority itself.
According to calculations made by the OCU, consumers are paying between 130 euros and 160 euros more per year. If, for example, we take into account a mortgage referenced to Euribor + 0.33%, with an outstanding capital of 100,000 euros, approximately, where 10 years of amortization remain, which would correspond to the annual review in the month of January 2021, using the Euribor of December 2020 (-0.497%), it would correspond to pay an interest of -0.167%. If the entity limited the interest rate to 0%, the loss would amount to 159.29 euros.
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