Question:
Dear lawyer,
I am an expatriate living in Javea and have been informed that I cannot claim for my floor clause or for the expenses I paid for my mortgage loan in the local courts of Javea. I have been told that I have to claim in Alicante, in a special court, and that it takes years to finish matters.
Is this true?
What usually takes place in the Alicante court and what do you advise me to do?
Dear Reader thank you for your enquiry.
Indeed, according to consumer legislation, you should be able to claim against your bank, before the courts of your domicile, that is to say, in your case, the courts of Denia, which are the competent ones for the towns of Denia, Javea, Calpe, Benissa and others.
But, unfortunately, as we pointed out in previous articles, a single special court has been appointed for the entire province of Alicante, which is called court number 5-bis which is tasked to deal with all the court cases regarding mortgage floor clauses, expenses clauses etc.
The province of Alicante has approximately two million citizens and it is possible that the number of people affected could be even larger.
This is because there are many foreigners who have their holiday properties here and who could be affected also by the floor clauses or the expenses clause and in our opinion this is outrageous, because the special court appears to have totally collapsed.
In our experience as a law firm, we can tell you that the first claim we presented before this special court of Alicante 5-bis was on July 7 2017, and that we obtained a court decision on September24 2018.
The judgment in this case was to nullify the expenses clause, the floor clause and the delayed interest clause. Therefore, we must say that our experience has been positive, because the court follows, as far as we know criteria in line with the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and even though it has taken more than one year, it has not been excessively slow.
But, the reality NOW is different, it seems that the 5-bis court has totally collapsed, because the last claims that we have presented since then are being processed far more slowly than this first claimed we mentioned above.
The option, as we have said on several occasions, is either to file the court claim in Alicante knowing that it will be very slow, or possibly wait to see if they change the competence and we are allowed to claim in the local courts of the consumer’s domicile.
If you have a mortgage floor or suelo clause or a clause on your mortgage whereby the bank forced you to pay all the expenses of your loan, contact us and we will help you
The information provided in this article is not intended to be legal advice, but merely conveys general information related to legal issues.
Carlos Baos (Lawyer)
White & Baos
Tel:+34 966 426 185
E-mail: info@white-baos.com
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