Mortgage loan

The Supreme Court (TS) has ruled in favor of Caja Rural de Aragón in a dispute over the opening fee of a mortgage. It considers this charge valid and decides that the bank does not have to refund it. The decision affects a loan of 205,000 euros signed in 2007, whose fee was 0.50%: customers paid 1,025 euros upon formalization.

The borrowers had requested that several clauses be annulled from their contract, including this fee, for considering them abusive . Both the court and the Provincial Court ruled in their favor and ordered the refund of the fee with interest. However, the entity appealed to the TS, which has changed that part of the decision.

For the court, what matters is knowing how the charge was explained. The clause appeared clearly identified , with its amount highlighted in bold, and allowed understanding that it was paid only once, at the beginning. Additionally, it indicated how much it represented in relation to the money borrowed. It met the applicable banking requirements when the mortgage was signed and included in a single fee the costs of study, granting, and processing of the loan.

Another important point is that it was not charged twice for the same thing. Although the deed included other fees, the TS appreciates that they corresponded to different concepts. It also takes into account that the percentage of 0.50% was within the statistical values of similar transactions from those dates.

However, the ruling does not accept all the opening fees. The court recalls, following European doctrine, that it is necessary to study each case and its evidence. Here it concludes that the charge was transparent and not abusive. Therefore, it only eliminates the nullity of this fee and the refund of its 1,025 euros, without changing the other rulings of first instance.