[ad_1]
Serbian courts are overwhelmed with more than 30,000 lawsuits against citizens banks, to those who demand the return of the money taken and the account of the costs of processing the loan. Every day there are more and more. There are days in which between a thousand and a thousand lawsuits arrive at the judicial offices daily, which refer to the costs of processing all types of loans, from the consumer to the home, Dejan Gavrilović, representative of the association told “Politika” “Efektiva”, which deals with the protection of bank customers. as a consumer.
Although the Constitutional Court confirmed the illegality of the collection of loan processing costs, that is, the current position The Supreme Court, According to which the banks are not entitled to charge this fee, without specifying to the debtor what the specific costs are, the banks continue to charge them.
– We hope that the National Bank of Serbia, as the bank’s regulator, will clearly and unequivocally prohibit the charging of loan processing costs and explain to banks how they can collect it – says Gavrilovic, adding that loan processing costs range from 0.5 percent of the loan value, and in some cases 15 percent of the loan was charged.
It states that in 99 percent of the cases, the courts rule in favor of the borrower. The courts themselves are partly to blame for the overcrowding of the courts, which, as he puts it, unnecessarily postpone these mild disputes, where there is unequivocal judicial practice.
– Ultimately, when a lawsuit is filed, the court notifies the bank, the bank responds to the lawsuit and the court renders a verdict. Increasingly, we have cases where the verdict is rendered without a hearing. The biggest culprit is the NBS, which, despite sound judicial practice, allows banks to charge for loan processing. We come to the situation where, when a new user applies for a loan and the bank does not want to waive the processing costs, he takes the loan and immediately goes to the lawyer and files a lawsuit – says Gavrilović.
However, our readers’ experiences indicate that it is not doing so well when it comes to ending court proceedings. Recipient of a home loan D. Mirkovic says that in 2015 he sued the bank for an illegal increase in interest and that in the first instance procedure, two years later, it was ruled in his favor, but the money was paid only a few days ago , and only when the lawyer gave the order of execution. He also sued the bank in 2018 for the costs of processing the loan and was found in his favor in the trial court, but the money has not yet been credited to his account.
Since loan processing disputes are almost certain to be won in court, lawyers increasingly use the provision of the Civil Procedure Act to collect immediately after the first instance verdict.
– The court passes judgment in favor of the debtor, the lawyer goes immediately to the execution and the executors immediately withdraw the money from the bank account together with the default interest. The bank then appealed, and when that verdict was upheld, nothing to anyone. The money has already been deducted from the account. It is known that default interest is doubled by the amount for which the bank is sued. Banks always make complaints because they do not want to be heard that their customers can easily beat them – says the representative of “Efektiva”.
He notes that banks, in addition to continuing to charge the cost of processing, also charge the cost of monitoring the loan, themselves, but there is also a homeowners insurance premium that is charged in favor of the National Home Loan Insurance Corporation.
– The user of the home loan pays the insurance without being the insured. You are not a beneficiary of insurance. The premium averages the loan values from 1.75 to 3.5. There are currently 100,000 secured home loans in Serbia. Between two and three thousand lawsuits were filed. For now, when it comes to judgments, the ten-to-one ratio is in favor of the debtor. Everyone is waiting for the post of the Supreme Court of Cassation – says Gavrilović.
According to your assessment, there is something that affects all users of banking services, and those are the cost of maintaining a checking account and payment fees. Those two fees, he says, are also illegal.
– If the bank maintains an account, it does so as part of the offer and the work it performs in order to provide an adequate service to the debtor. I don’t see any reason why the debtor would pay the cost. Also, the fees for payment are one percent of the amount paid. If you pay 10,000, they charge you 100 dinars. If you pay 90,000, they charge you a commission of 900 dinars. The difference is 800 dinars, and they do the same job, that is, they write the same number of digits into the system, says Gavrilović.
He asserts that the situation with the banks is quite different from that of ten years ago, when they illegally raised interest rates, made loans at the sale rate, and illegally charged late payment interest. The National Bank prohibited such activities in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
[ad_2]
