San Sebastián (EFE).- The regional anti-eviction service of Gipuzkoa confirms abuses by banks in different cases registered in the territory.
The legal service that the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council provides to people at risk of losing their habitual residence has verified different “abusive” practices in foreclosures and evictions by different banking entities in this province.
anti-eviction service
Despite the fact that “practically all” of them have adhered to the code of good practices that obliges them to provide different banking “benefits” to people at risk of eviction who meet certain requirements, “in practice this is not the case.”
“Very rarely does an entity inform the debtor of their rights”, reveals this service in the conclusions of its 2015-2023 report, prepared by lawyer Yolanda de Pablo.
Through this service, which has intervened in 105 cases in the last eight years in Gipuzkoa, the Provincial Council offers personalized help and advice to people at risk of eviction.
As revealed by the aforementioned report, to which EFE has had access, although those affected finally manage to benefit from the code of good banking practices, their alleged benefits “rarely prove effective in offering an alternative that allows the debtor to keep the home.”
bank abuses
“The lack of interest -he explains- is only shown as a measure that allows the situation to be resolved temporarily, but when the grace period ends, the quota is greater than the one that existed before it began” .
“Reductions of the amount owed are rarely accepted by entities”
It also details that “removals of the amount owed are rarely accepted by the entities”, while the “extension” of the loan “is shown to be unfeasible” since the average duration of the credits is already 30 or 35 years.
“The only measure that seems useful for cases in which the debt is greater than the current value of the home is the dation in payment with a release character when the affected party meets the requirements as a mortgage debtor without resources,” the document states.
Inform the debtor
“However, entities rarely accept it – the letter reveals – and often, far from informing the debtor of this right according to the obligation established by the regulations, what they do is carry out a current appraisal of the property to reduce the debt”.
“That is to say -he clarifies-, a dation is made to the bank to settle part of the debt and the debtor is left homeless and in debt, exactly the same as if he had endured a foreclosure”.
This “practice” is “absolutely illegal and abusive on the part of the entities”, denounces the report, which also detects “different levels in terms of compliance” with the regulations on debtors without resources by banking entities, some of which “they flagrantly fail to comply with the obligation to inform” those affected “of their rights”, failing to apply it “totally”.
Financial entities
The report has also detected that some financial entities are assigning credits “to international investment funds that declare that they do not adhere to the code of good practices since they have not signed it.”
Paradoxically, this way of acting is, according to the report, “contrary” to the code of good practice that the entities themselves subscribed to. Some situations in which the lawyer Yolanda de Pablo announces that she will file “solidarity lawsuits” against the entities and investment funds involved in this type of action.
abusive practices
The report also confirms another type of “abusive practices” by the entities, such as the “closure of accounts in case of non-payment of quotas”, which “deprives the debtor of recovering his credit in case he has come to better fortune ”.
Another situation that, as the report reveals, “shows the unwillingness of many entities” to reach agreements that allow credit recovery is the fact that in some cases in which the debtor has returned to employment or has seen increased their income, the banks “refuse to refinance the outstanding installments”.
The report also detects the existence of a problem when it comes to identifying a “valid interlocutor” when the regional service tries to negotiate with some entities, since sometimes the cases are transferred to the Credit Recovery Service of the banks for whose location it is it is necessary to carry out “an almost detective work”.
“It is also striking that many of these supposed credit recovery services are actually real estate,” the report notes. EFE