Lawyer Marius Coltuc: Customers have won over 1,000 lawsuits against banks

2012 brings an increasing number of good news for customers who denounced the abusive clauses of loan agreements.

On Tuesday, bank customers represented by Gheorghe Piperea won the class action suit against Volksbank, following which the court decided the elimination of the risk commission and of other abusive costs, which resulted in the bank to be required to repay the money it unfairly collected.

Yesterday, in a meeting with the press, lawyer Marius Coltuc said that borrowers all over the country have won approximately 1,000 lawsuits, through definitive rulings.

"Volksbank is the queen of abuse. There are approximately 160 definitive and irrevocable rulings against it, in 2012, all over the country. This includes lawsuits filed prior to the Emergency government Ordinance 50/2010, as well as after it", Marius Coltuc said.

Other banks which customers filed lawsuits against include Volksbank, OTP Bank, BCR, Unicredit, Piraeus, Banca Transilvania, Mr. Coltuc said.

In 2012, law firm Coltuc has also achieved numerous victories for its customers, in class action lawsuits, as well as in individual ones.

In the case of Volksbank, the denounced abuse includes the levying of the risk commission, of the policy monitoring fee and the unilateral amendment of the interest rate. In the case of OTP Bank, customers have complained about the amendment of the interest rate without justification, Marius Coltuc said.

• Laura Scutaru, lawyer at law firm Coltuc: There have been cases where banks did not notify their customers about the increase of the interest rate

Foreclosure usually occurs when borrowers find themselves unable to make their loan repayments, due to a decrease in their revenues. There have been some unusual cases as well, where banks neglected to announce their customers that the interest rate was hiked, meaning they find themselves being penalized on the unpaid amounts, which eventually leads to foreclosure, Laura Scutaru, collaborator of law firm Coltuc said yesterday. This happened to a customer of BCR, whom Mrs. Scutaru is representing in court.

She also discussed about ways to avoid foreclosure. For instance, the court can impose a collateral of 20% of the amount owed by borrowers unable to make their payments, in order to avoid foreclosure. In other cases, the customer may be set a 1-year deadline for the full repayment of the loan. Another possibility would be that, following an agreement between the court enforcement officer and the debt collection firm, the borrower be allowed to sell the property at a higher price than the ones of the legal enforcement procedure, Mrs. Scutaru said.

Lawyers advise borrowers to avoid foreclosure, because the only thing that can be done in court would be to postpone this procedure.

• Carmen Creţu: We have a rescheduling case where the borrower saw their monthly payment triple

After seeing their income shrink or losing it completely, to many debtors the loan repayment seemed like the only rescue. Even though the objective of that procedure is to lower the monthly payment, with a potential extension of the loan repayment period, there have been cases where borrowers have run into very unpleasant situations.

Carmen Creţu, a collaborator of law firm Coltuc, yesterday said that she has been fighting in court for the rights of a borrower who ended up having his monthly installment triple, after a rescheduling request.