A woman from Tenerife has seen how the Provincial Court of Madrid has agreed with the administrator of a company with which she had contracted a loan worth 17,000 euros in 2011, despite the fact that the entity has no condition to make mortgage loans.
The conditions were that the debt had to be repaid in six months and the house located in Santa Cruz de Tenerife would serve as collateral, whose real value was 71,131 euros, but which she was forced to sell for 36,000 to pay off the debt.
The woman argued that the kitchen ceiling had fallen off at that time and she quickly needed money as the accident was not covered by insurance. After discussing it with her daughter, he contacted a man in Madrid who was willing to grant them the loan.
The complainant indicates that her daughter signed before a notary in the Spanish capital, returned with 4,800 euros and the commitment that the other 5,000 would be given to her by an intermediary on the island. The latter came to collect 7,000 euros for this operation and was in charge of delivering the rest of the money, which according to the complainant never happened.
The acquittal of the lender is based on the fact that the woman had “perfect” knowledge of the credit conditions and there is no evidence of any deception.
The sentence does not rule out that the interest charged could be “exorbitant”, since it is around 30% and that the lender took advantage of the woman’s need for money, but it is concluded that there was no fraud.
The documents reflect that almost 16,000 euros were delivered in the act of signing, which were counted in the presence of the notary “on the fly”.
When two years later a burofax arrived announcing that he would be left homeless if he did not pay in two weeks, he had to sell it for 36,000 euros, of which he deposited 18,000 in court to settle the debt.
Then she was forced to rent a house for 500 euros a month. Her daughter says that at the Notary’s Office they gave her a bunch of papers that she signed but that she couldn’t read and that they never explained the clauses to her.
The Prosecutor’s Office had considered the facts as constituting a crime of fraud, for which it requested three years in prison and that the defendant compensate the woman for all the expenses incurred as a result of the foreclosure.
The victim’s representation described the facts as an aggravated fraud and requested five years in prison and the payment of 59,631 euros that would result from discounting the price of his house, 71,131 euros, 6,649, which would be what he obtained for the sale, 2,200 per the overdue debt, 1,150 for the electricity bill, 1,500 for the mortgage cancellation fees and 15,000 for the moral damages suffered.
The defendant’s defense requested free acquittal
According to the defendant, the notary informed the clients of the conditions of the operation and all the modifications were carried out in case the agreement was not fulfilled.
At that very moment, according to the defendant, the money was counted and the agreement was signed, while denying that they first gave 4,800 euros and it was agreed that the other 5,000 would be delivered in Tenerife.
The defendant indicated that later they confirmed that the injured party had paid 7,000 euros as expenses at the time of signing.
When the defaults began and the six-month period granted expired, in order to fulfill the agreement they began to call the debtor insistently without her answering and they were only able to speak with her sentimental partner who showed interest in reaching a solution.
Almost two years later the foreclosure was launched, although by then the cadastral value of the home had dropped significantly and went from 21,000 euros to 17,000.
The possibility of appealing the ruling before the Supreme Court (TS) is currently being studied.
