Reclaim credit processing fees now

Bad for banks, good for consumers. The ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) is likely to affect tens of thousands of customers, and the banks will have to pay back millions in fees.

Whoever applies for a loan knows the annoying procedure. First you ask your house bank, and if they shake their heads, then you usually try to make credit inquiries to other banks on the Internet. This should be done from the beginning, because you can usually save a lot of money, but is also associated with an increased effort.

Online portals that compare and clearly list the conditions of the individual banks can be of help. Often the credit application is also possible directly from the comparison list. This saves a lot of work and time.

Processing fees inadmissible

If the credit was then finally approved, then one finds on the contract apart from the interest still all kinds of further positions, which can make a credit quite expensive. In addition to the now almost standard default insurance, many credit agreements also include processing fees of up to 4 percent.

The BGH has now put a stop to this practice. In lawsuits against Postbank and National Bank, the judges came to the conclusion that banks may not charge their customers processing fees for consumer loans. Credit agreements containing such clauses are therefore invalid. Banks process the loan applications finally out of their own interest, they want to earn on the interest, and are allowed by law to collect only these.

Reclaim possible

All consumers who have concluded a loan agreement since January 2011 should check whether such processing fees are listed in their contracts. If this is not the case, then they have come to a fair bank. If the processing fees appear, then one should reclaim these now.

However, you only have a chance of repayment if the loan was concluded in 2011 or later. In the case of older loan agreements, the bank or savings bank could invoke the statute of limitations. Then one can hope as a customer only for goodwill, whereby the applicability of the Verjährung is legally still disputed. That’s why it’s important to request a refund even for older credit agreements. It is quite possible that these will also have to be serviced by the credit institutions.

How to claim back the processing fees?

The recovery must necessarily be in writing. The consumer advice center NRW has corresponding sample letters available on its homepage.