European Court to Hear Another Hungarian FX Loan Case

Budapest, August 11 (MTI) – The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg is expected to hear another case involving a Hungarian FX loan this autumn with a focus on the role of notaries, daily Magyar Nemzet said.

Balazs Lehoczki at the European Court press department said a private individual took out a loan denominated in Swiss francs from Erste Bank in late 2007. The borrower signed a payment obligation drawn up by a notary and when he was unable to pay the instalments, the bank had no obligation to go to the court to assert its claim to the amount due but directly contacted the notary and requested an enforcement clause.

The notary fulfilled the bank’s request but the borrower now states that this proceeding was unlawful and claims that in line with EU regulations, the notary should have assessed the fairness of the conditions of the loan contract.

According to Magyar Nemzet, the European court is now expected to decide if it was sufficient for the bank to directly contact the notary to enforce its claim and if the notary was indeed obliged to examine the fairness of the contract and inform the consumer if it found that a term was unfair.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters