Default on a French mortgage

I seen loads of leaseback owner ask this question over and over .ive never seen an answer yet !!

ive seen somebody say that they received a request from the court service .

when asked "what court service " they never replied

.., I'd say they never actually did and just put it out there to stir the shit .

nobody in Ireland would use such a term as " court service "

spoke with my solicitor before about this .

his answer to me was a grin wink and a snigger 

the reality is that French banks would have a very hard time also an expensive time trying to explain there involvement in the frauds

Reality is .., it will never happen .. 

Irish MEP Brian Hayes and also an UK MEP

are getting there teeth stuck in to French back leasing

from the purchasing process and guarantees we where giving

to the law changed which had unfairly treated the investors 

my attitude to banks and anybody to do with the process 

is be an arrogant bastard at all times 

Leave this with me for a few days.,I will get back to u asap

Hi murphyl,

I'm sure this is not the answer you (or anyone of us would like to hear) but my solicitor told me they would come after my home here.  I'm just hoping the petition we are signing will be of help in getting us out of this nightmare with some semblance of fianancial resolution.  To that end I am constantly getting everyone I know to sign, have emailed link to petition to everyone in the building I am 'invested' in, emailed the link to everyone I know, posted on Facebook, as did my daughters.  We really have to get behind this.  The more of us getting together to shed light on this the greater the chance we have of getting out of this with something.  Remember, we have done nothing wrong and the ridiculous attitude of Caveat Emptor the whole of modern society seems to operate under, whereby the attitude by corporate institutions is "so sue me!" knowing full well that people can't afford to, need to be challenged.  I totally understand your stress and frustration and wish you and all of us imorally inveigled into this scam, justice and financial redress. I have been in touch with someone else from this forum who signed over her home here to her daughter and walked away from her French mortgage.  Others are going through the courts, but alas, I fear this is putting more money into France with little hope of victory.

Wishing you all the best though.

Argent

So far I only know of people who are going through the courts in France.  If you search this site you'll come across something I'm sure.  In case you're not aware there's a petition which many of us inveigled into this scam have signed.  Go to change.org frenchleaseback and you will be able to sign.  There's also a website frenchleaseback.info which posts updates to the results of the petition being brought to the attention of ministers.  So far, Brian Hayes MEP, amongst others, has taken up the cause.  Some owners have gone to the CCPC with sample cases to see what can be done and if it's possible to take action from Ireland.  I know it can be difficult to consult legal advice when all of your money is financing a French bank on a losing proposition, but it might be worth your while to do so and consider your options.  Sorry none of us have good news on this situation...yet.

Hi

I've defaulted on the mortgage to my leaseback property in France from 02-2015. Yesterday I received, hand delivered court papers for the seizure of the property. I have eight days to appeal this. I have no idea what is going to happen once the propert has been sold at auction. Does anyone know? 

I have no assetts or savings anywhere in the world and I live in rented accommodation with my mother. 

Has anyone been pursued in the U.K. For the debt balance from France? 

Many thanks 

Hi

I've also posted on here several times wondering about being pursued in Ireland for an outstanding debt.

We have received documents through the Irish court Services a couple of times in the last 6 months and the latest of these has advised us of a court date in France in September whcih we should attend or atleast send a representative to.  Unfortunately we don't have the funds to do this and in our absence the property is likely to be sold leaving us with an outstanding debt of 100k approx. We have no idea what to expect once that transaction has been completed and no one seems to know although I can't imagine we are the first people to have this happen to us. If anyone can shed any light on what happened after their property was repossesed and sold it would be great to hear the details.

Thanks

Hi,

the process appears to be that the French bank send the documents via the Irish Courts Service (and it is important to note that these must be clearly in English to be valid), they will move to re-possess the French property.

Then they will move to pursue the owner in Ireland.

The mortgages in these cases are usually already sold on to a debt collector. One owner in Ireland in my resort who defaulted and had the property re-possessed is currently being pursued by a UK debt collection company. The distressed loans are sold on at a significant discount.

The French court judgement is registered in France and then is registered in Ireland, and this is facilitated by EU law.

However, we spoke to a corporate lawyer here in Dublin (I won't say his name as it was general advice) and his view was that it is reasonably straightforward for them to pursue an owner here but if that owner has no assets other than the family home then that would likely be prohibitively expensive for them to pursue and force the sale of. In addition, an Irish judge would likely not look favourably on forcing the sale of the family home, especially on the back of such a sordid transaction in France. Legal fees in Ireland are significant for this and likely not worth it. So, it's possible they will 'rattle the cage' and take what they can get out of an owner. But it seems they do have the right to take assets.

One poster above stated they had no assets, I expect they will not pursue you if you have nothing to give them, but that's a guess.

The legal advice was that owners should get legal advice in order to protect any other assets they have. Perhaps its a case of when they come knocking, have nothing - plenty of others do it.

I'm sorry that this doesn't sound reassuring.

Having said that, I haven't heard of anyone where the bailiff has called round and taken the car etc, or where the sale of the family home is being looked for.

My advice is to try to delay the re-possession, indicate to the court that the sale of the property violated your consumer rights as an EU citizen as per below - submit this to the court in France when they try to re-possess.

Indicate that the mis-selling is the subject of an EU-wide investigation by the competent national consumer authorities (eg. CCPC in Ireland, CMA in UK, DGCCRF in France):

Directive 93/13/EEC on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (the UCTD) protects consumers against unfair contract terms. Under Article 6 of this Directive, MS shall lay down that unfair terms in a consumer contract shall not be binding on the consumer.

If a consumer tells a court that he believes that his European rights have been violated, the court must stay the proceedings and assess whether this is the case. There is ample case-law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on this, notably concerning mortgage enforcement proceedings. In recent years the CJEU has further developed its case law on the effectiveness of the protection of consumers against unfair contract terms under the UCTD. Although the CJEU does not directly rule on the fairness of individual clauses used by banks, its pronouncements imply rather strict standards for the assessment of contract terms used inter alia by banks, including transparency requirements ensuring that consumers are properly informed. In these cases the Court of Justice of the European Union has established that national courts and authorities are required to examine, of their own motion, the unfairness of a contractual term against the background of the UCTD as transposed in national law.

Some key rulings on this by the CJEU:

·         C-618/10 Banco Español de Crédito of June 2012: ES rules on payment order proceedings are incompatible with Directive 93/13/EEC, not guaranteeing an effective right for consumers to object to a payment order on the basis of unfair contract terms and not allowing an ex officio control of unfair contract terms by ES courts. Furthermore the Court ruled that national courts have to set aside unfair contract terms (e.g. excessive late payment interests) as if they had never existed and may not adapt the relevant contract terms. The ES provisions on payment orders have been changed in the meantime

·         C-415/11 Aziz of March 2013: ES rules on the enforcement of mortgages are incompatible with Directive 93/13 since they did not give consumers the possibility to object to the enforcement on the basis of unfair contract terms with the possibility to suspend enforcement proceedings so as to ensure that no irreversible facts are created for consumers (who are at the risk of losing their home).

The assessment of whether contractual terms are unfair under the UCTD is to be carried out by the competent national authorities and courts. However, in most MS only courts have the power under national law to grant consumers individual remedies. Therefore, consumers most often go to court in order to achieve such individual remedies.

seehttp://www.frenchleaseback.info/2017/02/27/eu-commission-outlines-eu-dir...

sorry - the formatting went doolally

Directive 93/13/EEC on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (the UCTD) protects consumers against unfair contract terms. Under Article 6 of this Directive, MS shall lay down that unfair terms in a consumer contract shall not be binding on the consumer.

If a consumer tells a court that he believes that his European rights have been violated, the court must stay the proceedings and assess whether this is the case. There is ample case-law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on this, notably concerning mortgage enforcement proceedings. In recent years the CJEU has further developed its case law on the effectiveness of the protection of consumers against unfair contract terms under the UCTD. Although the CJEU does not directly rule on the fairness of individual clauses used by banks, its pronouncements imply rather strict standards for the assessment of contract terms used inter alia by banks, including transparency requirements ensuring that consumers are properly informed. In these cases the Court of Justice of the European Union has established that national courts and authorities are required to examine, of their own motion, the unfairness of a contractual term against the background of the UCTD as transposed in national law.

Some key rulings on this by the CJEU:

·         C-618/10 Banco Español de Crédito of June 2012: ES rules on payment order proceedings are incompatible with Directive 93/13/EEC, not guaranteeing an effective right for consumers to object to a payment order on the basis of unfair contract terms and not allowing an ex officio control of unfair contract terms by ES courts. Furthermore the Court ruled that national courts have to set aside unfair contract terms (e.g. excessive late payment interests) as if they had never existed and may not adapt the relevant contract terms. The ES provisions on payment orders have been changed in the meantime

·         C-415/11 Aziz of March 2013: ES rules on the enforcement of mortgages are incompatible with Directive 93/13 since they did not give consumers the possibility to object to the enforcement on the basis of unfair contract terms with the possibility to suspend enforcement proceedings so as to ensure that no irreversible facts are created for consumers (who are at the risk of losing their home).

The assessment of whether contractual terms are unfair under the UCTD is to be carried out by the competent national authorities and courts. However, in most MS only courts have the power under national law to grant consumers individual remedies. Therefore, consumers most often go to court in order to achieve such individual remedies.

My advice is to try to delay the re-possession, indicate to the court that the sale of the property violated your consumer rights as an EU citizen as per below - submit this to the court in France when they try to re-possess.

Indicate that the mis-selling is the subject of an EU-wide investigation by the competent national consumer authorities (eg. CCPC in Ireland, CMA in UK, DGCCRF in France) as above.

Hi,

I understand your worry. I have posted on here in the past on this very subject asking for details of any cases that have been realised in the UK or Ireland. My position is that I defaulted on my leaseback about a year ago. Recently I received notice that my property in France was to be reposessed. I'm not concerned about that and am prepared to walk away, although I am very interested in what may come of the interest from the European Parliament.

More worryingly, I have been contacted by OPOS (a debt collection agency based in Glasgow) who are making noises about recovering the money owed in the UK. I haven't received anything from them in writing nor have I heard anything from a UK court. I find it odd that they have contacted me even before my French property has been reposessed. I take some encouragement that there still hasn't been one confirmed case on this forum of an individual being persued in Ireland or the UK. Let me know if I'm wrong!

David

Hi Murphy, we are currently experiencing similar situation and wondering if you can share the outcome for you in the end?