The Ombudsman’s experts identified three lines of case law related to the statute of limitations on loan installments that currently exist in the legal order. Specifically, they refer to the statute of limitations of the claim for payment of credit installments and are due before the termination of the agreement:
- The benefit of a loan agreement is a one-time benefit and has a single due date, which should be associated with the date of final repayment of the loan or with the termination of the agreement.
- Each installment of the loan has a different due date, which results from the agreement, and is subject to a separate statute of limitations, with the reservation that in case of termination of the agreement by the bank, the entire unpaid loan becomes due and payable, and the remaining installments become due immediately. The statute of limitations on the entire claim under the loan agreement should be calculated from that moment, including installments whose due dates have already passed before the agreement was terminated.
- Each credit installment has a different due date, which results from the agreement, and therefore it is time-barred separately. When the bank terminates the agreement, the entire unpaid loan becomes due. However, the statute of limitations for credit installments that were not yet due before the agreement was terminated should be calculated from that moment. The termination of a credit agreement does not change the due dates of installments whose payment dates have passed earlier.
The above points indicate that there is no uniform line of jurisprudence. Therefore, the Financial Ombudsman decided on its initiative to request the Supreme Court to adopt a resolution on the subject. This would help resolve the above divergences.
The Ombudsman also emphasized that he fully shares the view that each installment has a separate payment deadline. As a consequence, each installment becomes separately time-barred after the lapse of 3 years. The deadline is calculated from the next day on which the installment should have been paid.
It is worth noting at this point that so far the Ombudsman has taken a similar initiative 25 times! The court has passed resolutions in 21 of those cases, and in as many as 20 it has shared the Ombudsman’s opinion.
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