Laurence Dollimore
MALAGA is struggling to cope with the thousands of floor clause cases being brought to its courts.
The province has the fourth highest number of cases (6,928), beaten only by Barcelona (23,773), Madrid (17,299) and Sevilla (11,056).
The news comes after a special court was created with two judges to specifically deal with floor clause claims.
Judge Jose Maria Paez has said the situation is ‘serious’ and that Malaga simply ‘cannot cope’.
The wait is slowly getting shorter, at least in Malaga, where three judges were already exclusively dedicated to tackling the cases.
In the first quarter of 2018, 286 judgments have been issued in the province and 98.3% of them have been in favour of the defendant.
Floor clauses imposed a minimum interest rate on floating-rate mortgages by setting a limit on how far they could fall in tandem with the benchmark rate.
In practice, this meant that Spanish mortgage buyers did not profit fully from the record-low interest rate which Spain enjoyed for several years.
The clauses were ruled illegal by the Spanish high court in 2013
