Spread refund for Polish borrowers

President Andrzej Duda as early as his election campaign talked about the plans of currency conversion of the loans denominated in Swiss francs taken up by the citizens. The pledge to many interested parties seemed to be a means to solve the existing problem. In practice, mortgage borrowers are only to be refunded spread, and in the so-called franc bill there is one threshold – 350 thousand PLN per borrower.

Spread is a type of fee the bank charges each time it converts the value of money assets from one currency into another, both at the moment the loan is taken and when calculating the amount of loan payments. The easiest way to establish its value is to compare the buying price and the selling price of particular currency. In banks this is usually a few percent, which caused the costs of mortgage in for example Swiss franc spike.

It should be highlighted that the draft bill indicates spreads should be refunded because they were established against the current law. However, there is a chance to calculate the margin for currency calculations, but it may not be higher than 0.5 percent with regard to the National Bank of Poland’s buy / sell price.

What is important – the refund of excessive spreads will apply to mortgage loans indexed or denominated in foreign currency on condition the mortgage was taken out between 1 July 2000 and 26 August 2011 – the day the so-called anti-spread act came into force, which enabled cost-free repayments of loan in foreign currency.

It is not entirely clear for what reason the date the anti-spread act to come into force was chosen. It surely offered the consumers opportunity to avoid high bank spread when converting the loan payments, but still this did not have any impact on the exchange rate taken into consideration when converting the mortgage. After the date determined by the legislator there were no franc mortgages on the market, but loans in euro were still available.

Opportunity to receive a refund of excessive spread is offered to consumers and also some of entrepreneurs. As for the latter, this will be possible for the self-employed who did not amortize mortgaged real estate nor treat interest and other mortgage costs as tax deductible expenses.

Spread refund will also apply to mortgage agreements that expired – regardless of whether this happened due to earlier repayment or commencement of bank execution proceedings. If this is the case, the refund will have the form of payment. However, if the agreement is still valid, then the refund will lower the remaining mortgage amount.

Although the project creators freely admit the spreads were established against the existing law – the spread refund procedure will be limited by a threshold of 350 thousand PLN per each borrower. If the loan amount is bigger, the refund of spread is to be calculated merely with regard to the amount of 350 thousand PLN. In accordance with the idea, the amount for which the refund will apply to will be also increased by interest in the amount of half the statutory interest.