The Supreme Court has given a new hit Caixabank in relation to the mortgage expenses charged abusive. On this occasion he has given the reason to a client that claimed the return of the expenses he paid for Notary, Registration and Management and forced the entity to return the amounts charged by virtue of an expense clause that has been declared void by abusive. With this judgment, the High Court confirms that the action was not prescribed, and reiterates that the deadline for claiming does not begin until there is a firm judicial resolution that declares the nullity of the clause.
According to the judgment of July 21, 2025, the mortgaged signed a mortgage with Murcia savings box, subsequently integrated in Caixabank, in which the payment of all the all the payment of all the expenses derived from the contract. Subsequently, in December 2005 he formalized a second loan under similar conditions. In both cases, he assumed notaries, registration and managing expenses that, years later, would be considered an abusive practice.
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In 2018, the mortgage filed a lawsuit requesting the nullity of both clauses and the return of the amounts paid, plus legal interests. The Court of First Instance No. 5 Bis of Alicante partially estimated the claim, declaring the clauses for abusive and condemning the entity to return several amounts.
However, the Provincial Court of Alicante partly revoked the judgment under appeal, considering that the general period of 5 years to claim established in the Civil Code had prescribed, since it understood that said period began to count from the moment the last payment of the expenses derived from the mortgage was made.
The Supreme is right to the consumer and denies that the action is prescribed
The mortgaged appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that the deadline to demand the return cannot be counted from the payment of expenses, but from the moment in which the nullity of the clause is declared judicially. The high court confirmed its own doctrine and that of the Court of Justice of the European Union (TJUE), which demands that the consumer have a real and effective knowledge of the nullity before the calculation of the prescription period begins.
The supreme has been blunt, as long as there is no final sentence that declares the nullity of the clause, the deadline cannot be considered initiated.
In its resolution, the Chamber expressly quotes its plenary sentence of June 14, 2024 (STS 857/2024) and the recent judgment of the TJUE of April 25, 2024 (C-561/21), which reinforces the protection of consumers before abusive clauses. In addition, it literally reproduces the criteria set in said jurisprudence:
“Except in those cases in which the lend entity proves that, within the framework of its contractual relations, that concrete consumer could know in a previous date that this stipulation (expenses clause) was abusive, the initial day of the prescription period will be that of the firmness of the sentence that declares the nullity of the clause that forced such payments.”
Caixabank could not demonstrate that the client knew abusivity before the sentence. Therefore, the action was not prescribed and must return the amounts claimed, plus legal interest from the date of payment.