“I have the impression of living with endless credit”, confide BNP customers before the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal

Thousands of French people have taken out loans from BNP Paribas, which they have been repaying for years, and yet today they owe more money than when they started.

The court decision in the Helvet Immo affair is awaited by several thousand French people: was there deception? The Paris Court of Appeal rules on Tuesday November 28. Borrowers actually took out a loan 15 years ago with BNP and today they owe more money than when they started. The bank was convicted for the first time in 2020.

Eric, who is 50 years old, has already spent almost a third of his life repaying, or at least trying to repay with his wife, a loan taken out in 2008. “We took out a loan of 140,000 euros. I’ve been repaying it for 14 and a half years and I still owe 168,000 euros today”, he explains. When he borrows to buy an apartment, this professional in the cinema takes what he is told at his word. He takes out a loan in Swiss francs, repayable in euros. And we don’t talk to him about exchange rate risk.

“The word risk was never used, never appeared anywhere in the contract and the borrowers were unable to measure this risk”

Me Charles Constantin-Vallet, who represents borrowers

at franceinfo

Éric has confidence since it is the BNP “which had a good image as a family bank” : “I really blamed myself for a few years, he continues. I was trying to understand why we had been fooled. I thought I had missed something. And we found ourselves closing all the bank accounts, life insurance, savings plans. On the 5th of the month, we were already overdrawn. I feel like I’m living on endless credit.”.

Jérôme, sales director, who borrowed 110,000 euros has the same feeling. Today he must repay 120,000 euros. “We have the impression of repaying in a vacuum. The loan is part of our life. There is not a day when we do not think about it. And after 12 or 13 years of repayment, we wonder, we say to ourselves that potentially our daughter could inherit this debt, this loan which was originally taken out to leave her something and to help pay for her studies.”he confides.

On the BNP side, it contests any concealment of risks. His lawyers say “hear” the “harm” and the “suffering” civil parties.

“The bank has never hidden anything”

Me Dan Benguigui, lawyer for BNP Paribas

to AFP

But “the clauses” of the Helvet Immo contract “were clear”, says Me Dan Benguigui. Me Paul Fortin denounces him “fantasy of an omniscient and deceptive bank” whose employees would have “the intention” of“rip off customers”, “this is not reality” according to him.

All procedures included, the bank could pay out more than 250 million euros for the 2,500 civil parties. Borrowers, for their part, “wait for justice to recognize them as victims, for them to be able to overcome their guilt, but also for it to compensate them properly so that they can finally escape from this infernal trap”specifies Me Charles Constantin-Vallet.