Official Journal of the European Union

C series

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C/2025/3247

24.6.2025

Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber) of 30 April 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Juzgado de Primera Instancia nº 8 de Donostia – San Sebastián – Spain) – FG v Caja Rural de Navarra SCC

(Case C-699/23,

(1)

Caja Rural de Navarra)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Consumer protection - Directive 93/13/EEC - Articles 3 to 5 - Unfair terms in consumer contracts - Mortgage loan agreements - Term concerning loan arrangement fees - Application seeking a declaration of invalidity of that term - Assessment of the unfairness of contractual terms - Plainness and intelligibility of the terms)

(C/2025/3247)

Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Juzgado de Primera Instancia nº 8 de Donostia – San Sebastián

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: FG

Defendant: Caja Rural de Navarra SCC

Operative part of the judgment

Article 5 of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts

must be interpreted as not precluding national case-law which, in the light of national legislation that provides that the arrangement fee for a mortgage loan is to remunerate services connected with the examination, granting or processing of the mortgage loan or credit or other similar services, considers that the term imposing such a fee on the consumer satisfies the requirement for transparency arising from Article 5 without that term specifying in detail all of the services supplied in exchange for that fee when communicating the proposed interest rate or indicating an hourly rate, and without the banking institution providing the consumer with the detailed invoices showing the breakdown of those services and the related charges, provided that that consumer has indeed been placed in a position to assess the economic consequences for him or her, to understand the nature of the services supplied in exchange for the costs provided for by that term and to ascertain that there is no overlap between the various costs provided for in the contract or between the services for which those costs are paid.

Articles 3 to 5 of Directive 93/13

must be interpreted as not precluding the price of the services covered by a contractual term providing for an arrangement fee, defined by national legislation as remunerating the services connected with the examination, granting or processing of the mortgage loan or credit or other similar services, from being expressed in the form of a percentage applied to the amount of the loan granted, provided that the consumer has indeed been placed in a position to assess the economic consequences of that term for him or her, to understand the nature of the services supplied in exchange for the costs provided for by that term and to ascertain that there is no overlap between the various costs provided for in the contract. In that scenario, such a clause cannot create a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

Article 3 and Article 4(1) of Directive 93/13 must be interpreted as not precluding national case-law which considers that a contractual term which provides, in accordance with national legislation, for the payment by the consumer of an arrangement fee intended to remunerate services connected with the examination, granting and personalised processing of an application for a mortgage loan or credit, may not create a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer, without the seller or supplier being required to provide details of the nature of the services remunerated by that fee or the cost of each of those services, provided that the possible existence of such an imbalance may be subject to effective review by the court having jurisdiction, in accordance with the criteria set out in the case-law of the Court of Justice, if necessary by comparing the amount of an arrangement fee imposed on a borrower with the average cost of arrangement fees surveyed over a recent period.

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(1) OJ C C/2024/3295.

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ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3247/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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