Lenders sometimes create conditions that make timely repayment of the debt impossible.
Ukrainians are often left homeless due to loans. Thus, a number of companies lend money secured by real estate. For example, one of the companies offers a loan secured by an apartment from 18% per annum in hryvnia, but this is the minimum rate. At the request of the National Bank, the company published the terms of the loan. They say that the real annual interest rate reaches up to 400% per annum.
OBOZ.UA writes about this.
This company also published an example of a standard agreement – they propose to conclude it with one of the LLCs. The conditions comply with current legislation, however, one of the paragraphs clearly states that if the money is not returned, the company has the right to “collect the pledged property.”
The register of court decisions has a bunch of cases in which dissatisfied clients are trying to appeal the terms of the contract with this LLC.
So, last year in the Lviv region in court they tried to recover 207,620 UAH from the client. He took only 120 thousand UAH. The rest are interest and fines.
And in Kyiv, in court, case 756/16876/23: The LLC took away an apartment with a total area of 45.5 sq.m. from the debtor. He took out a loan, but did not pay it on time.
As lawyer Svetlana Sarazha said, many companies that are now engaged in loans secured by housing previously bought from bankrupt banks the right to demand the return of foreign currency mortgages.
< p>“They made their money on this, then the surviving LLCs switched to factoring (an operation where the first creditor assigns the right to claim the debt. – ed). And some, having such experience behind them, are now providing loans secured by real estate,” says the lawyer.< /p>
There are two options: some companies are transparent about the terms of the loan, while others make the loan difficult to repay. In particular, both on the website of this LLC and on other sites where the name of this LLC is indicated in the documents, you can easily find all the conditions: the amount of annual interest, repayment terms, threats of being included in various registers, threats to get rid of collateral, etc. . That is, the client has every opportunity to weigh the risks and refuse such an agreement if he is not sure that he will be able to repay the funds on time.
A bad case is when the loan provider misleads the borrower and creates conditions that preclude repayment of the debt .
As OBOZ.UA writes, one of the debtors contacted them and complained about the creditor’s allegedly illegal actions and seizure of the apartment.
“The man asked to issue the debt to his mother on the security of her apartment. The creditor did not check the pensioner’s income and provided her with 200 thousand UAH, which she transferred to her son. The son delayed payment for two months, and now they are trying to re-register his mother’s apartment near Kiev (to take the security deposit Already at the time of writing this article, the debtor refused to give his name and the name of the company in the publication, citing the fact that this could interfere with agreements on debt restructuring.However, this case proves: due to low financial literacy, Ukrainians continue to take out loans against mortgage of housing and lose their property,” the material says.
How to protect yourself
Lawyer Svetlana Sarazha says the main thing is to contact a lawyer before signing contract.
“This should be a lawyer or a lawyer with relevant experience. Often when people take out loans, they count on a certain income, but if this income disappears, they have no plan for what to do. You need to contact a specialist, study the contract, weigh all the risks,” the lawyer emphasizes.
If you have already signed an agreement secured by an apartment and your housing is taken away, an experienced lawyer will also be able to try to compete for housing. If this is your only apartment, then during martial law certain restrictions apply. It will be difficult to evict you just like that. Moreover, according to Saraja, creditors always agree to negotiate. Sometimes they agree to restructure the loan without collecting the collateral.
Recall that real estate is becoming more expensive in Ukraine: an expert reported current prices for apartments in different cities.
