“Do not lie down but stand up and fight them!"
Two Danish Companies persuaded British property owners to take out mortgage loans they could not repay
Following the Appeal Court ruling against Nykredit and Sydbank where both defendants have been branded “clandestine operators” for operating without a license, Spanish national press have extensively covered this extraordinary story of fraud and deceipt.
The following media have written about this deception:
The Malaga Appeal Court has reversed an unjust Court of First Instance ruling and granted relief to two British pensioners victims of the “Spanish Equity Release Package” (SERP), peddled by Nykredit Realkredit A/S “and Sydbank (Schweiz) AG and sold by Offshore Money Managers.
The following is a summary of the ruling, received today:
The Court findings represents a great disaster for both these banks because their conduct with existing clients is reported as irregular and dishonest, and to that effect imposed the maximum possible penalties in law.
(we will expand shortly)
Just when we thought that Nykredit in Marbella, along with its mammoth parent Danish company (Nykredit Realkredit A/S), could not stoop any lower on how abhorrently they deal with customers, new events have proved us wrong.
This is the story: 3 families who are having their properties foreclosed on by Nykredit and are about to lose their homes –as a result of being sold an illegal `Spanish Equity Release Package` offered in conjunction with unregulated Sydbank- have just recently received letters from the main Denmark office urging them to make instalment payments to become “core customers” again and have their mortgages reinstated.
Placing due reliance on the representations made on the letters, customers have gone along and paid the sums requested on the letters.
The letters are true and real but have a catch: Nykredit says that they were sent by error and that they are not valid. Still, Nykredit keeps the money and continues with the forced sale.
In this case, foreclosure proceedings commenced back in May 2014 and the letters have been received end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. Incredibly, Nykredit stands by their comments and says it is a computer generated error which means the letters are not valid in law.
If we were to draw a parallel, Spanish banks have not even come close to this level of deceit. It is now time for the authorities to seriously contemplate revoking Nykredit’s authorization to operate in Spain.
Letters will be posted here shortly.
Alicante-based Notary Public J.A.N., acting for Nykredit Realkredit Marbella branch, has been indicted on a count of false mention on a public document.
The Notary Public had issued a certification stating what the balance of the loan was and the methodology for calculating the interest. Against logic, the Notary accepted a statement from Nykredit that introduced a reference interest rate never before mentioned in the loan contract (Euribor).
When lawyers acting for borrowers challenged the Notary, he admitted his mistake and requested Nykredit lawyers to rectify the statement, only to be rebuffed by the borrower.
The Court has ordered the Notary to appear in Court to be interrogated.
Lender Nykredit, from its Marbella office, and its business partner Sydbank, from an illegal Fuengirola office, persuaded British pensioners to take out offshore companies as part of a IHT tax avoidance scheme.
The “Equity Release Package” or Equity Release Product, as was named by the advertising literature, consisted on a loan granted by Nykredit -Christel Mark Hansen acting for the latter- guaranteed on a Spanish property, the proceeds of which loan were invested via Sydbank in Switzerland -with the assistance and supervision of Mads Petersen-
Sydbank would provide a guarantee to its business partner Nykredit for 33% of the loan, who would pay for the privilege, so as to ensure that the lender was fully covered.
To achieve full anonymity, Sydbank in Switzerland offered offshore company to shelter the investments and make it more difficult for the Spanish Tax Office to find out the whereabouts of the loan proceeds, now presumably invested.
Nykredit and Sydbank sold this product as a legal, lawful manner to achieve state-of-the-art wealth planning for retired British property owners in Spain.
The highly opaque offshore companies were incorporated in Belize and had directors posted in New Zealand.
Nykredit in Spain, with offices in Marbella (Centro Comercial Plaza), could see all of its Spanish loans declared void by the Courts.
The reason is no other than the appalling wording of many clauses of their standard Spanish mortgage loan contract, notably the “applicable interest rate” clause.
This extraodinary discovery happened when lawyers acting for a victim of Nykredit’s nefarious Marbella branch, who had been served with a foreclosure Court claim, analysed with a fine-tooth comb the wording of the loan contract…only to conclude that it was impossible to establish which rates were applicable and crucially, what was the total sum owed when repossession proceedings got underway.
Lawyers have concluded, following 48 hours of collective ‘brainstorming’, that it is not possible to arrive at a discernible figure on the above concepts.
Now let’s see how Nykredit’s clever Danish lawyers worded the diverse formulas used by the bank to charge interest and calculate outstanding balances:
The value as certified by the Copenhaguen Stock Exchange.
In case of disappearance of the above, the value certified by any other Public Administrative Body.
The “market” value.
The market value paid by Nykredit for the “underlying bonds”.
An amount that could be, in any event, different from the “OBL RESTGAELD” debt.
The value of bonds issued under code “ISIN”.
A formula totally different from the above, in case Nykredit decided to use the prerrogative given to itself of not “taking the above into consideration”.
Quite!
Startled borrowers have stated that if the mortgage loan had been left in Danish language, they would have stood a better chance of grasping something.
In addition to this bungle but as a consequence of the above, NYKREDIT’s Alicante-based lawyers made a total mess in their Court repossession paperwork when, in a futile attempt to cheat the Courts (and their customers), attached the obligatory Outstanding Balance Statement without reflecting the mandatory calculations, without the Notary Public certifying those (when the melon was supposed to ensure the Statement was consistent with the wording of the loan contract clauses, article 218 of the “Reglamento Notarial”) and worst of all, forgetting to legalize the signature of the person ratifying the Statement (a Sussie Nyholm, who at the time happened to be in Denmark, or just as always be believe because she lives there…).
And to cap it all, as for applicable law, Nykredit expressly noted the following:
This loan will be subject to Spanish laws and Courts.
Should the Courts declare void the above 2 clauses in the loan contract, by application of Spanish Consumer laws and notably, the recent 2013 European Court of Justice ruling, the following could happen:
Lawyers acting for victims of the “Spanish Enquity Release Package”, as advertised by Sydbank (Schweiz) AG, have formally filed a civil suit against this bank, alongside Nykredit (Realkredit) A/S, for statutory voidness and illegality of the named product, on the following grounds:
– Sydbank (Schweiz) teamed up with Nykredit Realkredit A/S, a Danish lender operating through a branch office in Marbella. Both banks contend that they provided separate services and that Nykredit stepped in to lend to British citizens as a result of a “introduction” made by Sydbank, and that was about it as far as their relationship went (it almost seemed as if victims of the Equity Release victims had thrown a party where both banks met each other…getting on famously thereafter).
– Sydbank (Schweiz) was and has never been registered to operate legally in Spain, whether via the Bank of Spain or the CNMV. Notwithstanding such serious infringement, they offered their services to the Spanish general public directly, and through a number of IFAs; they actually opened a branch office in Fuengirola yet failing, as expected, to even secure a municipal opening license from the Fuengirola Town Hall.
– Sydbank (Schweiz) offered a product that, in its inception, violated public policy: it was designed to reduce, ilegally, Spanish Wealth and Inheritance Taxes.
– Sydbank and Nykredit tempted British peaceful property owners to trangress the law, to do what was injurious to the law, the community, banking code of ethics and the very rights of their clients.
– Mads Petersen and Jorn Gregersen were both conscious –yet deliberately witheld information they were only privy to- that the investment product PEERLESS SICAV, of which Sydbank was “promoter, investment manager and most important distributor of the Company”, in any of its 3 Subfunds, did not return more than 0.58% in 2006, and actually less in 2007, when 2 and 1 of the couples, respectively, took the product out.
Corporate rogues Petersen and Gregersen not only failed to advise their clients that the product was not suitable for them (never mind the inheritance tax avoidance illicit aim or the lack of regulatory clearance) but, in a display of extraordinary trickery, made them believe that the SICAV yield could actually pay for the cost of Nykredit mortgage loan, plus Sydbank’s commission and lastly, leave the clients a remaining disposable income sum (in simple layman terms, knowing that 0.58% would hardly pay off 6% they still concealed it, with catastrophic effects).
– Finally, Sydbank (Schweiz) AG and Nykredit Realkredit A/S dishonestly tried to disguise the fact that they are actually partners in Denmark, that Sydbank channels all of its loan business through Nykredit (page 4), against payment of a commission, and that Sydbank’s CEO, Karen Frosig, is in fact a director of Nykredit (pg 12).
Lawyers acting for clients have requested that the Spanish Equity Release, comprising the “Business Connection Agreement” (euphemism coined by Sydbank to refer to a regular bank account contract and an associated Peerless SICAV product) and any associated contracts (including Belize companies, as part of Sydbank’s concealmente technology), as well as the Spanish Nykredit mortgage loan, are rendered void ab initio , following the principles quod nullum est, nullum producit effectum (that which is a nullity, produces no effect) and simul stabunt, simul cadent (they will stand together or they will fall together).
