Precedent ruling from the Court of Cassation for those who pay off credit debts early!

The Court of Cassation has issued a precedent-setting ruling regarding credit debts. The ruling states that it is not possible to charge an intelligence fee for early credit repayments. The text of the decision states, "It is not possible to charge an intelligence fee due to early repayment if that fee was not charged at the time the credit was utilized."

According to information obtained from the Case Law Bulletin Application, the attorney for a private school in Sakarya, which was the plaintiff, declared that the contract provisions regarding fees collected by the bank for 3 separate loans that were withdrawn and closed early constituted general transaction terms. The attorney requested and filed a lawsuit for the collection of the amounts charged under the names of intelligence and early closure fees, reserving the right to claim the excess, and demanded that an initial amount of 1,000.00 TL be taken from the defendant bank and given to the plaintiff, along with commercial default interest to accrue from the date of payment.

The attorney for the defendant bank requested the dismissal of the case. The Court of First Instance decided to partially accept the case and rejected the claim for the excess amount. The attorneys for both parties filed an appeal against the decision of the Court of First Instance within the legal timeframe. The Regional Court of Justice decided to reject the appeals of the parties on their merits.

The attorneys for both parties filed an appeal with the Court of Cassation against the aforementioned decision of the Regional Court of Justice within the legal timeframe.

The 11th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation issued the following ruling:

"It is not possible to charge an intelligence fee due to early repayment if that fee was not charged at the time the credit was utilized. The plaintiff was granted credit on 18.08.2016, 25.05.2017, and 12.06.2017, and no intelligence fee was charged at that time. Subsequently, as a result of the regulation introduced by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey with the communiqué dated 10.02.2020 and numbered 2020/4, the practice of collecting intelligence fees by banks was terminated. It is not possible to charge an intelligence fee due to early repayment if that fee was not charged at the time the credit was utilized. Since the intelligence fee cannot be charged to the plaintiff, the Banking and Insurance Transaction Tax (BSMV) applied to and collected on the intelligence fee should also not be charged. For this reason, it was not correct to decide on the refund of the intelligence fee excluding the BSMV, while the BSMV applied to the intelligence fee should also have been refunded to the plaintiff, and this required the reversal of the decision."

News Source: İHA