Holding a Swiss francs’ mortgage as a social issue. A few reflections on the situation of persons that have a mortgage denominated in Swiss francs in the context of justice principles

Abstract

The phenomenon of Swiss franc mortgages in Poland revealed the ineffectiveness of consumer rights protection and a misunderstanding of the EU idea of balancing consumer contractual rights and obligations towards the trader. The lack of a systemic solution to this issue has led to the fact that currently persons with debts in Swiss francs are in dispute not only with banks, but also with that part of the society which feel disadvantaged by the fact that contracts containing abusive clauses have become cancelled. The PLN borrower’s perspective does not take into account the key factors that determined this pattern of events (even while ignoring the fact that it is not the court’s ruling that makes the mortgage agreement invalid). This article presents and discusses the factors thanks to which the expansion of loans indexed with the CHF rate in 2004–2010 was possible. Based on this analysis, the author proves that unequal treatment of consumers in access to the credit services occurred at that time, and that currently pending litigation cannot take into account the principle of social justice, which does not include goods or services over which the state has no influence, when applying distributive mechanisms.