{"id":9347,"date":"2022-02-21T00:25:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T23:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/?p=9347"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:38:21","slug":"consumer-credit-bank-creditworthiness-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/consumer-credit-bank-creditworthiness-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Credit and the Bank’s Duty to Assess the Borrower"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 6 June 2019 on consumer credit.<\/em><\/p>\n

A consumer credit granted, solar panels paid for but never delivered<\/h2>\n

A bank had financed a consumer’s purchase of solar panels. The credit amount was paid to the consumer, then to the manufacturer and installer. The panels were never delivered. The consumer nonetheless had to repay the bank. He refused and brought the dispute before the Justice of the Peace, which has jurisdiction over consumer credit disputes. He argued that the bank had lent him too much in view of his income.<\/p>\n

Two duties of the bank before granting consumer credit<\/h2>\n

Article VII.75 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law, formerly Article 15, paragraph 1 of the Consumer Credit Act of 12 June 1991, requires the lender and the credit intermediary to identify, among the credit agreements they usually offer or arrange, the type and amount of credit best suited to the consumer’s financial situation and to the purpose of the credit. This duty has no equivalent in Directive 2008\/48\/EC of 23 April 2008 on consumer credit agreements. Article 5(6) of the Directive aims to enable the consumer to determine whether the proposed agreement suits his needs and financial situation. It does not impose a comparable duty on the bank.<\/p>\n

Article VII.77 of the Code, formerly Article 15, paragraph 2 of the Act, requires the lender to conclude a credit agreement only if, in light of the information it has or should have, notably from consulting the Central Individual Credit Register, it may reasonably consider that the consumer will be able to meet his obligations. The Directive, for its part, says nothing about how the lender should act when in doubt about the consumer’s solvency. Similar duties exist in mortgage credit matters.<\/p>\n

The CJEU judgment of 6 June 2019<\/h2>\n

On 6 June 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled [1] on the interpretation of Article 5(6) of Directive 2008\/48\/EC. On a preliminary question referred by the Justice of the Peace of the canton of Vis\u00e9, the Court was asked whether Articles VII.75 and VII.77 of the Belgian Code were compatible with the Directive.<\/p>\n

The bank argued that, on a broad reading of the Belgian provisions, it is in reality for the lender to decide whether the credit should be concluded at all, whereas that decision, as with business credit, should rest with the borrower alone.<\/p>\n

The Court disagreed. The stricter duties under Belgian consumer credit law are not incompatible with the Directive, which allows Member States to provide a high level of consumer protection. The Court also recalled its earlier case law: the duty to assess the consumer’s creditworthiness is designed to make the lender accountable and to prevent credit being granted to insolvent consumers [2]. Determining what obligations may be imposed on the lender following that assessment remains a matter for the Member States and falls outside the scope of the Directive [3].<\/p>\n

Consequently, a national rule requiring the lender to refrain from concluding the agreement where it cannot reasonably consider that the consumer will be able to repay does not undermine the objective of Article 8(1) of Directive 2008\/48, nor the consumer’s own primary responsibility to look after his interests.<\/p>\n

Another article on this site covers the duties of consumer credit intermediaries, notably the verification of information provided by the consumer.<\/p>\n\n

[1] CJEU, Case C-58\/18.<\/p>\n

[2] Judgment of 18 December 2014, CA Consumer Finance, C-449\/13, para. 43.<\/p>\n

[3] Unlike Directive 2014\/17 on consumer mortgage credit, Article 18(5)(a): the creditor only makes the credit available to the consumer where the result of the creditworthiness assessment indicates that the obligations are likely to be met.<\/p>\n

This article is a translation. Only the French version is authoritative. It is provided for information purposes and does not constitute legal advice.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 6 June 2019 on consumer credit. A consumer credit granted, solar panels paid for but never delivered A bank had financed a consumer’s purchase of solar panels. The credit amount was paid to the consumer, then to the manufacturer and installer. The… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185562167,"featured_media":4527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"CJEU judgment C-58\/18: Belgian consumer credit duties (Articles VII.75 and VII.77 CDE) are compatible with Directive 2008\/48\/EC.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Consumer Credit: the Bank's Duty to Assess the Borrower (CJEU)","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11430064],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-credits","clear","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/droitbancaire.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/lab-g9878a9c29_640.jpg?fit=640%2C423&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbYDZD-2qL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185562167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9348,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347\/revisions\/9348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/droitbancaire.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}