Case C-580/26, Vivesevi – the clock on a loan that was never valid
When a consumer credit agreement is struck down in its entirety, the money does not come back by itself. The lender has a claim for the net sum advanced — and the Sofiyski gradski sad wants to know from which day the law starts counting.
Facts
JH and NB are in litigation with ‘EOS Matrix’ EOOD, a debt-purchasing company, over a consumer credit agreement found to be wholly invalid. Invalidity does not extinguish the money already advanced: the trader retains a claim against the consumer for repayment of the net loan amount. Bulgarian case-law on the interpretation of national law offers three possible starting points for the limitation period on that claim — the date the agreement is found invalid, the date accelerated repayment is declared or the final maturity date; the date the loan was drawn down; or the due date of each corresponding instalment, keeping the repayment schedule set out in the agreement that has itself been declared invalid. The Sofiyski gradski sad (Sofia City Court) has referred a single question. (Vivesevi is a fictitious case name assigned under the Court’s anonymisation practice; it does not correspond to any party.)
Questions Referred
According to the Official Journal notice, the Sofiyski gradski sad asks:
Must Article 6(1) and Article 7(1) of Directive 93/13/EEC and the principles of effectiveness, equivalence and proportionality be interpreted, in the context of a finding that a consumer credit agreement is wholly invalid, as not precluding case-law on the interpretation of national law according to which the limitation period for an action brought by a seller or supplier against the consumer for repayment of the net amount of the loan under the invalid consumer credit agreement begins to run from:
— the date on which the agreement is found to be invalid, from the date on which accelerated repayment of the debt is declared or from its final maturity date;
— the date on which the loan amount is drawn down;
— the date on which the corresponding instalment is due (that is to say, maintaining repayment in instalments as set out in the agreement that has been declared invalid)?
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/4397 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Directive 93/13/EEC
Comment
The three candidate dates are not neutral technical options; they are three different answers to the question of who bears the consequences of a term the trader drafted. Starting the clock at drawdown is hardest on the lender — for an older loan, much of the claim may already be time-barred. Starting it at the finding of invalidity is most generous to the lender, since time begins only once the litigation is over. And the third option is the strangest of all: it keeps the instalment schedule of the very agreement that has ceased to exist, using a void contract to time the claim that arises from its voidness.
The Court’s most direct guidance on limitation in this field cuts against the trader, though it was decided in the consumer’s favour. In Case C‑776/19, BNP Paribas Personal Finance (ECLI:EU:C:2021:470) it held that Articles 6(1) and 7(1), read with the principle of effectiveness, preclude national legislation subjecting a consumer’s claim for repayment of sums paid under unfair terms to a five-year period running from acceptance of the loan offer, where at that moment the consumer may have been unaware of the unfairness. The reasoning is about knowledge: a limitation period may not begin at a date on which the person concerned could not reasonably have known they had a claim. Read across to the lender, that reasoning gives it nothing. The trader drafted the term; it is not in the position of a party who could not have known.
The asymmetry the Court has already built into this remedy points the same way. In Case C‑520/21, Bank M. (ECLI:EU:C:2023:478), on the annulment in its entirety of a mortgage loan agreement, it held that Articles 6(1) and 7(1) do not preclude a consumer claiming compensation beyond the instalments and expenses paid, subject to the directive’s objectives and proportionality — while they do preclude the credit institution claiming anything beyond reimbursement of the capital together with statutory default interest from the date of notice. The two limbs are deliberately unequal, and the reason is deterrence: a trader must not end up in a position where drafting an unfair term costs it nothing. A limitation rule that starts the lender’s clock only once a court has spoken produces exactly that result — the longer the unfairness goes unnoticed, the longer the trader’s claim stays alive.
The reference also carries a detail the notice states plainly and the analysis should not skip: the claimant is a debt purchaser rather than the original lender. Nothing in Directive 93/13 turns on the identity of the assignee, and the Court has consistently held that consumer protection follows the claim rather than the claimant. But it does sharpen the practical stakes. Portfolios of defaulted consumer credit are bought at a discount precisely because their legal condition is uncertain; a ruling that limitation runs from drawdown would strip a good deal of value out of every portfolio containing agreements that were invalid all along.
For the site’s readers there is a straight line from here to the two references the Estonian Supreme Court sent in May — C‑572/26, Kangi and C‑571/26, Kahmus — which ask whether the creditworthiness assessment can go unexamined through summary recovery and insolvency. Kangi and Kahmus concern whether anyone ever looks at the lending decision; Vivesevi concerns what happens once someone has, and the agreement has fallen. National supreme courts across three Member States are, within a few weeks of each other, asking the Court to say what an invalid consumer loan actually costs the lender.