ZOETERMEER/TIEL - People who want their BKR registration removed because they are denied a mortgage or credit because of a small payment arrears still have to regularly go to court to do so. Of the many lawsuits filed by legal service provider Dynamiet Nederland to have BKR registrations removed, 35 have been settled since January. Of those, 28 were won.
This practice goes against the requirement of the Minister of Finance and the House of Representatives that the Bureau Krediet Registratie (BKR) facilitate the removal of disproportionate registrations. Just recently, the Midden-Nederland District Court had to issue a ruling in a case where lender Santander refused to remove the registration of a Haarlem resident. Because the man had been living in Spain for six months, he had missed three payment deadlines for his iPad, causing him to fall 56 euros in arrears. Although he had quickly caught up on those arrears and paid off the credit years ago, he still had a negative registration behind his name. As a result, he was denied a mortgage and a credit card, even though he had a good job with a stable income. The judge ruled that maintaining a BKR registration was disproportionate to the consequences for Haarlemmer. His interests outweigh those of Santander. Therefore, the court ordered Santander to have the registration with the BKR removed.
Dynamite has already obtained judgments or reached settlements in 35 such lawsuits this year. All but seven were won. Almost 80 percent. That success rate is only increasing. Each time, the court ruled that a negative registration did not outweigh the consequences for consumers and that the BKR had to take people off the blacklist. By comparison, of the 335 people who took their own case to the BKR Disputes Committee over the past two years, only 30 were ultimately vindicated.
The legal service provider argues that despite Parliamentary questions and urgent advice from the Minister of Finance, hardly anything has changed at the agency in Tiel. In January, the BKR published the so-called "manual on balancing interests. It explains how consumers can request removal of their data and how the interests between the amount of arrears or debt and the consequences for the consumer are weighed. That balancing of interests was made mandatory by a Supreme Court ruling in 2011. If the debt does not outweigh the consequences, the registration must be deleted, the highest court said. "In practice, however, lenders and banks remain deaf to such requests. Indeed, we have evidence that the BKR advises banks not to mention a negative registration as a ground for refusal for a mortgage," states Dynamiet.nl director Deepak Thakoerdien. "Then people can't use that as an argument to file a lawsuit."
In 2017, 10.6 million Dutch people were registered with the BKR. The number of borrowers in arrears fell from 730,000 to 687,000 last year.
André Oerlemans
ANP Press
