You hear it more and more. Termination of credit agreements and / or adjustment of the conditions (such as an increase in the surcharges and interest). An underexposed topic is the penalty interest charged by the banks. What can you do about it?
Early repayments of fixed-term loans
If you have a business loan with a fixed term at the bank (except for a current account credit), you will often be confronted with a penalty interest if this loan is repaid early . This is not only current with the financing of commercial real estate. You will also come across this clause with ordinary financing for your company. This clause is not explicitly stated in the general banking conditions, but is always
included in the credit agreement itself.
Head bank and penalty interest
Even if your credit is canceled against your will , for example as the Deutsche Bank has announced, you will also be confronted with penalty interest and, incidentally, also costs of refinancing the credit, et cetera. The issue with Deutsche Bank is another, raising an objection to the termination will also have to include an objection to the related penalty interest. I have already spoken about the consequences of the termination by Deutsche Bank. This will generally be unlawful towards the account holder and lead to Deutsche Bank being liable for damages. In that context, I consider the chance that Deutsche Bank will be successful with the collection of the penalty interest nil.
Penalty interest: object
It pays to pay close attention to this and to object. Consult an expert. Your lawyer can help you, but your accountant or a former banker, for example, can also assist you in checking the calculation of the (amount of the) penalty interest. My advice is to object to the calculation of penalty interest (which usually takes place automatically under the credit agreement) and to request a substantiation of the calculation in writing and to have it recalculated by an expert.