Review of your revolving credit card (tarjeta revolving) or revolving credit: whether you have a case and how much you have overpaid

Legal basis and things to bear in mind

• The review rests on the Ley de 23 de julio de 1908 on the nullity of usurious loan contracts, known as the Ley Azcárate. Its Article 1 declares void any loan in which interest is stipulated that is markedly higher than the normal rate of money and manifestly disproportionate to the circumstances of the case. That is why we compare the TAE (the Spanish APR) in your contract with the average rate published for this type of credit in the month you signed, and not with today's.
• Article 3 of that same law says what happens once nullity is declared: you are obliged to return only the sum you received, and the entity must give you back whatever it charged over and above that capital. That is precisely the calculation the report sets out when it adds up your instalments, how much you actually drew down and how much you have paid in excess.
• If the interest rate does not reach the point of being markedly higher than that of the month of signature, the report examines the contract through the transparency route. Article 80 of the texto refundido de la Ley General para la Defensa de los Consumidores y Usuarios (consolidated text of the General Act for the Defence of Consumers and Users) requires terms not individually negotiated to be specific, clear and simple, and also accessible and legible: since 1 June 2022 that requirement is not regarded as met if the type measures less than 2,5 millimetres or if poor contrast with the background makes reading difficult.
• Article 82 of the same consolidated text treats as unfair any term which, contrary to the requirements of good faith, causes a significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the parties to the detriment of the consumer, and it places on the entity the burden of proving that a term was individually negotiated. Article 83 adds that such terms are void as a matter of law and are treated as not written, and that the same applies to conditions incorporated in a non-transparent manner to the detriment of the consumer.
• In the same vein, Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts requires, in its Article 5, that terms offered in writing be drafted in plain, intelligible language, and it provides that, where there is doubt about their meaning, the interpretation most favourable to the consumer prevails.
• It is worth telling two deadlines apart, because they are not the same thing. Nullity as a matter of law does not lapse, so the contract can be challenged even after many years have gone by. Recovering the money is another matter: Article 1964.2 of the Código Civil (Civil Code) subjects personal actions to a limitation deadline of five years which, in revolving credit, is counted instalment by instalment. Put plainly, every month that passes without claiming drops the oldest instalment out of the calculation.
• Article 1973 of the Código Civil interrupts that limitation deadline through the bringing of the action before the courts, through an out-of-court claim and through any act acknowledging the debt. That is why we ask you whether you have already written to the entity and on what date: if you did, the stretch of instalments that can still be claimed may be longer than it appears.
• It is worth knowing in advance how far the supervisor route goes. Articles 29 and 30 of the Ley 44/2002 on Financial System Reform Measures oblige the entity to have a customer service department and allow you to turn afterwards to the complaints service of the Banco de España, but the report it issues does not oblige the entity to give you anything back, nor does it replace a court ruling.
• What you receive here is an expert opinion, not a claim: it does not interrupt any deadline against the entity and it does not yet ask anyone for the money. It tells you whether your case stands up, by which route and with what figure, so that you can decide the next step with the numbers in front of you; we never tell you in advance how much you will recover. If a letter to the entity or court proceedings are needed afterwards, that is instructed separately, and bear in mind that Article 5 of the Ley Orgánica 1/2025 on the efficiency of the Public Justice Service requires that a negotiation through one of the appropriate means of dispute resolution (medios adecuados de solución de controversias) has been attempted beforehand for a civil claim to be admitted.