"Bank behavior comes under scrutiny in first economic and social rights individual complaint before UN body", 4 Nov 2015

The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights...deciding on the first case filed before it using a novel individual complaint mechanism, took the opportunity to address the behavior of a private bank. The body mandated Spain to reform aspects of its legislation that allowed banking entities to get away with abuses in mortgage proceedings thus violating the right to housing consecrated by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)...The case in question that the Committee decided concerned a person who had purchased a house taking a mortgage loan from a bank in 2007. Due to her failure to make several payments, the lending institution called in the full amount of the loan and initiated a special mortgage enforcement procedure in a trial court in Madrid. Due to deficiencies in the notification procedure, the victim only became aware of the existence of the proceedings several months later, when the court’s agent served notice of the auction of her property...The victim alleged that learning of the proceedings this late prevented her from effective access to the judicial system...The legislation regulating mortgage executions came also under question in the case as the victim alleged it did not adequately protect the right to housing...The Committee’s Decision requested Spain to provide the victim with an effective remedy and to ensure that its legislation that regulates foreclosure mortgage proceedings and its application comply with the obligations set forth in the Covenant...