lWhen a consumer contacted at home by a solar panel seller signs a purchase order, he enters into a triangular relationship: he concludes a so-called “principal” contract with the seller, then a “credit transfer contract” with a bank for the same amount. When he signs the “delivery certificate” for the material, the bank sends the funds to the seller. The consumer must then repay his loan according to the schedule provided.
However, very often you discover that the installation costs you more than it brings you, contrary to what the seller had promised you. You can obtain in court the annulment of the main contract, because it is vitiated by a formal defect, with respect to the consumer code. The credit contract is automatically cancelled. (consumer code article L312-55).
The seller must recover his panels and return the price to the consumer, who must only reimburse the bank for this capital (without interest): A white operation for everyone. But when the seller has been liquidated and has therefore disappeared from the triangle, the consumer is deprived of his debt, even if he still owes it: a dramatic situation for him.
For a long time, the Court of Cassation ruled that if the bank had committed an error, by releasing the funds without having verified the regularity of the main contract, the borrower could be released from this debt. But since November 25, 2020 (19-14.908), She judges that the latter should also have suffered “damage causally related to this failure”.
causal link
Curiously, some appellate courts consider that the failure to recover their money from the insolvent seller does not constitute such damage: they consider it to be linked to the seller’s liquidation, devoid of any causal link with the fault of the bank. However, this impossibility was first due to the improper payment and then to the judicial liquidation of the seller. Without this initial fault the capital would not have been lost (since it would never have been paid).
Therefore, on July 10 (2024, 22-24.754), the Court of Cassation clarified that, according to “the principle of equivalence of conditions”according to which any unlawful act that has contributed to the damage entails the responsibility of its author, “the impossibility for the borrower to obtain restitution of the price” This “a consequence of the bank’s failure to examine the main contract”Therefore, the borrower justifies a loss. “causally linked to the fault of the bank”.
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