Lawsuit: Santander Bank Misrepresented NJ Man’s Mortgage

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Santander Bank, N.A. is facing a New Jersey man’s proposed class action that takes issue with its allegedly false representations in mortgage loan documents. The plaintiff claims he took out a mortgage with the defendant in 2007 and, after 10 years of payments, inquired about the loan payoff amount. He says the balance the bank provided him was approximately $11,000 higher than the amount he calculated based on the representations in his original Promissory Note and Disclosures form.

According to the complaint, the defendant originally indicated to the plaintiff that his loan included a 15-day grace period after each monthly due date during which he could submit payments without being charged a late fee. The documents he was provided allegedly represented that his interest would be calculated on a monthly basis, meaning payments made during the grace period would have no penalty. After inquiring about the $11,000 difference in his calculations, however, the bank informed him that his mortgage was a “simple interest loan” and that the interest was instead calculated daily, the suit says. As a result, the complaint explains, the mortgage accrued interest for every day a payment was late, including the few days between when timely payments were submitted and when the bank applied them to the loan.

The plaintiff argues that the defendant’s promissory note and monthly statements misrepresented the nature of his mortgage. The figures in the original note, he alleges, failed to include an “e” at the end to demonstrate that they were estimates – on account of the mortgage supposedly being a simple interest loan – and not actual calculations. Furthermore, the amount of interest displayed in each of the man’s monthly statements was incorrect, the suit claims, because it failed to account for months with 31 days, leap-year months, and any times the bank applied the plaintiff’s payment during the grace period.