Introduction
For consumer credit, a personal loan, a revolving credit or a purchase in instalments, strict rules apply to protect the consumer. Those rules, laid down in Title 7:2A DCC and the Financial Supervision Act and based on the European Consumer Credit Directive, concern the information provided in advance, the assessment of creditworthiness and the terms of the agreement. Where they are not met, that can have consequences for repayment and interest.
Duty to inform and duty of care in lending
The credit provider must clearly inform the consumer in advance about the costs, the interest and the term, and must assess whether the credit is responsible. This duty of care follows from the consumer-credit rules in the Civil Code (Title 7:2A) and the Financial Supervision Act. The higher the credit and the more vulnerable the consumer, the more heavily the duty weighs.
Over-lending and the creditworthiness assessment
The provider must establish that the consumer can bear the credit without falling into problematic debt. If they nevertheless grant credit the consumer cannot bear, there is over-lending and the provider can be liable for the resulting damage. The assessment relies in part on consulting the credit registration system of the BKR; on the legal basis for that registration and the consumer's right to have data erased, the Supreme Court ruled in a preliminary decision (Supreme Court 3 December 2021, ECLI:NL:HR:2021:1814).
Consequences of breach and review of the court's own motion
Breach of the duty to inform or the duty of care can lead to damages, to a reduction of the interest or the costs, and sometimes to the annulment of terms that are unfair. As with other consumer contracts, the court moreover reviews compliance with the credit rules of its own motion. That applies to modern forms of credit too: the Supreme Court ruled on the assessment of claims arising from a buy-now-pay-later service in web shops, in the light of Title 7:2A DCC and the Consumer Credit Directive (Supreme Court 27 June 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:1008). A consumer relying on a breach substantiates the breach and the disadvantage; the provider must show that it complied with its duties.
What decides the outcome
The outcome is determined by whether the provider complied with its duty to inform and its duty of care, and whether the credit was responsible. A party challenging a credit agreement is well advised to request the pre-contractual information and the substantiation of the creditworthiness assessment.