The "simple" lawyer who took on Spain's foreclosure legislation

When Mohammed Aziz told him about his problems with his mortgage, Antonio Moreno was already battling the cancer that killed him a year later. They had been neighbors, and that closeness had cemented their friendship. Antonio used to spend his afternoons tending his little vegetable patch on a farm in Martorell, 40 kilometers from Barcelona. Mohammed, who hails from Morocco, earned a living as a construction worker and supported his family, who lived on the farm next door.

One day, Mohammed ran into Antonio at a pharmacy and told him that he had lost his job, that he had stopped meeting the monthly mortgage payments on his home, and that the bank was threatening him with eviction - a threat it made good on in January 2011. Antonio could not help him, but he knew somebody who could: his son Dionisio, a modest lawyer from Martorell whose office was in the old part of town.

"Antonio told me, 'Don't worry, I'm going to talk to Dionisio and he will help you.' Ever since then, Dioni, as I call him, has always led me by the hand," says Aziz about his "lawyer and friend."

Dionisio Moreno is the silent hero in a case that has turned the Spanish foreclosure system on its head and brought hope to thousands of people who have lost their homes - or are about to - because they cannot settle their debts with the bank.

Moreno is the silent hero in a case that has brought hope to thousands of people

Moreno, a 43-year-old who is separated from his wife and describes himself as "a diehard fan of Martorell and its thousand-year-old history," is a peculiar character. The people who know him describe him as an exceptional individual who, above all, stands out for his kindness to others.

"There are not many people around like him; he's always helping out the poor and asks for nothing in return," says Aziz about Dionisio Moreno.

"He is the kind of person who draws you to him, and he has given everyone a lesson in human and ethical values. What he did deserves great praise: he turned down other professional projects to help a friend," adds Verónica Dávalos, a lawyer for the Mortgage Victims Platform (PAH), a grassroots association of embattled mortgage holders that recently collected over a million signatures to force Congress to consider legislative changes to Spain's draconian foreclosure laws. Under the current system, a homeowner in default cannot simply return the house keys to the bank and walk away - after the home is auctioned off, if the winning bid was lower than the loan, the former owner remains liable for the balance. In a property market with falling prices, this means that people often lose their homes and still remain highly indebted to the banks.

Add extremely high home ownership rates and spiraling unemployment and the result is a spike in repossessions. Since 2008, when the financial crisis hit Spain, around 350,000 people have been served with eviction notices.

I think it was not really the markets but the banks that set housing prices"

During the economic boom lenders approved home loans to just about anyone, regardless of their income levels or risk of default. Even though a majority of citizens continue to pay their mortgage fees, many secretly fear that they, too, could be kicked out of their homes if they should lose their jobs. Media reports of at least five people committing suicide shortly before being evicted have made repossessions an issue of national concern.

Dionisio's parakeets - he has seven now - occupy a central area in his home. "The noise doesn't bother them here: I don't watch TV or listen to the radio," he explains. "I always end up giving them away, especially to families with children, who are very kind to them. In fact, I'm a big kid myself; I've got little toys all over the house."

As if to prove his point, sitting on his desk are two small figurines representing medieval knights - the very same desk where he came up with an idea that turned out to be brilliant: invoking EU consumer rights to denounce abusive clauses in Mohammed Aziz's mortgage loan.

Inspiration caught him working. It was in fact another lender that provided the clue as to how to defeat the savings bank Caixa Tarragona and prevent the eviction of his father's friend. The lender had sent him "one of those advertising letters" with information about financial products. The lawyer began connecting the dots in his mind (products, clients, consumers...) and this provided the long-sought-after solution.

A prudent man, Dionisio Moreno preferred to remain silent until Thursday, when the European Court of Justice released its verdict on the Mohammed Aziz case. The court ruled that Spanish repossession legislation violates EU consumer protection because it does not allow courts to halt evictions even when there is evidence of unfair terms in the mortgage contract.

At that point, all the accumulated tension burst out from Dionisio in the form of tears. "Gee, now I feel like an important person," he said jokingly in front of the television cameras that gathered at his door.

Moreno insists that he is a "simple" lawyer "without means" who lives alone with his parakeets and who viewed Aziz's case as "an injustice" that needed to be redressed. The case even cost him money, Aziz points out.

"He is like a brother to me. He worked for free, and paid for everything. He wouldn't let me pay for anything, not even photocopies. He even helped me buy food for my family," recalls Aziz, who says he is eternally grateful to his attorney. When the bank demanded four months' worth of late payments, Moreno even offered to put up part of the money out of his own pocket.

For the lawyer from Martorell, the Aziz case has been an epic personal and professional adventure, the climax of which was a trip to Luxembourg to appear before the European Court of Justice.

"The fact that Dioni went there was a determining factor; the judges were able to learn what this was all about," says Dávalos. "He has told me the anecdotes so many times that I feel as though I'd gone with him."

And it was quite a trip. At first, Moreno had planned to spend a couple of days in Paris with his partner before driving to Luxembourg. In the end, to avoid distractions, he went by himself. He flew to Charles de Gaulle airport and rented a car to get to Luxembourg via Belgium. By the time he got to his hotel, however, check-in time had come and gone and he was left without a room. Moreno walked aimlessly around Brussels until he came across "a Chinese restaurant with a sign that said chambres." He was able to shower and get a few hours of sleep before his day in court the next morning at 9am.

The day of the trial did not go much better. "There was a huge traffic jam to get into Luxembourg," he recalls. He got lost several times. First he ended up at the wrong court. Later, because of some roadworks, he found himself "in the middle of a forest." Finally, a good Samaritan showed him the way. He still went full circle once around the building and tried a couple of locked doors before finally finding the right one. Hurriedly donning a lawyer's gown, he entered the courtroom just as the bank's lawyer was addressing the bench. "I made a reverence and drank all the available water. Later I was called up and I had to speak without consulting any papers. I was very nervous, but it went well. It was quite an adventure, though I'm not sure I would want to go through another one of those," he concludes. Nevertheless, Moreno is still investigating the home mortgage issue in Spain. "I think it was not really the markets but the banks that set the housing prices. And they did so on the basis of the mortgages they were willing to approve," he says, vowing to keep looking into the matter, slowly but surely.

Before being a lawyer, Dionisio Moreno wanted to be an archeologist. "But I couldn't turn down a scholarship from a bank [he laughs] to study law. I enjoyed studying and dealing with people."

After spending a few years at "an ordinary law firm," he set up his own practice. His office is located in a small room in his own apartment. And just like Carrie Mathison, the CIA officer in the television series Homeland, Dionisio puts his thoughts in order using an enormous corkboard hanging on the wall.

Besides helping others, Dionisio Moreno also likes historical novels, cooking (last Thursday he made two apple pies to celebrate the EU ruling) and "going off to the countryside to find things. I never find archeological remains, but I do find asparagus."

He has always been in touch with nature. As a teenager, he worked on his father's farm next to the property that Mohammed would eventually move into. "We had a bit of land with some chickens and rabbits. Mohammed, whom my father affectionately called "El Negro," and a friend of his used to come over and buy eggs from us."

The Aziz case has forcibly turned Moreno into an expert on repossessions, an issue that he is not entirely safe from himself. "I'm occasionally late on my mortgage payments. I'm always cutting it close, but so far I've always made it in time."

Ultimately, the case was something more than a struggle against the drama of home evictions in Spain. It also served as a personal therapy of sorts to overcome his father's death. "It was the trial of my life; I covered up that loss by working really hard."

"This opens up a whole new field of exploration for us"

LLUÍS PELLICER, Barcelona

Two years ago, the Mohammed Aziz case reached the desk of José María Fernández Seijo, the presiding judge at Barcelona's Commercial Court No.3.

Aziz had been left without a home and still owed the bank 40,000 euros after CatalunyaCaixa auctioned off the property. The judge was unable to stop the eviction, but he decided to consult the European Court of Justice to ascertain whether Spanish legislation respects European norms on consumer protection.

Question. Will the legal effects be immediate?

Answer. The ruling is already binding and voids article 698 of the Civil Procedure Law with regard to foreclosures.

Q. And how are legal procedures going to change?

A. Firstly, in accordance with EU legislation, judges will be able to take action ex officio to stop foreclosures, even without first seeing the consumer. If abusive clauses are reported, there will be a precautionary suspension of the trial to see whether this is the case.

Q. How do you assess the change?

A. We are transitioning from an extremely harsh foreclosure procedure to one that the judge can adapt to each case and be able to examine the contract, the conditions in which it was signed, and the terms.

Q. The ruling gives judges a lot of leeway.

A. Yes. In fact, the congressional amendment process (to anti-eviction legislation) was temporarily suspended in case any new articles had to be added as a result of the EU ruling.

Q. Many judges had put evictions on hold while the ruling came through. What will happen in the next few days?

A. Until now, we judges were coming up with creative ways to stop repossessions. The magistrates who stopped them were doing so at their own risk, but now they will be able to do so within a legal framework. The main thing is that this opens up a whole new field of exploration for us. This is not the end, it is the beginning. The ruling tells us that we can consider any avenue and examine abusive clauses, collar clauses [which set the minimum interest rate borrowers have to pay each month, even if the variable interest rate, typically the Euribor, happens to fall], the asset appraisal, the role of guarantors to see whether there was abuse there as well, and so on.

Q. How will the lenders react?

A. Many of them had already put evictions on hold on the basis of the Attorney General's report. The European justice system and its assessment of Spanish legislation carries a lot of weight. In the end, lenders want a safe legal framework in which to move. The ruling should not pose a problem, rather the contrary, as it could encourage more out-of-court settlements.