A loan agreement is a bilaterally binding legal transaction that is regulated by the provisions of the Law on Obligations. With the loan agreement, the bank undertakes to make available to the loan beneficiary a certain amount of funds, for a specified or indefinite period of time, for a purpose or for no specified purpose, and the user undertakes to pay the agreed interest rate to the bank and return the received amount of money on time and in the manner as determined by the contract.
The loan agreement must be concluded in writing. The signatures of the parties do not have to be certified by a public notary, but the bank loan agreement itself must be concluded in writing. If the bank loan agreement is not concluded in the form prescribed by law, it will be considered to be absolutely void. The loan agreement determines the amount, as well as the terms of granting, using and repaying the loan.
According to the type, credit agreements are divided into non-purpose (cash credit agreements) and dedicated credit agreements (consumer loan agreement, a commercial real estate loan, etc.).
According to the payment term, loan agreements can be short-term or long-term.
A revolving loan is a type of loan in which the bank approves a certain amount of funds to the client, whereby the funds within that amount can be used whenever the user needs them. The user does not have to withdraw the entire amount of funds of this loan immediately after approval, but can only withdraw as much as he needs at that moment. As a rule, the interest for this loan is calculated and paid only on the amount of funds used.
Student loans are a special type of loan. These loans are granted to students after a public competition published by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia. As a rule, students who have been granted financial resources are not obliged to return the interest, but the principal.
The bank can cancel the loan agreement before the end of the agreed term if the loan was used contrary to its purpose. The bank can cancel the loan agreement before the end of the agreed term and in case of insolvency of the beneficiary even if it is not established by a court decision, in case of termination of the legal entity or death of the beneficiary, if in these cases the lender would be in a significantly disadvantageous position.
The credit user can withdraw from the contract before starting to use the credit. The credit user can return the loan before the deadline set for repayment, but he is obliged to inform the bank about this in advance. In both cases, the credit user is obliged to compensate the damage if the credit provider suffered it. In the case of repayment of the loan before a certain deadline, the bank cannot charge interest for the time from the day of repayment of the loan to the day when, according to the contract, it should have been returned.
Prescription of claims under the credit agreement.
The Law on Obligations, which regulates the statute of limitations for claims, did not specifically regulate the statute of limitations for credit debt, for which reason the general statute of limitations for claims of 10 years from maturity is applied in relation to claims from the credit agreement.
