|
For an unintentional payment, I agree. For an accidental overpayment, an argument could be made that the payer has a legal claim to a refund of the overpaid amount. If you take out a $200,000 home loan with $200 minimum payments and accidentally make a $2000 payment ($1800 over the required minimum), I can see a request for an $1800 return being legally valid - granted you aren't behind on payments. If you are behind, I would argue that including the total past-due, whatever is still overpaid, can legally be requested for return. So if you owe 3 payments, a request for $1400 returned would be legally valid. However, if you are behind on payments, it could also be argued that you've breached trust with the lender and any money they receive from you is now theirs until the balance is $0. This is something that should be explicitly discussed in a loan contract prior to agreement. Comparing an bank-to-individual loan and a bank-to-bank loan is a bit apples to oranges, but a massive unintentional overpayment can have serious ramifications, and I wouldn't write it off as simply as, "Well, you owe them a grand total of X, and even though you only owe them Y per month and overpaid, you don't get any of what you overpaid back". |
From the article:
> The defendants noted that the amounts they received matched the amounts Revlon owed down to the penny, making it reasonable for them to assume it was an early repayment of the loan.
So they were safe to assume they just got paid early, at least in this case