Chile Bankbook: A final court of appeal will determine the fate of the million-dollar bankbook.
Santiago, Chile:
Exequiel Hinojosa’s father was saving to buy a home in the 1960s and ’70s and was able to save about 140,000 pesos, which is now about $ 163, carefully detailed in a bankbook of the now defunct credit union.
The book was kept in a box for decades after his father’s death until Hinojosa found it in his father’s belongings. Similar bankbooks have been found to be worthless, but Hinojosa has an annotated “State Assurance.”
With interest and inflation, the value of 140,000 pesos is now estimated at 1 billion pesos, or about $ 1.2 million.
This has caused considerable headaches for the state and Hinojosa, as the case has reached the Supreme Court.
“That money belongs to our family. He worked really hard to save it,” said Hinojosa.
“I never thought that this process would turn into a kind of lawsuit against the state,” he added.
Several courts have ruled in favor of Hinojosa, but the government has appealed every step it takes. Now the final court of appeal will decide the fate of the million-dollar bankbook.
“If the judiciary, the Supreme Court, the appellate court rules in my favor, all that is left to resolve the issue is to pay the arrears, nothing more, nothing less,” Hinojosa said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published from a syndicated feed.)
