Excessive Attorney Fees: Homeowner Robbery

Fairdale, WV"Between Chase Manhattan bank and our EMC mortgage we have been charged about $20,000 in excessive attorney fees," says Kelly Acord. It all started when Chase Manhattan mortgage bought their loan.

"Every six months or so they added more charges to our mortgage, such as drive-by property preservation and attorney fees for sending me a letter to say I was late in payment," Kelly adds. "I got a letter from Chase saying that we had to pay $4,688 by the end of 2004 or they would foreclose on our home. That year we missed Christmas, we missed everything to scramble enough money together.

"On January 3rd I received a letter from Chase saying our mortgage had been sold to EMC—right after making that payment. That meant I just sent this money to them for nothing. When I finally got a print-out of our mortgage history from EMC, there was $1,255 carried over that "But they didn't foreclose; instead they sold our mortgage so what was this money going toward?"

Chase told Kelly that it went to their legal fees--not one cent was reflected in their mortgage. "By the middle of January, 2005 I finally spoke with someone at Chase in their customer service department," says Kelly. "They gave me no information because the loan no longer existed. I asked to speak with their legal department but I was told to formally write them with our account number and question. Which we did. I got a letter back saying the loan number did not exist.

The account number I wrote was not a typo. I just cried. Chase had no information because they sold our loan and I didn't have money for an attorney because I had spent all our money trying to keep our home.

We just refinanced with our local bank; we didn't know that the mortgage had been sold to EMC until two weeks after the fact.

And we just paid EMC lawyers $7,000 because they were going to foreclose on our house. What were their attorneys doing for that fee? On our EMC history, I have a list of attorney fees more than two years old, with charges from $7.95 to $145 (the description on each charge just says attorney' fees) and every now and then $227 is added. We never knew about these fees until we refinanced with our bank. Our principal balance was $22,700 and we had to finance $35,000-- that included Escrow and the $7,000 in attorney fees. We came so close to losing our house from these predators - unbelievable..."

Unfortunately for many borrowers, excessive attorney fees in connection with house sales and foreclosures in particular are becoming common practice. Companies like Mortgage Electronics Registration Systems, Inc., (MERS) charge borrowers more than it pays foreclosure attorneys and borrowers may not even realize they are being charged these "hidden costs".

Buyer beware--read the fine print and ask questions. And you may want to seek legal help. Keep in mind that all attorneys such as those working in connection with companies such as MERS may be unaware that the consumer is being charged excessive fees.