Beware Foreclosure Fees

That’s right, even when you’re losing your house someone is looking to profit from it by dinging you with foreclosure fees. It’s not enough that you’re losing your home, that the process is stressful and potentially embarrassing, but the lack of oversight in the foreclosure process also means that some places will try to squeeze a little more out of your wallet or pocketbook. If you are currently going through the foreclosure process, it pays to read this harrowing article on foreclosure fees in the New York Times.

In an analysis of foreclosures in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the program intended to help troubled borrowers save their homes, Ms. Porter [associate professor of law at the University of Iowa] found that questionable fees had been added to almost half of the loans she examined, and many of the charges were identified only vaguely. Most of the fees were less than $200 each, but collectively they could raise millions of dollars for loan servicers at a time when the other side of the business, mortgage origination, has faltered.