PNC, Florida Attorney Demand Unlawful ‘Estimated’ Loan Reinstatement Fees, Lawsuit Claims

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

PNC Bank, National Association and an individual attorney who does business as ALAW have been named in a proposed class action lawsuit filed by a Florida couple who claims the defendants demanded unlawful “estimated” fees as part of a mortgage reinstatement quote.

The suit says that the plaintiffs defaulted on their mortgage loan due to “payment processing errors.” Though they attempted to resolve the issue with PNC, the bank supposedly “refused” to cooperate. According to the complaint, the plaintiffs then sent PNC a written notice requesting information on the amount they needed to pay to reinstate their loan and received a reinstatement quote on the attorney defendant’s letterhead.

The quote supposedly included a list of “estimated” fees for services the defendants were “expected” to incur but had not yet provided, including attorney fees, a “Co. Clerk LP Release Estimate,” and wire charges. The letter offered no explanation of the fees, the case continues, nor details on how they were calculated or “what provision of the uniform mortgage loan instrument [gave] rise to them.”

The lawsuit argues that the added charges were unlawful in that they were not actual fees incurred in the collection of the plaintiffs’ supposed debt. Under state law, the suit argues, a debt collector may not “claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.”