Attorney General Finds Foreclosure Fees Illegal

Following up on an investigation of Connecticut Marshals who serve foreclosure papers on homeowners, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal found that certain practices regarding billing of fees were prohibited by Connecticut law.  Blumenthal found that state statutes limit marshals’ fees for serving foreclosure papers to $30 and prohibits them from charging a separate and additional fee for the lis pendens — a document providing notice of a pending claim against property. Blumenthal concluded state law does not require homeowners facing foreclosure to be served with the lis pendens – only that it be filed on land records.  Also important, Blumenthal also concluded that marshals may not split fees or hire other marshals or non-marshals to serve legal documents. He determined that they not form LLCs or other corporations as companies to serve papers. Under Connecticut law, marshals have a personal obligation and public trust to individually perform the governmental function of service of notice of lawsuits.

An article in the Hartford Courant revealed that some Marshals were earning over a million dollars a year serving foreclosure papers on homeowners being dispossessed of their homes.  The investigation is continuing and the Attorney General hopes to involve the State Marshal Commission in following up with the violations.

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