USA TODAY International Edition
Wells Fargo faces new suit over improper mortgage fees
Consumers allege bank shifted cost to them for delays during closing on home loans
Victor Muniz, a security dispatcher at a Las Vegas casino, recently bought his first home in Sandy Valley, Nev.
But a new lawsuit filed last week alleges the experience of getting the mortgage from Wells Fargo needed to finance and close on the home was no American dream. The lawsuit alleges Muniz was among many customers victimized by the embattled bank’s latest consumer rip-off — a system that gouged home borrowers with improper fees to complete the mortgage process.
Seeking class-action status on behalf of other Wells Fargo mortgage customers, the lawsuit ultimately could trigger damages that rival the financial fallout from the scandal over unauthorized accounts that has rocked the nation’s third-largest bank by assets since the issue sparked national attention nearly a year ago.
The bank said Thursday that it would pay $2.8 million in additional refunds and credits — on top of $3.3 million in previous refunds — in compensation for the scandal in which bank employees opened roughly 3.5 million accounts that might not have been authorized by consumer and small-business customers.
“The same profit-over-people culture that fostered Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal appears to have led the bank to stick borrowers with unwarranted fees,” said Derek Loeser, a Keller Rohrback LLP law partner whose firm represents Muniz.
The allegations in Muniz’s lawsuit mirror charges that Frank Chavez, a former Wells Fargo private mortgage banking employee in California, raised with Democratic members of the House Committee on Financial Services in a November 2016 letter.
“I believe the damage done to Wells Fargo mortgage customers ... is much, much more egregious” than in the fraudulent accounts
“I believe the damage done to Wells Fargo mortgage customers ... is much, much more egregious” than in the account-fraud case. Frank Chavez, a former Wells Fargo private mortgage banking employee
case, Chavez wrote in the letter, which was first disclosed in a January ProPublica report on the bank’s mortgage-related fees. “We are talking about millions of dollars, in just the Los Angeles area alone, which were wrongly paid by borrowers/customers instead of Wells Fargo.”
The letter produced little public sign of action. However, Wells Fargo disclosed in an August regulatory filing that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal regulator that joined other authorities to sock the bank with $185 million in penalties last September over the accounts scandal, is now investigating the mortgage-fee charges.
The consumer bureau declined to comment, and Wells Fargo spokesman Tom Goyda said the bank could not discuss the investigation.
However, Goyda said Wells Fargo has worked with an outside law firm in recent months on a review of the bank’s mortgage-fee procedures. Changes in the senior leadership of the bank’s retail sales team announced in June, including three managers’ departures, were based in part on things learned during the review, Goyda said.
Separately, a USA TODAY review of complaints filed with the consumer agency found Wells Fargo customers in at least nine states have raised similar concerns about its mortgage fees.
Muniz’s lawsuit focuses on interest-rate locks that Wells Fargo typically offers for up to 90 days while home mortgage applications are processed. If missing paperwork or other borrowercaused issues delay the mortgage closing beyond the specified time period, the borrower is charged a fee to extend the time. If the bank caused the delay, it is expected to forgo the fee.
The fee costs typically can range between 0.125% and 0.25% of the mortgage amount, depending on the type of loan. For a $200,000 mortgage, that could amount to a $250 customer payment.
Muniz’s lawsuit charged that Wells Fargo in July agreed to lock in a 5.875% interest rate on a 30year fixed-rate mortgage during closing for his home loan. Nonetheless, the bank charged him a $287.50 fee to extend the ratelock period last month when the mortgage processing bogged down amid “bank-caused delays,” the lawsuit alleges.
“At that point, Mr. Muniz had no choice but to accept the fee to timely complete the closing, or he risked losing the home,” the lawsuit charged. “He had already invested hundreds of dollars in closing-related costs such as the home inspection.”
Many other Wells Fargo borrowers faced similar problems.
Chavez’s letter alleged that new financial regulations and Wells Fargo processing changes and employee firings caused “a gradually increasing standstill and backlog of mortgage loan applications within the underwriting and loan closing process.”
Although some delays were caused by borrowers, the bank was responsible for “the vast majority,” the Chavez letter said.