Judge Fines Foreclosure Law Firm $1.8 Million for Bogus Billings
A Denver judge has fined one of the city’s prolific foreclosure attorneys $1.8 million for billing thousands of consumers facing the loss of their homes for title-insurance policies that did not exist, reports The Denver Post.
David Migoya writes that the Colorado Attorney General’s office argued in a seven-day trial in February had alleged in a February trial that Robert Hopp Jr., while working at his now-defunct law firm, billed customers fighting foreclosure for policies that were never issued. And Hopp inflated the cost of the few that were, the AG’s office claimed.
“The 37-page judgement handed down last week by Denver District Judge Shelley Gilman is the latest in a number of cases the state filed in 2013 against lawyers that specialized in foreclosures and allegedly padded their bills for costs that were ultimately borne by consumers losing their homes, the banks foreclosing on them and taxpayers whose federal insurance agencies covered the costs,” according to the report.
“Homeowners facing foreclosure had no choice but to pay the costs in order to stop the foreclosure process, and there was no process in place to challenge any of the fees lawyers said they were owed,” Migoya writes.