Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Maine
I am asking a question about my checking account. I am behind on my mortgage payments and was notified by certified letter that if I didn't pay by march 10, 2010 that they would take my funds in the checking account to offset some of the payment. On February 18 I noticed that they didn't auto pay our life insurance payments and in place of that was two 30 dollar insufficient fund fees, even though I had $356.00 in my checking account my payments were 41 and 46 dollars. They have also since bounced six outstanding checks that I had made out prior to this and charged me 30 dollars oneach even though I had funds in there to cover them. They also have created a negative balance with no explanation of transaction and not only are they taking the thirty dollar fees out of my balance, they are adding the fees to the negative balance. Thank You for your help, Linwood Noel
2 Answers from Attorneys
If your mortgage payments are automatically withdrawn from your bank account, I would tell the bank to discontinue that. If you set up the automatic payments with the mortgage company, you may have to write them to discontinue it. They should not be able to just take the money out of your account without authorization (but you may have inadvertently given them that authorization when you set up the automatic payments).
Otherwise, it looks like you need to go to you bank and have this sorted out. If you had the money in the account it seems like there was a mistake by the bank. But if you can sit down with them and go over it, hopefully you can get it straightened out, and they may reverse the fees.
I gather the mortgage is through the bank. Actually, I assume it is a credit union. Credit Unions aren't subject to the same regulation as banks. However, if you have funds and the credit union is bouncing checks, you may have a claim under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act.
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