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Breaking News: RESPA, NAR, Quicken and Brokerage Admin Fees
RESPA, RESPA, RESPA...What is it anyway? The web site www.HUD.gov explains: " The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) insures that consumers throughout the nation are provided with more helpful information about the cost of the mortgage settlement and protected from unnecessarily high settlement charges caused by certain abusive practices. "
Among other things, this law has a prohibition against "unearned fees" being charged by settlement service providers to the consumer. Settlement service providers are real estate brokers, lenders, closing companies, surveyors, pest control companies, home warranty companies and almost any party whose charges show up on the HUD-1 Settlement Statement.
This portion of the law has been tested in lower courts and was seemingly interpreted to mean that real estate brokers could not charge "admin fees" or transactional costs above the commission they were charging. The courts, as I understand it, were saying that the brokerage had the duty to file the paperwork and coordinate the transaction. Therefore, brokerages could not charge an additional fee over and above the commission, to clients and customers for these tasks. As a result, many local brokerages began to rename these fees and continue to charge them, but label them as "flat fee" commissions, ... more

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