Court Allows Couple To Stay In Their Home & Continue Making House Payments After Getting A Loan Modification Screwing-Over From Wells Fargo

In St. Augustine, Florida, the Jacksonville Business Journal reports:

• Something just isn’t going right for Wells Fargo in St. Augustine. The bank, which is the third-largest in Northeast Florida, is on the wrong end of a court ruling that will allow a St. Augustine couple to stay in their home.
  
  The couple, facing foreclosure, was going through a loan modification when the bank advised them to make a lump sum payment of nearly $7,000 to bring their loan out of default. After the couple made the payment, the bank moved to foreclose on the home a month later, prompting the couple to defend the foreclosure with an attorney, according to a news release.
  
  The end game? The couple gets to keep their home, and continue to pay their original mortgage.
  
  Last November, a St. Augustine woman filed foreclosure on an area Wells Fargo branch after the bank tried to forclosure on her home.(1) A judge subsequently ruled she could keep her home and the bank owed her nearly $20,000 in legal fees, but at the time of the suit the bank hadn't paid the fees.(2)

For more, see St. Augustine couple wins foreclosure case against Wells Fargo, will stay in home.

(1) See Local woman wants to shut down big bank.

(2) In a typical Florida foreclosure action that allows a foreclosing lender to recover its attorney fees from the homeowner when successfuly foreclosing its mortgage, state statute (F.S. 57.105(7)) similarly allows a homeowner to recover his/her legal fees from the lender in the event he/she successfully defends against a foreclosure. See:

• Fla. Appeals Court: Homeowner Entitled To Nail Bank For Prevailing Party Legal Fees After Lender Voluntarily Dismissed F'closure Case w/out Prejudice.

For an example of how an attorney can screw-up and deprive his/her client out of a recovery of legal fees paid in a successful foreclosure defense (and possibly leave him/herself open to a professional malpractice claim), see:

• Fla. Appeals Ct. Nixes Prevailing Party Legal Fee Award In Foreclosure Defense; Failure To Include Request In Pleading Sinks Recovery Attempt.

See Pleading Requirements for a Claim for Attorneys' Fees for an old (July/August, 2000) article in The Florida Bar Journal that may be of some value in providing guidance to Florida lawyers in requesting court-ordered, prevailing party attorneys fees from losing defendants (ie. lenders, servicers, etc.).