Couple Sues Lawyers Over Foreclosure, Saying Owner Received $74K Owed to Lender
Stunned by a foreclosure notice concerning a loan they say they didn’t know was secured by their home, a North Carolina couple has sued the lawyers who represented them in the original purchase and two refinance transactions.
Carol and Joseph Hannah originally used owner financing for the Canton home they purchased for $85,000 in 2000 from Alderman Eric Dills with an $8,500 down payment. But in 2004 they opted to refinance, at which point their attorney, Jonathan McElroy of Asheville, sent Dills a check for about $73,800, reports the Smoky Mountain News.
The problem was, Dills had a revolving line of credit secured against the Hannah home, and the refi money should have gone to repay it, the couple say in their suit. Then, when Dills defaulted on the loan, the lender sought to foreclose against them.
In addition to Dills and McElroy, they have sued another lawyer, Lawrence D’Amelio of Greensboro, who they say represented them in a 2005 refi of the same home, and attorney Richard Maita of Asheville. He represented both parties in the original purchase and helped Dills secure the line of credit a year or so earlier, according to the newspaper.
None of the lawyers ever informed them of the line, the Hannahs contend, although they were charged for multiple title searches.
The article doesn’t include any comment from the attorneys but Dills tells the newspaper he, too, was unaware that the line was secured by the home and regrets the difficulty the couple is having.
“The Hannahs and I both relied on these professional real estate attorneys to handle all the details of the closing, to do title checks and searches, and there were obviously some mistakes made,” he says.
