Gloucester County Clerk, realtor criticize proposed jump in real estate fee

WOODBURY — A proposal that would more than quadruple a real estate transaction fee is being challenged by Gloucester County Clerk James Hogan as one that would further cripple an already lagging local housing market and continue to burden buyers.

The New Jersey Land Title Insurance Rating Bureau wants to raise the fee for closing service letters from the current $25 to $117. It would mark the first change in the fee since 1994.

Attorney John Carbone, who represents the clerk’s office, said the state Department of Banking and Insurance “may consider the increase.”

The Times was unable to reach the Rating Bureau for comment.

Title companies wield closing service letters generally to protect mortgage lenders against possibly costly mistakes made by other actors in the real estate process, such as attorneys and issuing agents.

But Hogan sees the proposed increase as a money grab by the companies, and one that unfairly shifts costs to residents or newcomers already struggling with other expenses.

“I am perplexed by the proposal,” he said. “It will only hurt the housing market.”

Hogan acknowledged the increase is obviously a small fraction of what a buyer will pay for a new home. But wherever they come, he argued, rising fees add up.

“If you’re not getting raises, and food costs and transportation costs are rising, it’s part and parcel of the problem,” he said. “We see it every day. People in Gloucester County are hurting.”

Hogan added that the fee increase would represent more than anything else a kind of “transfer tax” on buying a home.

Pat Settar, a Realtor with the Mullica Hill office of Prudential Fox and Roach, agrees that the increase would be unjust, particularly if it’s aimed at attorney mistakes.

Settar has been a Realtor for 17 years. She estimated that in all that time, attorneys have had a part in only roughly 20 percent of her transactions.

That at least somewhat reflects a big difference between real estate deals in the northern part of the state and those in South Jersey. Attorneys are practically an integral part of the deal in North Jersey, Settar said.

So to her, if the proposed $117 add-on does address attorneys, it’s a one-size-fits-all approach that stinks for southern county buyers and Realtors.

If that’s the case, she said, “I would say I’d be totally against it because that fee doesn’t apply to our South Jersey market.

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