A class-action complaint filed January 16, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York accuses three of the country’s largest reverse mortgage servicers of a systemic billing practice: charging Home Equity Conversion Mortgage borrowers four categories of fees that federal rules say they aren’t allowed to charge at all.
The suit, brought by AARP Foundation attorneys along with the law firms Tusa P.C. and Giskan, Solotaroff & Anderson, names Compu-Link Corporation (doing business as Celink), Finance of America Reverse, and Carrington Mortgage Services as defendants, with a related motion to add Longbridge Financial. Reverse mortgage fee disputes have reached federal court before, but this complaint is unusually specific: it doesn’t allege vague overcharging, it names four discrete fee categories and lines each one up against the HUD rule it allegedly violates. It’s the same fee-padding pattern regulators are only now catching up to.
Attorney’s fees
HUD sets a fixed schedule of maximum attorney’s fees reimbursable on FHA-insured foreclosures, including HECMs, and the cap varies by state. In New York, that cap is $725. The complaint alleges lead plaintiff Molly-Jeanne Rizzati, administrator for her late mother’s estate, was billed more than $14,000 in attorney’s fees on her mother’s HECM. A second named plaintiff was billed $17,000. Both figures are more than nineteen times the state’s fee cap.
The mechanism the complaint describes is not a one-time billing error. Because reverse mortgage borrowers make no monthly payment, an inflated attorney’s fee doesn’t appear on a bill the borrower ever sees. It gets added directly to the loan balance, where it begins accruing interest at the loan’s rate immediately, and stays invisible until the loan comes due, typically after the borrower’s death.
Property inspection fees
HUD’s own fee schedule for HECM servicers caps inspection fees at $30 for an initial occupancy inspection and $20 for each follow-up visit, or $45 and $30 for a vacant property. The complaint alleges inspection fees were charged that exceeded those caps, including inspections billed while the borrower still lived in the home, a category HUD regulations specifically prohibit charging back to the borrower.
Property preservation fees
Property preservation fees cover costs like winterizing a vacant property, changing locks, or boarding up broken windows to secure it against further damage. HUD’s rules tie these fees to actual, necessary preservation work on properties that are vacant or abandoned. The complaint alleges preservation fees were charged on properties that didn’t meet that threshold. That added cost to loan balances for work the regulations don’t contemplate compensating.
Appraisal fees
HUD regulations restrict when a new appraisal can be charged to a HECM borrower’s balance, particularly appraisals conducted after a loan has already been declared due and payable. A foreclosure-stage appraisal used to determine a home’s value for sale isn’t supposed to be billed back to the borrower once that point has passed. The complaint alleges appraisal charges were added outside that window, another line item the rules were written to prevent.
The scale the complaint alleges
The named plaintiffs include estates and family members handling loans left behind by borrowers who have since died, a detail that runs through all five individual claims in the suit. The complaint estimates that tens of thousands of HECM borrowers nationwide may have been charged one or more of these four fee types since 2012, and separately alleges that the defendants failed to send the notices state and federal law require at three specific points: before paying a property charge on the borrower’s behalf, before calling the loan due and payable, and before filing a foreclosure action. Skipping any one of those notices removes a borrower’s chance to contest a fee, catch up on a missed tax or insurance payment, or otherwise head off the charges before they compound.
None of this has been decided. The case, docketed as Rizzati et al. v. Celink, Finance of America Reverse, LLC & Carrington Mortgage Services, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-00277, remains in early, uncertified litigation, and the defendants have not yet filed a public response to the specific fee allegations.
