Mortgage Deletion Fees

[Adam]

Hi all,

After years of throwing money to the bank in interest, I am fortunately now in a position where I can now pay off the mortgages on my apartments. I loaned the money from First Investment Bank and as part of the loan contracts I have always had to have an Agent of Service (company registered in Bulgaria to deal with correspondence). This company are the infamous associates of MRI, Capital Financial Partners. For the past four years they have their fair share of money out of me for tasks that seem little work at extortionate prices. As I have told them that I am looking to transfer the money for paying off my mortgages they have explained to me that I need pay fees to have my mortgage deleted from the Bulgarian Registry Agency. I can believe this is necessary to done but knowing CFP, they will be charging much higher than it can be done elsewhere. From what I understand, this seems to be only needed to be done by the time I look to sell although CFP are trying to put the pressure on me to send payment for their services to do this. Does anyone on here have any knowledge of this procedure and can you help to point me in the right direction to who else I can turn to for this and/or anything else I need to know.

Below is the recent e-mail from them....

Please note that CFP is fully authorized with POA from you to act on your behalf in all the questions related to your mortgage in FIB. Therefore we will sign all the documentation related to the full repayment of your mortgages.
Please be advised that when your debt to FIB is fully repaid you will have to organize the deletion of the registered mortgages on the apartments in the Bulgarian Registry Agency. As you are aware at the time of the purchase of your apartments the bank has registered first rank mortgages on them. Now when your mortgage is fully paid off they should be deleted from the Bulgarian Registry Agency. This process should be organized by you, not by the bank as they do not have any more interest over your apartments.
If the mortgages are not deleted the apartments cannot be sold, remortgaged or transferred to someone else as there are encumbrances on them.
As there are many costs involved in that process /notary fees, stamp duty, certification & translations costs and additional expenses/ we usually require a payment of 600 EUR per apartment to organize the deletion of a mortgage. Having been a valued client of CFP for several years, and in order to keep your costs as low as possible, we have decided to offer you a discount on the mortgage deletion service. I can confirm that we have all the necessary documents in place and are in position to successfully arrange the deletion of your mortgages for the amount of 400 EUR per apartment. This amount covers all the costs. This payment can be arranged from you by completing a credit card authorization form. Please note that we will do all this at our end here once your mortgages are fully paid off and there is no need for you to do anything at all.
As you are ready to transfer the funds to the bank for the mortgage repayment I would like to ask you to arrange the mortgage deletion payment today. Please find attached the form for this payment, complete it, sign it and send it back to me either by e-mail or fax.
Looking forward to your reply!

Thanks in anticipation,
Adam.

[Marto]

Hi Adam,

I haven't got a clue on that one, but one place I have managed to gain a wealth of information from, is the forum on MyBulgaria.com.

I'm pretty sure there will be someone on there to help you out.

Here's the link

http://www.mybulgaria.info/bulgaria-pro ... orums.html

Let us know how you go on

Marto

[whitman]

Good timing here - I was just quoted 325 Euro's from my bank for the deletion fee's.

Hope this helps. I suspect it could be cheaper elsewhere but think our hands are tied on this.

Good luck

[whitman]

Actually, the cost is 125 Euro - the extra 200 was a mortgage redemption fee.

[Adam]

For info, here are my findings on the costs involved in this process are as follows:

1) Attorney Fees - E 140

2) Notary Fees - E 180

3) Encumbrance Certificate - E 10 (this is if you wait 10 days, E 54 If you want it straight away)

4) Notarizing PoA - If you don't already have someone who has Power of Attorney to deal with your affairs in Bulgaria then I was quoted £60 by a local Public Notary in the UK to notarize up to 5 documents. I didn't end up appointing a new PoA so
I'm not sure if there are more than 5 documents involved.

5) Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) charges - This appears to be in the region of £40 inc. postage costs. Again I avoided this as I used my current PoA.

6) Translation Costs - Not 100% on where these come in but again I avoided as using my current PoA.

7) Deletion Fees - E 44

Note:- These charges are for 2 mortgages so most of these charges will be half normally. Possibly with the exception of the Attorney Fees.

Bottom line - If you use CFP or a company like them DO NOT accept their first offer. In the end I managed to get both mortgage deletions done for E 350 (down from the original E 1200. If possible use an independent lawyer though. Hope this helps someone else.

Adam.