by A bankruptcy court in Texas ruled that the legal fees incurred by a mortgage company in filing a Notice of Fees, Expenses, and Charges, could not be passed along to the debtor. In re Roife, No. 10-34070 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Nov. 26, 2013). The first issue addressed by the court was whether the mortgagee, Midfirst, was required to comply with Rule 3002.1 where the debtor was paying the mortgage outside the plan. It found that under the Fifth Circuit precedent of Foster v. Heitkamp (In re Foster), 670 F.2d 478, 488-489 (5th Cir. 1982), even where a secured claim is unmodified by a plan it may still be “provided for” under the plan so long as it is dealt with in some way. Therefore, the debtor’s plan, in which the debtor was to pay the mortgage outside the plan according to the contract, “provided for” the claim and Midfirst was required to comply with Rule 3002.1.
The court turned to whether Midfirst could pass its legal fees incurred in filing the Fee Notice on to the debtor. Citing the decisions in, In re Boyd, 2013 WL 1844076 at *2 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. May 1, 2013) and In re Carr, 468 B.R. 806, 807 (Bankr. E.D. Va. 2012), the court found it could not. The court reasoned that the fees were incurred as a supplement to the creditor’s claim and could be derived from the creditor’s records without undue burden. The fact that sanctions could be imposed for failure to comply with Rule 3002.1 did not justify the award of fees sought by Midfirst.