Mulé Brings Legislation To Cut Paperwork Fees

MINEOLA, NY. — Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé filed a pair of pieces of legislation Wednesday that would reduce fees to file a satisfaction of mortgage and tax map verification with the Nassau County Clerk. Mulé said those fees are currently in the hundreds of dollars both individually and cumulatively, but that the new legislation would reduce them to $50 apiece.

Joining Mulé at the county offices Wednesday was Michael Mulqueen, an Oceanside resident for over 40 years who said he and his wife had taken out a home equity loan years ago and paid off in full. In December, Mulqueen said they received a two-page satisfaction of mortgage document from the bank with instructions to file it with Nassau County.

“I went down to the county clerk’s office, to the first floor, and I was told that the fee to file this simple two-page piece of paper would be $350.50,” Mulqueen said. “However, before I was supposed to pay that, they put a little sticker on it and said, ‘go to the fourth floor and pay $270 for something called a tax map verification fee.’”

A semi-retired building and construction lawyer, Mulqueen said he started digging into Nassau County’s statutes, which he said indicate that the only cost that could be charged for processing documents like these is the, “reasonable cost of the service.” When asked how it felt finding out about the fee he would have to pay, Mulqueen told Patch he was shocked and appalled. A former assistant U.S. Attorney for Eastern New York, Mulqueen said he had prior experience working with the clerk’s office.

“I’m used to dealing with [the clerk’s office], it’s a perfunctory, two-to-three minute procedure,” Mulqueen told Patch. When asked what pushed him to dig into the fee schedule, he said, “I’m retired, I had time on my hands.”

Also present was Freeport resident John Solazzo, who said he had a home equity loan with Chase that he used sporadically to pay bills, paying it back within a couple of days each time he used it.

“The term then ended in September, and soon after, about six weeks later, I received a letter from Chase telling them that I owed $620. I had no idea why," Solazzo said. "I talked to Chase, they said, ‘No, this is something that we get charged and we have to send to the county.’ I had no choice, I paid it, and I sent an email to county clerk Maureen O’Connell. And she said she was very unsatisfied with this, and directed me to appeal to Debra Mulé and our county executive.

For Mulé, stories like Mulqueen's and Solazzo's represent a call to action.

"When residents step forward and tell me they were charged over $600 just to file routine paperwork, we have a responsibility to act. This is simple: $620 to file two pieces of paperwork is ridiculous,” Mulé said. “In most New York counties, filing a satisfaction of mortgage costs around $50. Here, over 10 times that amount.”

The new legislation would cut fees to both file the satisfaction of mortgage and secure the tax map verification to $50 apiece, which legislators say is in line with what most counties in New York charge.

The full schedule of fees is available on the county clerk’s website, including real estate fees like the ones Mulqueen and Solazzo paid on their properties. For both McQueen and Solazzo, the fees they encountered were difficult to comprehend.

“My wife and I feel this fee is just outrageous, and we applaud the legislative members who want to reduce this. Honestly, the $50 is even more than what the actual service is,” Mulqueen said. “I did research. 62 counties in New York state, the average cost to file, total, is about $45-50. There’s only two counties which are different: Suffolk and Nassau.”

Solazzo expressed similar feelings to Mulqueen's, highlighting the technology available in both the private and public sector today.

"I’m here today to say, ‘$620, to do what?’ A deal between Chase and myself, which was paid in full, nothing was ever owed, and I learn that I have to pay $620 to the county," Solazzo said. "I just couldn’t understand, in this day of technology, what could cost $620 to process a piece of paper?”