Answer:
The question here may be, do you still have a deposit agreement that allows you to charge service fees? If the account was actually closed and then charged off, the agreement would be viewed as terminated. If you just charged-off the account, I don't view that as terminating the agreement with the depositor. That is a bookkeeping entry. But this asks the question, if you kept the account open, and terms/fees changed, did this depositor receive notice? I would have issues with charging today's fees based on lower amounts disclosed in the past. Your service charge routine would have to look at what was in your agreement with the depositor. It would be unusual in my experience to send change notices to charged-off accounts and for this reason I would be skeptical of such a practice. With the deposits to this account, was the account "re-opened" and re-disclosed such that the current fee schedule is known? Again, if the schedule is the same or new disclosures were made, charging that fee should be fine. It would appear the depositor wants the account active.
First published on BankersOnline.com 9/17/12
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