Lender payed flood insurance for years after closure

[InvisibleInk]

California

Hi,

We sold our house 2 1/2 years ago. We had a lender that maintained an equity line of credit even after we had paid off the principle (prior to home sale). Unbeknown to us, the lender, not seeing that we were paying for flood insurance on that property, started paying for it themselves. Remember, we owed them nothing. They claim they tried to contact us, but I guess the new owner just threw out that mail. The total is now $4K. Their collections department finally decided to call my work phone (why did they wait 2 1/2 years to do that?). As you might expect, it was a shock. We even have a credit strike leveled against us by them.

The lender's flood insurance department claims that they never received signed documents confirming the sale and are asking for those documents from us now. Unfortunately, the copies we received are not signature documents. The title company, which would be expected to have signed documents and should have forwarded them to the lender, is out of business.

Naturally the question arises, are we liable for paying this bill? Is there any way to obtain the signature documents in the public record?

Thanks,

- Brian