If your mortgage company ignored your request for information or your notice of error, it broke federal law. The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and its servicing rules give a servicer 5 business days to acknowledge your letter in writing and 30 business days to answer it. A servicer that misses those deadlines owes you your actual damages, up to $2,000 more if it does this as a pattern or practice, and your attorney's fees. 12 U.S.C. § 2605(f).
Here is how it usually happens. Your loan transfers to a new servicer on January 1. You mail the February payment to the new address on the welcome letter. The March statement shows February unpaid, a $78 late fee, and a past-due balance. You call. The rep sees the payment "in suspense" and says it will be fixed.
April's statement shows two months past due. On April 20 you send a letter to the address printed on the statement. You list the loan number, the February payment, the check number, and the date it cleared your bank. You ask them to fix the account and send the payment history since the transfer. Nothing comes back. By July the servicer has reported you 60 days late to all three credit bureaus.
What does RESPA require a mortgage servicer to do with my letter?
Two things, each with a clock. First, it must send a written acknowledgment within 5 days of receiving your letter, not counting weekends and federal holidays. 12 C.F.R. §§ 1024.35(d), 1024.36(c). A phone call does not count. A form letter saying "we are reviewing your account" counts only if it arrives inside the window.
Second, it must act. For a notice of error, the servicer either fixes the error and tells you in writing what it fixed, or it investigates, decides no error occurred, and tells you why and how to get the documents it relied on. For a request for information, it sends the information or tells you in writing why it will not. Silence is not one of the options.
Your letter does not need magic words. It needs your name, enough to identify the loan, and a statement of what is wrong or what you want. The letter above is both a notice of error and a request for information, and the servicer owed a response to each.
How long does the servicer have to answer?
Thirty days, excluding weekends and federal holidays, for most errors and most requests. 12 C.F.R. §§ 1024.35(e)(3), 1024.36(d)(2). The servicer can take 15 more business days, but only if it writes to you before the first 30 run out and explains why. It cannot extend by just going quiet.
Some requests move faster. If you ask who owns your loan, the answer is due in 10 business days. If you assert that a payoff statement is wrong, the servicer has 7 business days and no extension. If the error concerns a foreclosure sale, the response is due before the sale.
Count the days on a calendar. A letter received April 22 with no acknowledgment by April 29 is already a violation. No substantive response by about June 4 is a second one.
Does my letter have to go to a special address?
Sometimes. The rules let a servicer designate one address for notices of error and requests for information, and if it does, your letter must go there. 12 C.F.R. §§ 1024.35(c), 1024.36(b). The servicer has to tell you that address in writing and post it on any website that lists its contact information.
Most borrowers I see in Palm Beach County used the address on the monthly statement. Whether that was the designated address is the first thing a servicer's lawyer will argue, so check the statement and the servicer's website before you mail, and keep a copy of whatever told you where to send it. Send the letter certified with return receipt. The green card is how you prove the clock started.
Can the servicer report me late while my dispute is open?
Not for 60 days. After it receives a notice of error about a payment, the servicer may not furnish adverse information about that payment to any credit bureau for 60 days. 12 C.F.R. § 1024.35(i)(1); 12 U.S.C. § 2605(e)(3). The 60-day late in July on the account above is a separate violation on top of the missed deadlines, and the credit damage from it is the kind of actual harm the statute pays for.
The servicer also cannot charge you a fee for answering your letter or make you send a payment first. § 1024.35(h); § 1024.36(g).
What can I recover when the servicer ignores me?
Actual damages, additional damages up to $2,000 when the servicer's failures are a pattern or practice, and costs and attorney's fees. 12 U.S.C. § 2605(f)(1), (3). Actual damages in these cases are concrete: late fees you should never have been charged, interest on misapplied money, a refinance you were denied or priced out of because of the late marks, the cost of pulling reports and sending letters, and the stress of watching a mortgage you paid go delinquent on paper.
The pattern-or-practice piece is where the transfer cases get interesting. A servicer that lost your February payment in a transfer may have lost other borrowers' payments the same way, and ignored their letters too.
You have three years from the violation to file suit. 12 U.S.C. § 2614. Florida's Consumer Collection Practices Act can add a claim when a servicer tries to collect money you do not owe. A servicer that also reports a false late payment has a Fair Credit Reporting Act problem once you dispute it with the bureaus.
What should I do first?
Gather what you already have: the welcome letter, every statement since the transfer, your bank record of the payment, your letter, and the certified mail receipt. Pull your credit reports from all three bureaus and save them as PDFs with the date. If you have not yet sent a written notice, send one now, to the designated address, by certified mail, and keep the copy. Then stop calling. Phone calls start no clock.
If the servicer failed to pay your insurance or taxes from escrow, see what to do when your mortgage company didn't pay your homeowners insurance. If it pulled payments from your bank account that you never authorized, see overdrafts from unauthorized mortgage payments.
I am Darren Newhart, a consumer protection attorney in Loxahatchee, Florida. Newhart Legal, P.A. handles mortgage servicing cases across South Florida, and a servicer's silence after a proper letter is one of the simplest violations to prove. If your letter went unanswered, email me a copy of it and the green card, or call, and we will see where the clock stands.
Questions people ask
How long does a mortgage servicer have to respond to a request for information?
Under RESPA and Regulation X, the servicer must acknowledge the request in writing within 5 business days and respond within 30 business days. 12 C.F.R. § 1024.36. It may take 15 more business days only if it tells you in writing before the first 30 expire. A request for the identity of the loan's owner must be answered in 10 business days.
What happens if a mortgage company does not respond to a notice of error?
It violates 12 U.S.C. § 2605 and 12 C.F.R. § 1024.35. The borrower can sue for actual damages, additional damages up to $2,000 for a pattern or practice of noncompliance, and attorney's fees and costs. The servicer also may not report the disputed payment as late to the credit bureaus for 60 days after receiving the notice.
Does a notice of error have to be a qualified written request?
No. Regulation X covers any written notice from the borrower that identifies the loan and asserts an error, or any written request for information about the loan, sent to the servicer's designated address if it has one. A "qualified written request" is one type of qualifying letter, not the only one.