Your rights as a homeowner, in plain words — from the U.S. Constitution, federal law and your state's law — with every statute, regulation and court case behind them.
General information about the law, not legal advice. A right applying on paper does not predict how a case will turn out. Free legal aid can look at your situation.
If your mortgage servicer made a mistake — like not crediting a payment, charging a wrong fee, or giving a wrong payoff amount — you can send a written "notice of error." The servicer must confirm it got your letter within 5 business days. It then has to fix the error or explain in writing, after a reasonable investigation, why it thinks there was no error, usually within 30 business days.
You can ask your servicer in writing for information about your loan — for example your payment history, who owns your loan, or how your escrow was figured. The servicer must confirm it got your request within 5 business days and answer within 30 business days. If you ask who owns your loan, it must tell you within 10 business days.
If your servicer thinks your homeowner's insurance lapsed, it cannot just buy expensive insurance and charge you. It must send you a first notice at least 45 days before charging, and a reminder at least 15 days before charging. If you show you had insurance, it must cancel the forced policy and refund the overlap within 15 days.
If your servicer collects money for taxes and insurance (escrow), it must pay those bills on time as long as you are not more than 30 days behind. It must review the account every year and send you a statement. It cannot keep more than a small cushion (one-sixth of a year's payments), and it must refund a surplus of $50 or more within 30 days of the review. When you pay off the loan, it must return what is left within 20 business days.
When the company that collects your payments changes, both the old and new servicer must tell you in writing. The old one must usually tell you at least 15 days before the switch; the new one within 15 days after. For 60 days after the switch, a payment you send on time to the old servicer cannot be treated as late.
When you miss a mortgage payment, your servicer must try to reach you live (by phone or in person) by the 36th day of the delinquency and tell you about options to avoid foreclosure. By the 45th day it must send you a written notice explaining loss-mitigation options and how to get help, including housing counselors.
By the 45th day after you fall behind, your servicer must assign staff to help you. Those people must be reachable by phone and must be able to tell you your options, what documents are missing, the status of your application, and the deadlines that apply.
Your servicer cannot make the first notice or filing to start a foreclosure until your loan is more than 120 days delinquent. This gives you time to apply for help. There are narrow exceptions, such as a due-on-sale violation.
When you apply for help (like a loan modification), your servicer must tell you within 5 business days whether your application is complete and what is missing, if you applied 45 days or more before a sale. If your complete application arrives more than 37 days before a sale, the servicer must review you for every option it has and tell you its decision in writing within 30 days.
If you send a complete application for help before the foreclosure is started, the servicer cannot start the foreclosure until it has decided and any appeal is over. If you send it after the foreclosure started but more than 37 days before the sale, the servicer cannot ask for a foreclosure judgment or order of sale, or hold the sale, until it has finished the review — unless you are denied and the appeal is over, you reject the offers, or you do not follow an agreement.
If your servicer denies you a loan modification and your complete application arrived 90 days or more before a sale (or before the foreclosure started), you can appeal. You have 14 days to appeal. Different staff must review it, and the servicer must decide within 30 days.
If you got an ownership interest in a home from a family member — for example after a death or divorce — you can ask the servicer to confirm you as a "successor in interest." The servicer must tell you in writing what documents it needs. Once confirmed, you are treated as a borrower for servicing rules, so you can get information and apply for help.
Your servicer must send you a statement for each billing cycle (usually monthly). It must show the amount due and due date, how your last payments were applied, fees charged, and contact information. If you are behind, it must also show how far behind you are and where to get housing counseling.
When your servicer gets a full monthly payment (principal, interest and escrow), it must credit it to your loan as of the day it is received. It cannot hold your payment and then charge you a late fee or report you late because of its own delay.
If you ask in writing how much it would take to pay off your mortgage, the lender or servicer must send you an accurate payoff statement within a reasonable time — no more than 7 business days. You need this to refinance, sell, or plan a way to save your home.
When your mortgage loan is sold or assigned to a new owner, the new owner must tell you in writing within 30 days. The notice must include who the new owner is, how to reach it, the date of transfer, and where the transfer is recorded.
For some loans that put a lien on the home you live in — like many home-equity loans or refinances with a new lender — you can cancel within 3 business days after closing. If the lender did not give you the required notices and disclosures, that time can stretch up to 3 years. You cancel by sending the lender written notice.
A debt collector must send you a notice with the amount of the debt, the creditor's name, and your rights — in its first message or within 5 days. You then have 30 days to dispute the debt in writing or ask for the original creditor's name. If you do, the collector must stop collecting until it mails you verification.
A debt collector may not harass, oppress or abuse you. That includes threats of violence, obscene language, and calling again and again to annoy you. Unless you agree, collectors also should not call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. your time, or at times they know are inconvenient.
A debt collector may not lie or mislead you. It cannot misstate how much you owe, pretend to be a lawyer or government official, or threaten something it cannot legally do or does not intend to do. It also cannot report credit information it knows is false, or fail to say a debt is disputed.
If you tell a debt collector in writing that you refuse to pay or want it to stop contacting you, it must stop. After that, it may only contact you to say it is ending its efforts or to tell you about a specific step it or the creditor may take, such as a lawsuit.
A debt collector may not use unfair or unconscionable means to collect. It cannot collect fees or charges that your loan contract or the law does not allow. It also cannot take or threaten to take your property through a non-court process when it has no present right to it, no real intention to take it, or the property is legally exempt.
If you took out your mortgage before you entered military service, a foreclosure sale during your service — or within 1 year after it ends — is not valid unless a court approves it first (or you signed a valid waiver). A court can also pause the case or adjust the loan if military service affected your ability to pay.
If you (or you and your spouse together) owed a debt before you entered military service, the interest rate is capped at 6% per year while you serve. For a mortgage, the cap lasts during service and for 1 year after. Interest above 6% is forgiven, not just delayed. You must send the creditor written notice and a copy of your orders.
If you are in military service and get sued, the court must pause the case for at least 90 days if you ask and show that your duty keeps you from appearing. Before a court can enter a default judgment against you, the other side must file a sworn statement saying whether you are in the military, and the court may appoint a lawyer for you.
When a bankruptcy case is filed, an "automatic stay" goes into effect right away. It generally stops lawsuits, foreclosure steps, and other collection against you and your property, without anyone needing to ask a judge. Creditors who knowingly violate it can owe damages.
In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a plan can let you catch up on missed mortgage payments over a reasonable time (often 3 to 5 years) while you keep paying the regular monthly payment. For your main home, you can use this cure until the home is sold at a foreclosure sale held under state law.
In bankruptcy, you can keep ("exempt") certain property from creditors. For your home, the federal exemption protects equity up to a set dollar amount, but many states make you use the state's own list instead. Some state homestead exemptions are much larger than the federal one; some are smaller.
A bankruptcy discharge wipes out your personal liability for most debts in the case. After that, the law forbids creditors from suing, calling or otherwise trying to collect a discharged debt from you personally. A court can hold a creditor in contempt if there was no fair doubt that its conduct was barred.
If you have an FHA-insured mortgage, your lender must meet with you — or make a reasonable effort to arrange a meeting — before three full monthly payments are unpaid and at least 30 days before starting foreclosure. A reasonable effort means at least two verifiable attempts to contact you. HUD now decides how the meeting may be held.
If you have an FHA-insured mortgage, your lender must review loss-mitigation options every month before four full payments are unpaid, and take the appropriate action. FHA options can include special forbearance, loan modification, a partial claim (an interest-free second loan from HUD to cover arrears), a pre-foreclosure sale, or a deed in lieu.
If you have a VA-guaranteed home loan, the lender must have a system to work with delinquent borrowers: try to reach you by phone, send letters that explain your options, and make a face-to-face interview or a reasonable effort to arrange one when it has not reached you. VA lists workout options in order of preference: repayment plan, special forbearance, loan modification, short sale, and deed in lieu of foreclosure.
If you have a USDA Rural Development guaranteed home loan, the lender must contact you promptly after a default, try to learn why you fell behind, and send a certified letter asking for an interview before you are 60 days behind. If you qualify, it must consider options in order: repayment agreement, special forbearance, loan modification, and a mortgage recovery advance. Streamline options may be available later.
12 U.S.C. § 5220 note(Pub. L. 111-22, div. A, § 702(a)–(b))
If you rent a home that goes through foreclosure, the new owner must give you a notice to move at least 90 days before you have to leave. If you have a real (bona fide) lease signed before the foreclosure notice, you can usually stay until the lease ends. The exception is when the new owner will live in the home; even then you still get the 90 days' notice.
It is illegal to discriminate in selling, renting, or financing a home because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status (having children), or national origin. This covers mortgage lenders and servicers too — for example, in who gets offered a loan modification and on what terms. You can file a complaint with HUD within 1 year or go to court within 2 years.
A creditor may not discriminate against you in any part of a credit deal because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, receiving public assistance, or using your consumer-credit rights. If a creditor denies your completed credit application, you are entitled to a statement of the reasons.
If your credit report has something wrong or incomplete — like a payment reported late that you made on time — you can dispute it with the credit bureau for free. The bureau must investigate, usually within 30 days, and fix or delete information it cannot verify.
The company that reported the information — such as your servicer — must investigate when a credit bureau passes along your dispute, and fix what is wrong with every bureau. In many cases you can also dispute directly with that company, which must then investigate and report back to you.
If you pay private mortgage insurance on a loan for your main home, you can ask in writing to cancel it once your balance reaches 80% of the home's original value, if you have a good payment history and are current. It must end automatically when your balance is scheduled to reach 78%, if you are current.
By law, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion must each give you a free copy of your file once every 12 months when you ask through the official central source, AnnualCreditReport.com. The three bureaus have also made free weekly reports permanent on that site. Other sites may charge you or be scams.
Credit bureaus may not report collection accounts, charge-offs and most other negative items that are more than 7 years old. For a collection or charge-off, the 7 years start 180 days after the delinquency that led to it began — so, about 7½ years from the first missed payment that was never brought current. Paying, settling or re-selling the debt does not restart this clock. Bankruptcies can be reported for 10 years.
If identity theft put accounts or debts on your report, the credit bureau must block that information within 4 business days after you send proof of identity, a copy of an identity theft report, the items to block, and a statement that they are not yours. The bureau must tell the furnisher. It can refuse or undo a block only in limited cases, such as error or misrepresentation.
If you suspect in good faith that you are, or are about to become, a victim of fraud or identity theft, you can ask one nationwide bureau to place a fraud alert for at least 1 year; it must pass the alert to the other two. Identity theft victims with an identity theft report can get an extended alert for 7 years. Either alert also entitles you to free copies of your file.
If a lender, landlord, insurer or employer takes adverse action against you based even partly on a credit report, it must tell you, name the bureau that supplied the report, disclose any credit score it used, say the bureau did not make the decision, and tell you about your right to a free report within 60 days and to dispute errors.
A credit bureau must follow reasonable procedures to make the information in your report as accurate as possible. An account reported with the wrong balance, status or dates, or mixed in from someone else's file, can be a sign those procedures failed. You can dispute it.
A company that reports an account placed for collection or charged off must tell the credit bureau the month and year the delinquency began, within 90 days. That date sets when the item must come off your report, and it does not change when the debt is sold.
No one may get or use your credit report unless the law gives them a permitted purpose, such as a credit application you made, an account you have, or your written permission. A hard inquiry you do not recognise may have had no permitted purpose, and you can dispute it.
A credit bureau or a company that reports to one that willfully breaks the FCRA owes your actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, possible punitive damages, and your costs and attorney's fees. A negligent violation owes actual damages and fees. The claim must be filed within 2 years of discovering the violation and no more than 5 years after it.
Federal law bans credit repair companies from charging or taking any money for a service before that service is fully performed. A company that bills you up front, charges a "setup" or "first work" fee, or charges a monthly fee for work it has not done yet is breaking the law.
You can cancel any credit repair contract, for any reason and without penalty, until midnight of the third business day after you sign it. The company must give you a "Notice of Cancellation" form in duplicate and may not start work during those 3 days. Some states give you 5 days.
Before you sign, a credit repair company must give you a separate written statement titled "Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law." No service can be provided without a signed, dated written contract stating the total cost, a detailed description of the services, any guarantees, how long it will take, the company's address, and a bold cancellation notice next to your signature. Any waiver of these rights is void.
If you dispute the debt in writing within the 30-day validation period, the collector must stop collecting the disputed amount until it mails you verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment. The same applies if you ask in writing for the original creditor's name and address. Federal law sets a low bar for "verification": courts differ, and it does not require the original signed contract.
Once your state's statute of limitations has run on a debt, a debt collector may not sue you — or threaten to sue you — to collect it. Be careful: in many states a payment or written promise to pay can restart or revive the limitations period, so get advice before paying anything on an old debt.
A debt collector may not report a debt to a credit bureau until it has first spoken with you about the debt, or mailed or electronically sent you a message about it and waited a reasonable time to learn whether it was undeliverable. This stops "passive" collection, where the first you hear of a debt is on your credit report.
A debt collector that breaks the FDCPA is liable for your actual damages, additional damages of up to $1,000 the court may allow, and your costs and reasonable attorney's fees. A lawsuit must be filed within one year of the violation.
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