Letter to Ten of the Nation's Leading Mortgage Servicers

Letter

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (the Committee) is conducting an investigation into recent violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). As part of this investigation, I am writing to request information relating to your company's compliance with the SCRA in recent years. In order to assist the Committee with its investigation, please provide the following information for the time period of January 1, 2006, to the present:

1. The total number of mortgages your company currently services.

2. The total number of foreclosures - lawful or unlawful - your company has assessed on individuals protected under the SCRA.

3. The total number of foreclosures your company has assessed on servicemembers in violation of the SCRA (please provide a year by year breakdown of when such foreclosure proceedings began).

4. A specific explanation of what your company believes to be the causes of SCRA violations outlined in response to No. 3.

5. The total number of cases in which your company, having been properly notified of an SCRA protected individual's active duty status, attempted to charge legally impermissible fees.

6. A specific explanation of what your company believes to be the causes of the SCRA violations outlined in response to No. 5.

7. The total number of alleged SCRA -violations outlined in Nos. 3 and 5 that are currently in litigation.

8. The total number of instance where your company attempted to initiate improper foreclosure proceedings or impose improper fees against SCRA protected individuals after they or their representatives had already notified your company that such actions were not legally permissible.

9. A description of internal action taken by your company to remediate wrongs arising from SCRA violations on U.S. servicemembers outlined in response to Nos. 3 and 5 (including, but not limited to , enhancements to SCRA compliance protocols/processes, adjustments to service training programs and improvements in military customer outreach programs).

10. A description of all systems your company has in place to prevent human error from causing violations of the SCRA in the future.

11. A description of all monetary actions taken by your company to remediate wrongs arising from its SCRA violations on U.S. servicemembers.

12. The name of the SCRA specialist(s) within your mortgage servicing company.

The Committee understands that your company may have previously provided the Ranking Member some information. If you have difficulty answering any of these questions within the requested timeframe, I would ask that you (1) note such in your response; (2) provide as complete an answer as your are able to within the requested timeframe; and (3) continue working to provide complete answers to the committee's questions. This information will be helpful to the committee as it assesses documents it will need to request to ascertain the extent of recent SCRA violations.

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Sincerely,

Darrell Issa
Chairman

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