The best time to send a Qualified Written Request (“QWR”) is when you have a question relating to the servicing of your mortgage loan. For example, you may want a contact person or department for doing a loan modification. You may also need a year-end tax statement of mortgage interest paid (IRS Form 1098). Perhaps you have been making payments under a “trial modification” and never got the permanent loan modification paperwork. Perhaps there are charges on your loan statement which you do not understand. You may want to know who owns your loan – the person or company that actually gets the money you send in each month.
All of the above situations are appropriate opportunities for a QWR. You can write to your loan servicer and request specific information about the servicing of your loan. If you do this correctly, the lender is required by law to acknowledge your request in writing and respond to your request in writing. As mentioned in our previous post, this may be the only way to get reliable information about your loan. And, if the servicer does not respond, you have a legal remedy – a way to fix the problem through legal means. We’ll explore the remedies for RESPA violations (which are all to frequent, in our experience) in the next post.