I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3015 
To amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 to provide 
protections to borrowers, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 22, 2017 
Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 
1974 to provide protections to borrowers, and for other 
purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘National Homeowners 
Bill of Rights Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. SERVICER TREATMENT OF BORROWERS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Section 6 of the Real Estate Set-
tlement Procedures Act of 1974 (12 U.S.C. 2605) is 
amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(n) SERVICER TREATMENT OF BORROWERS.— 
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‘‘(1) SERVICER REQUIREMENTS.— 
‘‘(A) SINGLE
ELECTRONIC
RECORD
AND 
SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT.—Each servicer of 
a federally related mortgage loan, or agents of 
such servicer, shall, with respect to the bor-
rower, establish a single electronic record for 
each account, the contents of which shall be ac-
cessible throughout the servicer, or agents of 
such servicer, including to all affordable loan 
modification staff, all foreclosure staff, and all 
bankruptcy staff. 
‘‘(B) AVAILABILITY
OF
NET
PRESENT 
VALUE INFORMATION.—Servicers shall maintain 
a free and publicly accessible website where bor-
rowers may check their estimated net present 
value. 
‘‘(2) PROTECTIONS
FOR
HOMEOWNERS
WITH 
LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY.— 
‘‘(A) FREE
ORAL
INTERPRETATION.— 
Servicers shall provide free oral interpretation 
services for borrowers whose files include a no-
tation of a preferred language other than 
English or who request such services and such 
services may be provided by contracting with 
housing counseling agencies that are approved 
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by the Department of Housing and Urban De-
velopment and that have appropriate language 
capacity. The servicer shall ensure that the per-
son providing the oral interpretation services 
has specific knowledge of loss mitigation and 
mortgage terms. 
‘‘(B) NOTIFICATION
OF
AVAILABLE
AS-
SISTANCE.— 
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—Servicers shall 
provide each borrower with a notice— 
‘‘(I) stating that the borrower 
may receive assistance in a language 
other than English; and 
‘‘(II) containing information on 
how to request such assistance. 
‘‘(ii) FORM OF NOTICE.—The Bureau 
may issue regulations to provide for the 
form, content, and manner of service of the 
notice described under clause (i). 
‘‘(iii) NOTICE
ON
TRANSFER.—Each 
transferee servicer to whom the servicing 
of any federally related mortgage loan is 
assigned, sold, or transferred shall include 
the notice required under this paragraph in 
the notice required under subsection (c). 
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‘‘(C) 
NOTATION
IN
FILE.—Servicers 
shall— 
‘‘(i) note a request for translation 
services in the borrower’s file and make 
such note available to all relevant servicer 
personnel; and 
‘‘(ii) note in the borrower’s file any 
time the borrower has communicated or 
sought to communicate with the servicer in 
a language other than English, and shall 
include such other language. 
‘‘(D) TRANSLATED DOCUMENTS.— 
‘‘(i) PROVIDING DOCUMENTS.— 
‘‘(I) 
IN
GENERAL.—Servicers 
shall, if a borrower asks for translated 
documents or if the borrower’s file 
contains a notation that the borrower 
has a language preference other than 
English or if the borrower has already 
requested oral interpretation services, 
provide key documents to the bor-
rower translated into the language of 
the borrower, including— 
‘‘(aa) periodic statements; 
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‘‘(bb) affordable loan modi-
fication applications, including 
hardship affidavits; 
‘‘(cc) denial notices; 
‘‘(dd) loan modification of-
fers, including any trial period 
plan; and 
‘‘(ee) such other documents 
as the Bureau may determine ap-
propriate. 
‘‘(II) EXCEPTION.—Subclause (I) 
shall only require providing documents 
in— 
‘‘(aa) commonly spoken lan-
guages in the United States, as 
determined by the Bureau; and 
‘‘(bb) with respect to a par-
ticular servicer, languages spoken 
by a significant number of indi-
viduals living in any markets in 
which the servicer does business, 
as determined by the Bureau. 
‘‘(III) BUREAU
CONSIDERATION 
OF CENSUS DATA.—In making deter-
minations under this clause, the Bu-
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reau shall take into consideration data 
from the Bureau of the Census on 
percentages of individuals who re-
ported they speak English less than 
‘very well’. 
‘‘(ii) 
ACCEPTING
DOCUMENTS.— 
Servicers shall only be required to accept 
documents in languages in which the 
servicer already provides documents, that 
are considered to be part of routine busi-
ness transactions in the market in which 
the mortgage loan was made, or that are 
used in documents provided to the public 
by any department or agency of the Fed-
eral Government. 
‘‘(iii) EXCEPTION.—Clause (i) shall 
not apply to small servicers, as defined 
under section 1026.41(e)(4)(ii) of title 12, 
Code of Federal Regulations. 
‘‘(iv) DEVELOPMENT OF GLOSSARY OF 
TERMS.—The Bureau shall develop a glos-
sary of mortgage loan and loss mitigation 
terms in each commonly spoken language 
in the United States, and make such glos-
sary available to servicers and the public. 
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‘‘(E) CONTINUING
REQUIREMENT.—Once 
a servicer has begun to communicate with a 
borrower in a particular language, the servicer 
shall continue to communicate with the bor-
rower in that language unless otherwise re-
quested by the borrower. 
‘‘(3) REQUIREMENTS
DURING
AFFORDABLE 
LOAN MODIFICATION PROCESS.— 
‘‘(A) BORROWERS FACING IMMINENT DE-
FAULT.—Servicers shall evaluate a borrower 
facing imminent default (as such term is de-
fined by the Bureau), as well as those in de-
fault, for affordable loan modification assist-
ance, as described in this subsection. 
‘‘(B) ASSISTANCE TO BORROWERS.— 
‘‘(i) ASSISTANCE
IN
APPLYING
FOR 
AFFORDABLE
LOAN
MODIFICATION.— 
Servicers shall— 
‘‘(I) have available and sufficient 
staff to answer questions borrowers 
may have about filling out documents; 
and 
‘‘(II) provide borrowers a list of 
nonprofit legal services organizations 
and housing agencies approved by the 
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Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, that can assist the bor-
rowers with documents. 
‘‘(ii) TREATMENT OF SUCCESSORS IN 
INTEREST.—Servicers shall— 
‘‘(I) provide full information and 
complete loss mitigation options to 
successor homeowners protected from 
an acceleration of a mortgage loan 
under the Garn-St Germain Deposi-
tory Institutions Act of 1982, if re-
quested by the successor homeowner; 
and 
‘‘(II) review a mortgage loan for 
loss mitigation, as though the suc-
cessor homeowner was the borrower, 
and provide a decision on available 
loss mitigation prior to an assumption 
of the mortgage loan, if requested by 
the succeeding homeowner. 
‘‘(C) SIMULTANEOUS
REVIEW
FOR
ALL 
LOSS MITIGATION OPTIONS.—A servicer shall si-
multaneously evaluate a borrower for all avail-
able loss mitigation options, including an af-
fordable loan modification. 
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‘‘(D) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing 
in this subsection shall be construed as prohib-
iting a servicer from considering a borrower for 
other loss mitigation options, so long as the 
servicer first offers the borrower an affordable 
loan modification if the borrower is eligible for 
such a modification. 
‘‘(E) REQUIREMENTS RELATED TO TRANS-
FER OF LOANS.— 
‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—For any transfer 
of servicing to a successor servicer of a 
federally 
related 
mortgage 
loan 
or 
subservicer, 
the 
transferring 
servicer 
shall— 
‘‘(I) inform the successor servicer 
(including a subservicer) whether a 
loan modification request is pending; 
‘‘(II) 
provide 
the 
successor 
servicer with all documentation re-
lated to the mortgage loan, including 
any documentation relating to a loan 
modification or loss mitigation proc-
ess; 
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‘‘(III) ensure that the successor 
servicer has the operational capacity 
to manage the transferred loan; 
‘‘(IV) ensure that the successor 
servicer shall accept and continue 
processing prior loan modification re-
quests, by including such requirement 
in the agreement made between the 
servicers when transferring the loan; 
‘‘(V) 
ensure 
that 
successor 
servicer shall honor trial and perma-
nent loan modification agreements en-
tered into by the transferring servicer 
by including such requirement in the 
agreement made between the servicers 
when transferring the loan; and 
‘‘(VI) notify the borrower of the 
transferred loan that the new servicer 
is required to accept and continue 
processing prior loan modification re-
quests, if any, and is required to 
honor trial and permanent loan modi-
fication agreements entered into by 
the transferring servicer, if any. 
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