Opinion ID: 182516
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Letter of October 6, 2004

Text: The plaintiffs’ October 6th letter included content that was clearly sufficient to be a qualified written request. The three-page letter described in great detail the difficulties the plaintiffs encountered at the hands of RBC. The letter recounted that their first payment was due in August 2003, but that RBC failed to process the plaintiffs’ August payment in a timely manner, and that a discrepancy arose between the plaintiffs and RBC as to whether the plaintiffs had made their payments or not. The letter described how RBC raised the plaintiffs’ monthly payment amount without informing them of the change, and that each of the plaintiffs’ attempts to communicate with RBC was rebuffed until RBC at last acknowledged its error and dismissed its foreclosure action against the plaintiffs in July 2004. The letter then reported that RBC did not cash the plain20 No. 09-2182 tiffs’ August and September 2004 payments, but that GMAC Mortgage returned the plaintiffs’ September 2004 payment uncashed, even though that payment had been sent to RBC, and that GMAC Mortgage in- formed the plaintiffs that their September 2004 payment was insufficient to cover the amount they then owed on their mortgage account, which, according to GMAC Mortgage, was five months overdue. The plaintiffs, naturally, wrote this description of the history of their loan’s servicing from their perspective, and without access to the (incorrect) information that GMAC Mortgage had acquired from RBC. But the letter was certainly a thorough statement of “the reasons for the belief of the borrower, to the extent applicable, that the account is in error” under section 2605(e)(1)(B). The letter then continued, requesting very specific information. Plaintiffs asked that RBC explain why it had cashed the checks they had sent in July if, as they had been told by GMAC Mortgage, RBC had sold their account to GMAC Mortgage in May. The letter also sought an accounting of the funds plaintiffs had paid in July and sought information related to the transfer— specifically, why RBC had not forwarded their checks to GMAC Mortgage, why GMAC Mortgage had delayed initiating contact with them after purchasing their account, and why GMAC Mortgage would purchase a “nonperforming” mortgage. Some of this information might have been “unavailable or [unable] to be obtained by the servicer” under section 2605(e)(2)(C), but whether the information the plaintiffs sought was unavailable or whether their questions were unanNo. 09-2182 21 swerable does not negate the fact that they had “provide[d] sufficient detail to the servicer regarding other information sought by the borrower” under section 2605(e)(1)(B). Their October 6th letter was a qualified written request, and GMAC Mortgage was obligated to respond. Of course, the plaintiffs did not send their October 6, 2004 letter directly to GMAC Mortgage. They sent it to HUD, which forwarded it to GMAC Mortgage. The statute requires that qualified written requests be received “from the borrower (or an agent of the borrower).” 12 U.S.C. § 2605(e)(1)(A). We do not have difficulty interpreting that requirement, under the circumstances of this case, to include HUD’s intercession on the plaintiffs’ behalf. RESPA is a consumer protection statute, and on summary judgment we must view the facts in the plaintiffs’ favor. Here, the record amply demonstrates that the plaintiffs had exhausted every reasonable avenue in their communications with RBC, yet in the fall of 2004, they were back in the same nightmare with a different company. Again they were being accused of not paying their mortgage, and again they were being threatened with foreclosure. Their confusion and desperation at this point were palpable, and they reasonably sought help from HUD. Besides, when it received the plaintiffs’ letter, GMAC Mortgage tacitly acknowledged that the letter was a request for information and raised a dispute with their account. After all, in its response to HUD, GMAC Mortgage provided a detailed accounting of the history and transfer of the 22 No. 09-2182 plaintiffs’ mortgage and captioned its letter as a response to the plaintiffs’ “payment dispute.” After the months the plaintiffs had spent writing to and getting nowhere with RBC, and due to the fact that GMAC Mortgage received the plaintiffs’ October 6th letter and treated it as a payment dispute and as a request for information, the fact that GMAC Mortgage received the letter from HUD and not directly from the plaintiffs does not prevent the plaintiffs’ October 6th letter from being a qualified written request under RESPA.