April 20, 2020

Bank of America
Brian Moynihan
CEO and Chairman
100 North Tryon St.
Charlotte, NC 28255

Dear Mr. Moynihan:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020
JPMorgan Chase
Jamie Dimon
CEO and Chairman
383 Madison Ave
New York City, NY 10179

Dear Mr. Dimon:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020
Freedom Mortgage Corporation
Stanley C. Middleman
CEO
907 Pleasant Valley Ave
Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054

Dear Mr. Middleman:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC

Julio Aldecocea
Managing Director
4425 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, MS 5-251
Coral Gables, FL 33146

Dear Mr. Aldecocea:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020
Mr. Cooper
Jay Bray
CEO and Chairman
8950 Cypress Waters Blvd
Coppell, TX 75019

Dear Mr. Bray:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

New Residential Investment Corporation

Michael Nierenberg
CEO, Chairman, and President
1345 Avenue of the Americas, 45th Floor
New York City, NY, 10105

Dear Mr. Nierenberg:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

PennyMac Loan Services

David A. Spector
CEO and President
3043 Townsgate Rd., Suite 200
Westlake Village, CA 91361

Dear Mr. Spector:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020
Quicken Loans
Jay Farner
CEO
1050 Woodward Ave
Detroit, MI 48226

Dear Mr. Farner:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

Truist
Kelly King
Chairman and CEO
214 North Tryon Street
Charlotte, NC, 28202

Dear Mr. King:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

US Bancorp
Andrew Cecere
President and CEO
800 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Dear Mr. Cecere:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator
 April 20, 2020

Wells Fargo
Charles Scharf
CEO and President
420 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94104

Dear Mr. Scharf:

We write to request information on how you are ensuring that homeowners who are facing
economic hardship during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic are able to
take advantage of the foreclosure and forbearance protections included in the recently passed
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

As a servicer for single-family home mortgages, you have information about whether these loans
are owned, insured, or guaranteed by a federal agency or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
and therefore eligible for protections provided by the CARES Act - information that may not be
readily available or known to families who are struggling during this economic downturn and
need these protections to stay in their home.

Because your company has been prohibited from foreclosing on any property covered by the
CARES Act since March 18, 2020,1 you should by now have already identified all single-family
borrowers who are eligible for the protections the law provides. During this pandemic, it is a
public health imperative for families to maintain stable housing, and we urge you to take
immediate action to notify all eligible homeowners with loans you service of the foreclosure and
forbearance protections available to them due to the CARES Act.

CARES Act Protections for Homeowners

The CARES Act provides important mortgage relief and protections for eligible single-family
borrowers with federally backed residential mortgages. It prohibits a lender or loan servicer from
foreclosing on an eligible homeowner for a period of no less than 60 days, beginning March 18,
2020.2 It also gives single-family homeowners who are facing a hardship due, directly or
indirectly, to the pandemic the right to up to 360 days of mortgage forbearance – essentially
allowing them to hit pause on their mortgage payments during the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) outbreak and crisis and to make up those payments later.3 These protections cover
an estimated 70% of mortgages on single family homes, and provide an important lifeline to

1 CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.

2
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
3
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf. The CARES
Act also provides for forbearance protections for some federally backed multifamily residential properties.
ensure that Americans who may have lost jobs or income during this crisis do not also lose their
homes.4

Eligible homeowners are able to access forbearance under the CARES Act by “submitting a
request to the borrower’s servicer” and “affirming that the borrower is experiencing a financial
hardship during the COVID-19 emergency.”5 Servicers may not require any additional
documentation from borrowers requesting forbearance “other than the borrower’s attestation to a
financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 emergency.”6 In addition, loan servicers are
prohibited from charging “fees, penalties, or interest beyond the amounts scheduled or calculated
as if the borrower made all contractual payments on time and in full” once forbearance has been
requested.7

Eligible borrowers are automatically protected from foreclosure under the CARES Act; servicers
may not “initiate any judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process, move for a foreclosure
judgement or order of sale, or execute a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale,” except
in the case of vacant or abandoned properties.8

Your Company’s Responsibility to Inform Homeowners of Their Rights

Most homeowners deal directly with their mortgage servicers, so many may be unaware that the
federal government owns, guarantees, or insures their loan or that their loan is backed by Fannie
Mae or Freddie Mac. Without this knowledge, homeowners who are experiencing financial
hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic may not realize that they can request these protections
to help ease their financial burdens during the crisis, or may not know how to do so. In order to
receive mortgage forbearance, a homeowner must formally request such protection from their
mortgage servicer. And if a lender attempts to initiate or complete a foreclosure in violation of
the CARES Act, a homeowner must be aware that they qualify for protection if they hope to take
action to remain in their home. Both of these protections place the burden of information and
action on borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has suggested that consumers “can call your
servicer” to figure out “who owns or backs your mortgage.”9 But that is proving nearly
impossible. Reports suggest that many homeowners are unable to reach a customer service
representative on servicer help phone lines,10 and have warned callers to be prepared for “waits,

4
Wall Street Journal, “Struggling Borrowers Want To Pause Their Mortgage Payments. It Hasn’t Been Easy,” Orla
McCaffrey and Andrew Ackerman, April 3, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/mortgage-relief-from-coronavirus-
crisis-is-off-to-rocky-start-11585906200.
5
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
6
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
7
CARES Act, Sec. 4022, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
8
CARES Act, Sec. 4022-4023, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf.
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/guide-coronavirus-mortgage-relief-options/.
10
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
confusion and bureaucracy.”11 The National Consumer Law Center warns that placing the
burden of action on homeowners will result “in limited access to payment relief and unnecessary
foreclosures.”12 Other homeowners say servicers have given them contradictory advice,
including the incorrect and dangerous requirement that they will have to pay all forborne
mortgage payments in one big lump sum payment immediately after a forbearance period ends,
which is not true for federally-backed loans.13

To address these concerns, it is incumbent that your company do your part to affirmatively and
accurately inform consumers of their ability to request forbearance under the CARES Act if they
are facing hardship, and to ensure that families who need assistance and are unable to pay their
mortgage because of COVID-19-related financial hardship are able to remain in their homes.

Questions

Homeowners face an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, and must have
guaranteed, easy access to the protections provided to them by the CARES Act if they need
them. In order to protect homeowners and ensure that the relief provided for struggling
borrowers in the CARES Act reaches those borrowers who need it, we ask that you answer the
following questions. Please respond no later than April 24, 2020.

1. Has or will your company take immediate action to proactively notify all homeowners
whose mortgages you service about the availability of mortgage forbearance and
foreclosure relief for borrowers who are facing a financial hardship under the CARES
Act?
a. Please respond with a list of all actions your company has already taken or plans
to take to provide such notification to homeowners.
b. Please provide copies of notices and information regarding CARES Act
foreclosure and forbearance relief that you have provided to borrowers.
c. If your company does not plan to take such proactive steps, please explain why.

2. On the next statement or other notice sent via mail to homeowners, will your company
include information describing the options available for struggling homeowners,
including the necessary information for a borrower to understand both forbearance and
the options available after forbearance, and allow homeowners to contact you to notify
you that they are experiencing a hardship and request forbearance or other assistance via
a pre-paid return envelope, and via email, your company’s website, or through your
company’s phone application?

11
Money Talks News, “Can’t Make Your Mortgage Payment? Here’s How to Request Relief,” Marilyn Lewis,
April 10, 2020, https://www.moneytalksnews.com/how-to-request-mortage-payment-relief-under-cares-act/.
12
National Consumer Law Center, “Senate COVID-19 Stimulus Bill is a Start but Falls Far Short for Families,
Students, and the Nation’s Most Vulnerable,” press release, March 26, 2020, https://www.nclc.org/media-
center/senate-covid-19-stimulus-bill-is-a-start-but-falls-far-short-for-families-students-and-the-nations-most-
vulnerable.html.
13
NPR, “Many Struggling Homeowners Not Getting The Mortgage Relief U.S. Promised,” Chris Arnold, April 7,
2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828011892/many-struggling-homeowners-not-getting-the-mortgage-relief-u-
s-promised.
3. When your company grants initial forbearances under the CARES Act, will your
company provide written information to the homeowner containing specific details on the
length and other terms of the forbearance, as well as instructions on how to extend the
forbearance if needed, or, when applicable, apply for other loss mitigation options?

4. Will your company contact homeowners with active forbearances in advance of the end
of the forbearance period with sufficient time for the homeowner to apply for loss
mitigation or other additional assistance before the end of the forbearance period? If so,
what policies do you have in place to assure this will occur?

5. What loss mitigation options will you offer homeowners in forbearance? What loss
mitigation options have you informed borrowers already in forbearance of, and how has
that information been communicated?

6. If an eligible homeowner misses or is late on their payments during the period in which
they may be eligible for forbearance, will your company contact them with information
regarding their availability for forbearance and instructions on how to request relief?
How soon after a missed or late payment will you contact the borrower? Will you do this
before assessing any fees, interest, or penalties, which are prohibited for borrowers
requesting forbearance under the CARES Act?

7. To what extent are the communications above, including written and oral
communication, available in languages other than English? Please provide a list of all
languages in which you are able to communicate with borrowers and ways that borrowers
can request language assistance.

8. Do you inform borrowers of the availability of housing counseling through HUD-

approved housing counseling agencies, including counselors’ ability to facilitate
borrower communication in languages other than English? How is such information
provided to borrowers?

9. What steps have you taken to ensure borrower relief reaches all eligible borrowers
experiencing hardship equally, regardless of the language they speak or any protected
class under the Fair Housing Act? Do you regularly monitor overall data to ensure that
servicing practices do not result in a disparate impact on borrowers?

10. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the foreclosure
moratorium put in place under the CARES Act?

a. Please confirm that your company has not initiated “any judicial or non-judicial
foreclosure process, move[d] for a foreclosure judgement or order of sale, or
execute[d] a foreclosure-related eviction or foreclosure sale for” any eligible
borrower.

b. What is your company doing to terminate any foreclosure activities that were
initiated between March 18, 2020, when the moratorium period begins, and
 March 27, 2020, when this bill became law, to the extent the relevant agency had
not already prohibited foreclosure proceedings and foreclosures prior to the
passage of the CARES Act?

11. What steps has your company taken to ensure compliance with the forbearance
provisions in the CARES Act?

a. How is your company ensuring no borrower who enters forbearance will be

charged interest, fees, or penalties?
b. What scripts are customer call line operators using to discuss forbearance with
borrowers, including how to request forbearance and what will happen to
mortgages after the forbearance period concludes? What scripts are customer call
line operators using to address the question of whether someone has a federally
backed loan covered by the CARES Act forbearance rules? Please provide a copy
of any scripts.
c. What information is available on your website, including portions of your website
available only to mortgage customers, regarding the options available for
customers who are facing financial hardship, including information about
forbearance and options after forbearance? Please provide a copy of the
information available to borrowers.
d. Is your company ensuring that borrowers requesting forbearance are asked
whether their financial hardship is due to COVID-19? If not, we request you
change this practice to ensure no borrower is denied protection unnecessarily.

12. Please provide information regarding how many borrowers whose loans you service
have, since March 18, 2020:
a. Made late payments
b. Not made full payments
c. Received forbearance
d. Been foreclosed on

13. What actions have you taken to extend the CARES Act protections to homeowners who
do not have federally backed mortgage loans? Please indicate whether forbearance is
available for these borrowers, and on what terms. In addition to the terms of the
forbearance, please advise as to whether these homeowners are required to complete
additional documentation in order to receive a forbearance. If you believe you are unable
to extend CARES Act forbearances to homeowners who do not have federally backed
mortgages due to restrictions in PSAs or other investor agreements, what efforts have you
made to obtain waivers of those restrictions to ensure that borrowers can remain in their
homes? Have you made any special requests to trustees or other appropriate parties to
ensure that borrowers can remain in their homes? Please also include whether such
requests, if any, were granted.

14. What other actions have you taken to ease the unprecedented financial hardships facing
homeowners during this crisis?
 Sincerely,

Elizabeth Warren Sherrod Brown

United States Senator United States Senator

Jack Reed Robert Menendez

United States Senator United States Senator

Brian Schatz Chris Van Hollen

United States Senator United States Senator

Catherine Cortez Masto Tina Smith

United States Senator United States Senator

Kyrsten Sinema
United States Senator