Dec
6
Is it legal for a morgage company to contact your naighbors when you are behind on your payments?
Filed Under Law & Ethics
Terri T asked:
My morgage company has contacted my neighbor about my being late on my payments because they were not able to contact me.
IVAN
My morgage company has contacted my neighbor about my being late on my payments because they were not able to contact me.
IVAN
Comments
16 Responses to “Is it legal for a morgage company to contact your naighbors when you are behind on your payments?”
Leave a Reply
I smell a million dollar lawsuit. $$$$$$$
OMG yes it’s illegal. Privacy Act. You should contact an Attorney.
They can leave messages with anyone but can not say what company they are with or why they are calling. All they can leave is the employee’s name and the company phone number.
Nope. That is illegal due to privacy laws. You can sue them for that.
If you listed those neighbors as a secondary contact source then they may. Otherwise it is an invasion of privacy.
I can’t say for sure, but it’s a fair assumption that it’s illegal.
NO, it is not. You should contact an Attorney, you will have your house paid for and money left over.
No……but what do you do about it without contacting them? Which is exactly what they want !
Yeah, not so much. Your neighbors have no reason to be informed, thus, your mortgage company is probably doing something illegally…. Go ahead and threaten to sue em
It depends. If they just asked your neighbor if you were still around and did he know how to reach you, that’s no big deal. It’s called skip tracing, and it’s done all the time to locate people.
But, if he actually told your neighbor that you had a credit problem (did he, or did you???), then that is illegal. Check out the FTC web site at ftc.gov.
Did you put down your neighbor as a person to contact in emergency? If so, that’s why they did it. That’s still violation of privacy. All they can legally do is ask the neighbor to have you get in touch with them. Discussing your personal financial affairs without your permission leaves them wide open for a $$$$ lawsuit. Discuss this with a lawyer and watch them go into orbit to secure you as a client.
Not if the Mortgage company was the actual lender and not a collection agent!
But - If this Mortgage company is merely a collection agent for some other entity then it would be illegal under the Federal Fair Debt Practice Act of l997 and it could only advise your neighbors that they would like to contact you - without any reference whatever to any debt that you owed!
Good Luck!
It´s unfair and ilegal.
Seriously, contact a lawyer. The laws on privacy have really been beefed up in the last year or so & what they did was a BIG no-no. You have the potential to have a paid for house in the near future.
Well I don’t know about just contacting them, BUT to tell your neighbors WHY, then this is ILLEGAL. HAVE they not heard of U.S. Mail. As in mailing you a notice or a certified return receipt. I’d go talk to a lawyer.
Whatever happened to the Privacy Act? I don’t know how that would be legal, since your neighbors are NOT making your mortgage payments. Why wasn’t the mortgage company able to reach you? (just curious) Seek legal advice on that one to make sure.