Servicer Violated RESPA But Caused No Damages: Eighth Circuit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit concluded earlier this month in Wirtz v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC, that a mortgage loan servicer violated Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) by failing to obtain a borrower's complete payment history from a previous servicer and to provide a copy of the history to the borrower in response to his qualified written requests.  However, the court concluded that the borrower nevertheless failed to state a claim under RESPA because there was no evidence that he suffered any actual damages as a result of the violation.

The main RESPA compliance lesson from Wirtz is that if the information a servicer needs to respond to a borrower's qualified written request is in the possession of a prior servicer, the servicer itself should take reasonable steps to obtain that information from the prior servicer rather than tell the borrower to obtain it.