When your home loan gets sold

What to watch out for

Here's what else you should know:

• If your servicer changes, you should get two letters. At least 15 days before your loan's servicing rights change hands, you should get a "goodbye" letter from the company currently accepting your payments, mortgage expert Guttentag said. This letter should tell you the name of the new servicing company, its physical address, its toll-free phone number and the date the transfer will be effective. You also should get a "hello" letter from the new servicer outlining those facts. If all you get is the "hello" letter, call your current servicer to make sure the change is legitimate.

• Make sure you're sending the payment to the right address. If you're still paying with physical checks, make sure you don't use an old envelope or stub from the previous mortgage company after the servicing rights have been transferred. If you use online bill payment, you'll need to update your system to reflect the new company's name and address. By federal law, any payments sent to the wrong address in the 60 days after the transfer aren't supposed to be counted as late, but it's often easier to get the payments to the right address in the first place than to try to get a servicer to remove a late-payment notice from your credit report.

• Keep your paperwork. Guttentag recommends keeping all your monthly mortgage statements until your loan is paid off. Your record of payments may not be transferred when your loan's servicing rights change hands, and you'll want your own documents in case you run into problems with the new servicing company.

• Check to see whether your insurance premiums and property taxes are paid. Although some borrowers pay these expenses on their own, many people pay their mortgage company an extra amount each month that's put into an escrow or impound account, which the company then uses to pay premiums and taxes. If your mortgage company is responsible for paying these bills for you, follow up and make sure the payments are being made by checking with your insurer and your county tax assessor's office. That's something you should do anyway, Razzi said, but it's particularly important if your mortgage company is experiencing financial problems or the servicing rights have changed hands.

"I personally find (an escrow account) to be a wonderful convenience," Razzi said, "but you can't check out totally. You still have to make sure the bills have been paid."

• Know how to get help. If you're having problems with your servicing company, first make a written complaint to its customer-service department. State that your letter is a "qualified written request under Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA)." Include your name, your daytime phone number, the loan number, and the property and mailing address, along with a description of the problem and the remedy you're seeking. Send the letter separately from your payment, and use certified mail, return receipt requested, to establish a paper trail. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a sample letter here.

If that doesn't work, consider making a complaint to your state attorney general's office or the government agency that regulates the servicing company. National banks are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; savings associations are regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision. You can find state regulators for mortgage firms through the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators.

• Video: Suing mortgage lenders

Liz Pulliam Weston's latest book, "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life," is now available. Columns by Weston, the Web's most-read personal-finance writer and winner of the 2007 Clarion Award for online journalism, appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on the Your Money message board.

Updated Oct. 21, 2008

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