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Quick AnswerIn a Memorandum and Order dated May 20, 2026, Judge Eric Komitee of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that our clients' case against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., their loan servicer, will proceed. The claim is that Wells Fargo's answer to their first letter violated RESPA, a federal law that covers mortgage servicing, by failing to provide all available information. Wells Fargo had said older records were unavailable under its seven-year record-retention policy, then sent a transaction dated March 3, 2006 after a second letter. Petroff Amshen LLP represents the borrowers.
In 2006, Wells Fargo loaned our clients slightly more than $687,000, secured by a mortgage on their home. In 2021 they signed a loan modification, and $53,476.34 was folded into the principal. They couldn't verify what that figure was made of, and they say the bank never broke it down for them.
In May 2024 they put their questions in writing. The letter asked for twenty-seven categories of records, including itemized explanations of the fees, costs and other charges put on the loan over the years. Under RESPA, a letter like that is a qualified written request. A servicer that gets one has to provide the information it has, or explain why it can't.
Wells Fargo answered on May 17, 2024. It sent account information and transaction history covering 2015 to 2024. Some requests were overbroad, it said, and older information was unavailable because of its seven-year record-retention policy.
Our clients wrote again in August 2024. This time the bank sent more. In the court's words, Wells Fargo "acknowledged possession of, and provided, substantial documentation it had omitted in its response to Letter 1." Its itemization of transactions now started with one dated March 3, 2006. An account activity statement went back to 2012.
So records the bank had called unavailable turned up the second time our clients asked. That gap between the two answers is the heart of the claim.
Wells Fargo asked Judge Eric Komitee to dismiss the case. Its reasons: the letters weren't really qualified written requests, the claim was too late, the bank had already handed over everything the law required, and our clients hadn't been harmed. "None of these reasons mandates dismissal at this stage," the judge wrote.
The bank said the letters were about the modification, which isn't loan servicing. The court rejected that argument. A letter can mix both kinds of questions, and our clients asked for things that plainly concern servicing, like their payment history and escrow account disbursements. Both letters counted.
On timing, Wells Fargo said RESPA's three-year deadline started with the 2021 modification. The court called that "incorrect." The clock runs from the violation, which here was the bank's 2024 answers, and a suit filed in 2025 was on time.
On the records themselves, the bank's second answer undercut its first. Given those inconsistencies, the court held, our clients plausibly alleged that Wells Fargo "failed to provide all available information in response to Letter 1 (or provide a truthful explanation as to its unavailability)." And their claim that the incomplete answer forced them to write a second letter was, the court said, "enough at this stage" to show harm.
In a Memorandum and Order dated May 20, 2026, the court:
From the court's Memorandum and Order of May 20, 2026: Wells Fargo's explanation that some documents were unavailable "is undermined by Wells's own response" to the second letter.
The record, in order: each reason Wells Fargo gave for dismissing the case, and what the court held.
Under RESPA and its regulations, a servicer that gets a qualified written request has to provide the requested information if it is available, or explain why it is unavailable. An explanation that information is unavailable has to be true.
On its face, the bank's first answer looked like it complied: it sent what it said it had and explained the rest was unavailable. What changed the picture was its own second answer, which included older transactions. The court relied on that difference.
Many people assume that once they've signed a modification, the numbers in it can't be questioned. Under this ruling, the RESPA deadline runs from the servicer's deficient answer, not from the day you signed.
A lot of homeowners are told their older loan records no longer exist. Sometimes that's true. Here, the records appeared when our clients pressed a second time, and a federal judge said the case will proceed.
If you've asked your servicer to explain your balance and gotten a partial answer, keep the letters and the responses. They may be the start of a claim.
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