Choudhuri v. Specialised Loan Servicing
- James Donato
- 3:19-cv-04198
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Choudhuri v. Specialised Loan Servicing, Judge Donato granted defendants summary judgment on the mortgage-information claim and denied Choudhuri’s request to pause foreclosure.
Kabita Choudhuri, Specialized Loan Servicing, Bosco Credit LLC, and the status of the case concerning Choudhuri’s RESPA claim and request to pause the litigation.
What happened
Kabita Choudhuri, representing herself, claimed that Specialized Loan Servicing and Bosco Credit failed to respond to written requests about servicing her mortgage, violating the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. In Choudhuri v. Specialised Loan Servicing, the court considered the defendants’ requests for summary judgment and Choudhuri’s request to pause foreclosure.
The court ruled that Choudhuri did not send her requests to Specialized Loan Servicing’s designated address for these requests. It also ruled that Bosco Credit held the loan but was not its servicer; Franklin Credit Management was the servicer. The court therefore granted summary judgment to both defendants.
The court also denied Choudhuri’s request for a stay, concluding that discovery had closed and the record did not support a reason to pause the case. Judge Donato stated that the summary-judgment rulings ended the case, which was closed, with a separate judgment to be entered for the prevailing parties.
The detailed version
- Choudhuri v. Specialised Loan Servicing · No. 3:19-cv-04198
- James Donato
- Apr. 20, 2022
Background
After earlier motions and orders, one claim remained. Kabita Choudhuri, who represented herself, alleged that Specialized Loan Servicing (SLS) and Bosco Credit LLC (Bosco) violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) by failing to respond to her qualified written requests (QWRs) concerning a mortgage on her home. Choudhuri also requested a stay, apparently to complete discovery or to stop notices of default.
Summary Judgment for SLS
The court granted SLS’s motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is entered when the evidence shows that no genuine dispute over an important fact requires a trial and that the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.
RESPA requires a loan servicer to acknowledge and respond to a qualifying written request concerning the servicing of a federally related mortgage loan. The applicable regulation allows a servicer to designate an address that the borrower must use for such requests. The court concluded that SLS established such an address and notified Choudhuri of it.
SLS’s December 7, 2018 notice identified a post-office box for notices of error and requests for information concerning mortgage servicing, including QWRs. The court found that SLS used Choudhuri’s correct mailing address and that she had not rebutted the presumption that the notices were delivered. The court also found no genuine dispute that Choudhuri did not send a QWR to the designated address.
Choudhuri sent one QWR to a different SLS address and emailed another to SLS’s attorneys. The court ruled that the email did not satisfy the requirement because it was not sent to the designated RESPA mailing address. The court also ruled that handwritten notes on mortgage statements were not QWRs under RESPA because the statute excludes notices written on a payment coupon or other payment medium supplied by the servicer. In addition, those notes were sent to an address different from SLS’s designated address.
Summary Judgment for Bosco
The court also granted Bosco’s motion for summary judgment. RESPA’s QWR-response obligations apply to loan servicers, not merely to loan holders or loan originators.
The record showed that Bosco acquired the home-equity credit line in May 2008, while servicing was transferred to Franklin Credit Management Corp. The court found that Bosco was the loan holder and Franklin was the loan servicer. Choudhuri did not provide evidence that Bosco serviced the credit line and had acknowledged in her amended complaint that Franklin was the servicer. The court therefore found no genuine dispute that Bosco was not a servicer subject to the QWR requirements.
Stay Request and Disposition
The court denied Choudhuri’s request for a stay. The court stated that discovery had closed, the record did not indicate harassment by SLS, and no good reason supported stopping the litigation.
The court stated that the grants of summary judgment terminated the case. It closed the case and ordered that judgment for the prevailing parties be entered separately.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.