Greetings all,
In July 2009 the bank which was servicing the FHA mortgage on my house -- Charter Bank -- "failed" and its assets were taken into receivership by the FDIC. My loan was then sold and serviced under a "new" Charter Bank (run through Cenlar) until June 2011 at which point in time it was sold a second time to a servicer named MSI (still through Cenlar.)
For most of 2007 and 2008 I was in the middle of a protracted and financially disastrous divorce, during which the house payment was 30 days late every month for 2+years, hitting 90 days late on three separate occasions. It was never in foreclosure at any time. After the divorce was completed in late 2008 I was able to catch up again and from February 2009 to July 2009 my payments were on time.
Since February 2009 I have not missed a single payment, and have been on time or early. However, TU/Exp both show that my mortgage account is "closed" and was "transferred to another office" as of July 2009. This means that my positive payment history is not being reported and has not been reported since the FDIC bailed out the original servicer. This also means that my mortgage does not show up on my credit reports. I am not actively in the market for credit but since I work in the automotive industry I asked a couple of our finance professionals for their analysis and was told that to a lender, it will look like I had a very bad payment history on my mortgage, since the 2.5+ years of on time payments made since the government took over the loan are not being reported.
I did contact the current servicer and was told something along the lines of "FHA mortgages don't usually get reported" which is quite obviously not the case. I was told prospective lenders could contact them and they would verify the current (good) payment history but this is a bit useless in an age of computer credit decision-making where the person seeking credit has very little influence on the lender's decisions.
Questions, then:
- Can I compel the servicer to report the mortgage to the 3 major bureaus somehow, legally or otherwise?
- My FICO (avg) was 430 in 2008 and is now at 635 after paying off 6 of 7 credit cards and the car loan (and should be around 685 next month according to the score predictor when I pay off the 7th.) Would it help my score to have my mortgage being reported as current/on time every month? I'm trying to get above 700 again. (I was at 726 when I got the loan in 2005.) Or does the mortgage not really matter that much to the score and I don't need to worry about it?
- Is this standard practice for failed banks whose mortgages have been "recovered" by the FDIC and resold? (i.e. non-reporting the loan)
Thank you in advance for any information or light which you may be able to shed on this subject.
Starting Score: 722