Build your case
What to keep, what to request, and what you need to file reports and complaints
Get Help is for the week you are in. This page is for the record you are building: what to keep, where to file it, and the legal grounds a lawyer will ask you about. None of it is fast, and all of it compounds.
PAPER TRAIL · WHAT TO KEEP AND WHY
Document everything, starting today
What to save, how to record it, and why the paper trail is the part of this you control.
WHAT TO SAVE
- Every letter
- Every email
- Every voicemail
- Every phone call record. Note who you spoke with, when, and what they said.
- Every text message
- Every VA portal screenshot
WHY THIS MATTERS EVEN IF IT DOESN'T STOP YOUR FORECLOSURE
Every complaint filed is evidence. When attorneys bring class action or injunctive relief, they need documented patterns across families. Your filing makes the case stronger for everyone.
Where to file reports
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CFPB complaint
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VA OIG hotline
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State Attorney General
search "[your state] attorney general consumer complaint"
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Your Congressional representatives
Call (202) 224-3121 and file a constituent casework request.
BUILD YOUR CASE · THE PAGES UNDER IT
Three paperwork checks, and how to share your story
Each stands alone. Start with whichever paperwork you already have.
ESCROW · WHAT A GRANTED EXEMPTION SHOULD COST YOU
A property tax exemption can be granted and charged anyway
A county can grant a disabled veteran a property tax exemption and the mortgage company can keep collecting the full tax anyway. Seven things to check on your own statements.
The county lowers the bill. The escrow account is a separate calculation, and it is not told.
Renewing with the assessor keeps the county record right and changes nothing about your monthly payment. Seven checks, from your escrow disclosure and your tax statement, show whether the exemption reached your escrow account.
REFINANCE RULES · WHAT FEDERAL LAW REQUIRES
Federal law sets six conditions for a VA refinance
If a lender refinanced your VA loan, all six can be checked from your own closing papers, without a lawyer. Ten questions your closing papers answer, and what the VA Inspector General found.
Congress wrote these conditions in 2018 to stop lenders refinancing the same veteran again and again for a small rate cut and a new round of fees. VA’s Inspector General later reported that the department could not confirm lenders were meeting three of them.
The six conditions, a ten-question self-check you can answer from your own paperwork, and what the Inspector General found.
MORTGAGE RELIEF · RATE, BALANCE, REVIEW TIMING
Check your modification or loss-mitigation file
A high-rate modification, denial, short-sale offer or foreclosure notice raises different questions than a refinance. Start by naming the option, then check the rate rule, balance math, review dates, denial reasons and foreclosure timeline that apply to that option.
The page separates a calculation question from a possible compliance issue, and shows what documents to request before calling something a violation.
YOUR STORY
Share your story safely
What we publish, what we never publish, and how to send it with the least risk.
Looking for the claims register, the source register or the receipts? They live under Sources & Data, written for reporters, congressional staff and counsel: the evidence page and data and methods.
LEGAL GROUNDS · WHAT COUNSEL WILL ASK ABOUT
Counsel is scarce for structural reasons, and fee-shifting is the fact that changes the ask
Why these cases are hard to place, the three things attorneys can actually do, and the provision that makes the work payable.
You may have heard: “the VA isn’t the one foreclosing” →
The largest concrete gap in this crisis is legal representation. Families need attorneys who work in RESPA and mortgage-servicing litigation, and there are three things those attorneys can do that nothing else on this site can:
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File for injunctive relief
A court order pausing foreclosures and evictions until H.R. 1815 is implemented, or until the VA complies with its own circulars and statutory authority.
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Bring a class action
Represent the 15,000+ families who have already lost homes and the 90,000 more in the foreclosure pipeline, behind on their loans or already in the foreclosure process, of whom roughly 31,500 are in active foreclosure, rather than one case at a time.
DOCUMENTED FACT Sen. Blumenthal, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, May 20, 2026; ICE Mortgage Technology data via NPR; NCLC / Cohen to the House Veterans’ Affairs Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, March 26, 2026, for the active-foreclosure figure.
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Enforce existing law
H.R. 1815 is signed law. 38 U.S.C. § 3732 and § 3733 give the VA authority over properties it owns. Where the VA will not act voluntarily, a judge can compel it.
Fee-shifting is the fact most families do not know to lead with.
RESPA’s fee-shifting provision, 12 U.S.C. § 2605(f), and state consumer-protection statutes, make wrongful-foreclosure litigation viable as a paid engagement rather than pro bono. A family with documented servicer misconduct, rate-cap violations, dual tracking, escrow overcharges on a tax-exempt property, “Not Reviewed” loss-mitigation marks or VALERI submission failures is a paid-capable plaintiff in a fee-shifting jurisdiction. Say that when you call.
STATE EXAMPLE, WASHINGTON
Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, RCW 19.86, is the state-law half of the fee-shifting argument here, and RCW 19.86.090 is where the damages and attorney-fee provisions sit. Nearly every state has an equivalent consumer-protection statute. Search “[your state] consumer protection act attorney fees” and bring the citation to the call. RESPA fee-shifting under 12 U.S.C. § 2605(f) is federal and applies wherever you live.
PROJECT ANALYSIS
Powers v. Collins is the parallel precedent. Public Counsel is litigating Powers v. Collins (9th Cir. No. 24-6576; C.D. Cal. 2:22-cv-08357; affirmed December 23, 2025) on VA non-implementation in the homeless-veteran-housing context. The same theory of unreasonable agency delay applies to the H.R. 1815 implementation gap.
FAMILIES AND ATTORNEYS WHO WANT TO COORDINATE
veteransforeclosurecrisis@gmail.com. This project tracks a documented cohort across multiple states and servicers, with congressional oversight and federal and state investigations open.