$1.5M PHH Mortgage Corp. misleading default notices class action settlement

Who Was Eligible?

Who the settlement covered:

• FDCPA Class (nationwide). Borrowers on residential mortgage loans anywhere in the United States that were serviced by PHH, where PHH took over servicing while the loan was already 30 or more days delinquent, and PHH sent one or more Notices of Default between 18 December 2022 and 15 December 2025. About 77,517 loans.
• California Class. Borrowers whose mortgaged property is in California, whose loan was serviced by PHH, and who were sent one or more Notices of Default between 18 December 2022 and 15 December 2025. About 20,612 loans.
• North Carolina Class. Borrowers whose mortgaged property is in North Carolina, whose loan was serviced by PHH, and who were sent one or more Notices of Default between 14 January 2021 and 15 December 2025 — a window almost two years longer than the other two. About 7,405 loans.
• You can be in two classes at once. 9,551 loans sit in the FDCPA class and in either the California or North Carolina class. Those loans draw a payment from each fund they belong to.
• Who was excluded: PHH's board members and executive officers, the judges assigned to the case and their close relatives, and the 23 loans whose borrowers asked to be excluded — 22 by the 5 May 2026 deadline, plus one late request the court allowed anyway.
• The three classes cover 95,983 loans in total, and more people than that — a loan with two borrowers on it has two class members.

How Much Did It Pay?

The $1.5 million is not one pot. It is three separate $500,000 funds — one for the FDCPA class, one for California, one for North Carolina. Each fund pays an equal amount to every loan in its own class, after that fund's share of legal fees, service awards and administration costs comes out. Payment is made jointly to all borrowers on a loan, so co-borrowers share one payment rather than each getting their own.

What that works out to per loan. In its final approval order the court put the estimated recovery at $4.34 for the FDCPA class, $16.33 for the California class and $45.46 for the North Carolina class — and those figures assumed the lawyers got everything they asked for. The court's own summary was blunt: class members "have received scant monetary compensation, with the vast majority of class members receiving less than $5.00."

The real figures should be a little better than that. Class counsel asked for $500,000 in fees; the judge cut the award to $275,536 plus $8,003.82 in expenses, roughly $224,000 less than requested. None of the settlement money goes back to PHH, so what the lawyers did not get stays in the funds and is shared out among the loans. The court has not published a revised per-loan figure, so treat $4.34, $16.33 and $45.46 as the floor rather than the final number. PHH is also paying up to $200,000 of administration costs separately, on top of the funds.

If this feels small for a case about foreclosure threats, that is worth knowing before you go looking for it in the mail — and it is fairly typical. Average class action payouts are far below the headline fund size, and how attorney fees are set explains why the court trimmed the fee request here.

A default notice on your file often leaves a mark on your credit report too, which is worth checking while you are here: the Equifax duplicate-reporting settlement pays up to $600 and is still open. You can also browse every settlement currently accepting claims, since this one needs nothing further from you.

How you get paid

You did not have to file anything. The steps below describe how the administrator pays class members and what you can still do to make sure your payment reaches you.

• Do nothing, and a check comes to you. The court ordered payment to every class member who did not opt out, so there was never a claim form. A check goes to the mailing address PHH holds for you.
• Moved since January 2021? Tell the administrator. If your address changed, the check follows the old one. Use "Update My Address" on the official settlement site, or call 1-844-329-3048 or email info@WilliamsPHHSettlement.com.
• Want it electronically instead of a check? The administrator's payment portal at williamsphhsettlement.digitaldisbursements.com lets you pick how you are paid. Note there is no www. in that address — the www version throws a security-certificate warning, because that hostname is not covered by the site's certificate. Alarming, but not a sign of fraud.
• When. Final approval was entered 22 June 2026 and the Final Settlement Date passed on 23 July 2026. The administrator expects payments to be issued no later than 6 October 2026.
• If nothing arrives by mid-October, call the administrator on 1-844-329-3048 rather than any number that turns up in a search result. Eisner Advisory Group LLC is the court-appointed administrator; nobody else is authorised to take your details for this settlement. If a message about this settlement reaches you by email, check the sender against the administrator's real address before replying to it.

Frequently Asked Questions