If someone showed up and took photos of your house, your mortgage company almost certainly sent them. Servicers routinely order property inspections to confirm the home is occupied, maintained, and insured, and the standard mortgage contract gives them the right to do it. Most of the time the visit is a quick exterior drive-by tied to your loan status or a specific event, not a warning sign on its own.
Why Your Servicer Would Order One
The most common trigger is a missed payment. Once a loan falls behind, the servicer needs to know whether anyone is still living in the home and whether the property is being kept up, because a vacant house loses value quickly. Fannie Mae requires servicers to order an inspection starting at the 90th day of delinquency and complete it by the 120th day, with monthly follow-ups continuing as long as the loan stays at least 90 days past due.1Fannie Mae. Requirements for Performing Property Inspections For FHA-insured loans the timeline is shorter: servicers must visually inspect the property no later than 60 days after a missed payment if they haven’t been able to reach the borrower.2HUD: Office of Housing. Mortgagee Letter 2013-39 – Methods of Communication with Borrowers
Insurance is another frequent reason. Your mortgage contract requires you to keep hazard insurance in place, and federal rules bar servicers from buying force-placed coverage unless they have a reasonable basis to believe your policy has lapsed.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1024 (Regulation X) – 1024.37 Force-Placed Insurance Photos help them decide whether coverage is really in question.
Other triggers are more routine. Applying for a loan modification or refinance usually prompts a drive-by so the lender has a current look at the property. Bankruptcy filings prompt inspections too. After a federally declared disaster, servicers are required to determine whether the home can still serve as adequate collateral, and for some FHA loans that includes interior and exterior photos.4HUD. Mortgagee Letter 2025-19 – Presidentially-Declared Major Disaster Areas Sometimes the visit is nothing more than a random quality-control check with no specific concern behind it.
What Your Mortgage Contract Allows
Lenders aren’t inventing this right. You granted it when you signed. The standard uniform security instrument used by most conventional mortgages contains a section on preservation and protection of the property that lets the lender or its agent make reasonable entries upon and inspections of the property.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Deed of Trust – Uniform Instrument That clause covers exterior visits without prior notice, which describes almost every photo inspection.
Interior inspections work differently. The same contract language requires the lender to give you notice before entering the inside of your home and to have reasonable cause.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Deed of Trust – Uniform Instrument In practice, interior visits happen when the property looks vacant or abandoned. If a delinquent loan is tied to an empty home, the servicer may enter to secure it, which can mean changing locks, draining pipes, adding antifreeze, or boarding broken windows.
You cannot refuse a legitimate exterior inspection. Photographs taken from the street or your yard don’t require your permission because the inspector isn’t entering the home. You can decline entry for an interior inspection if you’re living there, and a legitimate inspector won’t press.
How to Tell a Real Inspector From a Scam
A legitimate inspector hired by your servicer will typically stay outside, take a few photos from the street or driveway, and leave. They should be able to show identification or a work order that names the inspection company and includes a reference or order number. They will not ask you for money at the door. Inspection fees are billed through your mortgage account, never collected in person. And they won’t pressure you: if you approach them, they’ll explain who sent them and move on.
Be cautious if someone claims to represent your lender but can’t produce credentials, asks to come inside without a prior appointment, requests payment on the spot, or warns of immediate consequences if you don’t cooperate. Don’t let anyone into your home based only on their claim to work for your servicer. Call your servicer using the number on your mortgage statement to confirm.
What to Do Right Now
If you’re home and comfortable doing so, ask who the person is and who sent them. Write down their name, the inspection company, and any reference number they give you. A real inspector won’t mind.
Then check your own loan status. Pull up your most recent mortgage statement and payment history. If you’re behind on payments, have a pending modification, recently applied to refinance, or had a question about your insurance, the visit is almost certainly connected. If everything looks current, it may be a quality-control check.
Call your servicer using the number on your statement, not any number the inspector hands you. Ask them to confirm that an inspection was ordered, which company performed it, and why. Federal rules require servicers to maintain procedures for providing accurate and timely information in response to borrower requests.6eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.38 – General Servicing Policies, Procedures, and Requirements
Keep a written record: the date and time, the inspector’s name and company if you got it, the servicer representative you spoke with, and what they told you. That record helps if fees later appear on your account or the visits become more frequent than the guidelines allow.
Fees That May Show Up on Your Account
Inspections aren’t free, and the cost usually lands on you. Servicers pass inspection charges through to borrowers, generally between $10 and $50 per visit.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Supervisory Highlights – Mortgage Servicing Edition For FHA-insured loans, HUD caps initial and follow-up occupancy inspections at $30 per visit and vacant property inspections at $45.8HUD. Mortgagee Letter 2023-20 – Update to Property Inspection Fees Small numbers add up on a delinquent loan getting monthly visits.
Servicers are required to list fees charged to your account on your periodic mortgage statement, so check the transaction activity section for inspection line items.9eCFR. 12 CFR 1026.41 – Periodic Statements for Residential Mortgage Loans The CFPB has flagged servicers that charged inspection fees in situations where investor guidelines said they shouldn’t have, such as monthly inspections on an occupied home when the borrower had been in contact, made a recent payment, or was performing under a workout plan.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Supervisory Highlights – Mortgage Servicing Edition If you’re behind but staying in touch with your servicer or working a modification and you’re seeing someone outside every month, that’s worth raising.
If the Visit Is About Your Insurance, Act Fast
An inspection tied to insurance can lead to a real expense. If your servicer decides your hazard coverage has lapsed, they can buy a policy for you, known as force-placed or lender-placed insurance, and charge the premium to your account. Those policies typically cost several times more than a standard homeowners policy and cover far less, since they protect the lender’s interest rather than your belongings or liability.
Federal rules give you a window to fix the problem. Your servicer must send a written notice at least 45 days before charging you for force-placed insurance, followed by a second reminder at least 30 days after the first and no fewer than 15 days before the charge.10eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.37 – Force-Placed Insurance If you provide proof of coverage before the deadline, the servicer cannot place the policy. If a force-placed policy is already in effect and you later obtain your own, the servicer must cancel the force-placed coverage within 15 days and refund any overlapping premiums.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1024 (Regulation X) – 1024.37 Force-Placed Insurance
If a letter about your insurance status shows up around the same time as the inspection, don’t set it aside. Call your insurance agent, confirm your policy is active, and send proof to your servicer before the deadline in the notice.