Does the servicer actually have to respond to me or am I just hoping they do

The seller is still your lever here, not SN. Six weeks post-closing the seller should be making calls on your behalf because the boarding gap is their mess, and if that is not in your purchase agreement as a deliverable you need to get it in the next one.

On SN specifically I had a similar transfer situation in 2022, Fay to a new servicer, and the gap did not close until I sent a formal written request directly to Fay's customer advocacy team at their Coppell address and cc'd the seller on everything. Fay moved in about eleven days after that because they still had a servicing obligation on the file until boarding confirmed complete.

Your borrower is warm right now and that window closes, so I would give the seller a hard deadline, like forty-eight hours to produce a Fay contact above the ops level, and make clear you are prepared to build your own reinstatement estimate from the note docs and credit pull and hand him that number with a caveat, because a good-faith approximate number keeps the conversation alive better than silence does.

The part I have never seen work is waiting on Fay to "send it eventually" after a transfer. What actually happens is both servicers point at each other indefinitely and six months later you still have a gap.

Pull the Ohio court filings yourself. If there was any prior foreclosure action started after 2021 the complaint exhibits sometimes contain a full payment history and a reinstatement figure, which at least gives you an anchor number you can cross-reference against whatever SN eventually produces. On SN specifically, their loss mitigation line is separate from the standard servicing queue and in my experience that team responds faster when you frame the outreach as an active workout rather than a records request.

Six weeks with SN on a transferred note is not unusual unfortunately, I had almost identical circumstances on a Midwest first in 2022, Fay to SN transfer mid-default, and the boarding gap did not close until week eleven. What actually moved it was not calling the servicing line, it was sending a written request directly to SN's boarding department with the prior servicer's loan number, the transfer effective date, and a specific ask for the payment history in 403(b) format rather than just "account history" which is vague enough that they can send you a one-page screenshot and call it done. The contact I used was their default servicing operations email rather than the general inbox, which I got by calling and asking specifically for a boarding coordinator, not a servicer rep. That distinction mattered. Also filed a QWR styled as if I were servicer of record requesting it on behalf of the asset, which your attorney may push back on but it got a faster internal routing.

The borrower being on the phone willing to talk is actually your most useful clock right now. I would tell him you are working on the reinstatement figure and give him a good faith estimate range based on what you can piece together, contractual payment times months delinquent plus a conservative escrow assumption, and use that number to create urgency on your end with SN because you can tell them you have a borrower-initiated reinstatement pending and you need a certified figure within X days or the deal falls apart. Servicers move faster when there is a reinstatement fee about to get booked. My question is whether you have the original note and allonge in hand, because if there is a break in the chain of endorsements from the Fay period that is a separate problem that will surface the second you try to foreclose and it is worth confirming before you get further into

SN on a boarding gap after a Fay transfer ran me about eleven weeks before I had anything I would actually use in a workout conversation, and that was with a direct email to their default servicing supervisor rather than the main line. The general number is a dead end on these.

Your attorney is right that the RESPA QWR timeline doesn't run to you the same way, but if your borrower sends a written request for a payoff or reinstatement figure directly, SN has to respond to him within a defined window and that number becomes yours to work with. Worth a five-minute conversation with the borrower about sending that letter.

On the Fay gap, I would not wait on the seller's "eventually." A direct records request to Fay's payment history team with your note purchase agreement attached moved faster for me than anything the seller tried to pull through their own channel.

Your attorney is right but that does not mean you are stuck waiting on SN. I would go back to the seller with a hard deadline, something like ten business days or you are putting the reinstatement conversation on hold and they are eating any value erosion from the delay, because the boarding gap is functionally their problem to clean up not yours. On the borrower side I would get him to pull his own payment history from Fay directly, borrowers have QWR rights the servicer has to honor and Fay has 30 days to respond to him, which is faster than anything you are going to get through the investor channel.

The borrower wanting to work something out is your pressure point. Get him to send SN a qualified written request for his own payment history, because RESPA obligates them to respond to him within five business days and that timeline is not optional.

Done that twice, got the number faster than waiting on investor channels either time. What I would want to confirm first: what does your collateral file show for the last P&I advance date, because if Fay was advancing during that gap the UPB you are working from may be dirtier than it looks.