THE Henard family in California thought they had finally fixed the mortgage that was crushing them.

    In January, Joseph and Neidin Henard reached a settlement with every company that had a stake in the mortgage on their house in Santa Cruz, California, a deal that would have slashed their monthly payment by almost 40 percent to US$3,337. It was the end of a process that started with their defaulting in 2009.

    But when they saw the final paperwork for their settlement, they found that Ocwen Financial Corp., the company that collected and processed their mortgage payments, had added an extra clause: they could not say or print or post anything negative about Ocwen, ever.

    The Henards’ experience was not unusual. Mortgage payment collectors at companies including Ocwen, Bank of America Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group are agreeing to ease the terms of borrowers’ underwater mortgages, but they are increasingly demanding that homeowners promise not to insult them publicly, consumer lawyers say. In many cases, they are demanding that homeowners’ lawyers agree to the same terms. Sometimes, they even require borrowers to agree not to sue them again.

    These clauses can hurt borrowers who later have problems with their mortgage collector by preventing them from complaining publicly about their difficulties or suing, lawyers said. If a collector, known as a servicer, makes an error, getting everything fixed can be a nightmare without litigation or public outcry.

    A 2013 report by the National Consumer Law Center found that servicers routinely lost borrowers’ paperwork, inaccurately input information, failed to send important letters to the correct address — or sometimes just didn’t send them at all.

    “If your servicer screws up, you can’t say anything about it,” said homeowner attorney Danielle Kelley in Tallahassee, Florida. “The homeowner has no defense.”

    Gag orders and bans on suing are appearing when borrowers use litigation to settle foreclosure and loan modification cases. But they are also popping up when servicers modify loan terms outside of the courts, known as “ordinary loan modifications,” according to consumer lawyers.(SD-Agencies)