Mortgage servicers regularly make errors and break the rules of the government’s mortgage modification program, according to hundreds of homeowners who responded to a ProPublica questionnaire.

For example, all homeowners who are rejected are supposed to receive a formal denial from their mortgage servicer, according to the program’s rules. But 136 homeowners reported that they had been rejected from the program without receiving a formal denial. Additionally, homeowners reported more than 1,000 instances of mortgage servicer errors, including losing documents and giving false information.

ProPublica received detailed responses from 373 homeowners – all of whom applied to get a modification through the administration’s foreclosure prevention program.

Here’s what homeowners said:

• On average, they’d been seeking a modification for more than 14 months. The process is designed to last only a few months.

• Homeowners seeking modifications reported having to send the same documents nearly six times on average.

• 175 homeowners say they were advised, incorrectly, to fall behind on their mortgage in order to qualify for a modification.

Although about 1.3 million homeowners have begun trial modifications through the program, fewer than 400,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications, according to Treasury Department data. Far more have either been denied a modification or have been left waiting months for an answer.

The trials are supposed to last only three months, but have lasted at least twice that long for hundreds of thousands of borrowers. Despite violations of the program guidelines such as the extended trials, the Treasury Department has not penalized any servicers.

John Mechem, spokesman for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said: "While 14 months can be an extremely long time to a borrower in distress, it also reflects the difficulty of completing a workout." The servicer might evaluate the homeowner for a variety of options, he said, sometimes restarting the process if the homeowner starts down one path and turns out not to qualify.

The most common problems had to do with servicer mishandling of documents. On average, homeowners who completed the questionnaire have been asked to submit the same documents more than six times. The most common reason for having to resend the documents — in over 270 cases — was that the servicer claimed never to have received the documents or had simply lost them. The next most common reason was that documents were outdated. Homeowners frequently complain that servicers take so long to evaluate modifications that the documents become outdated and they must be sent again. That happened in 252 cases. In about 200 cases, homeowners were told their documents were incomplete.