A: American Home Mortgage, a large national mortgage provider, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last summer. Apparently it didn't let you in on this then so you had no heads-up that problems with your credit line were looming.

While letting you know certainly would have been a considerate business decision (imagine the potential fallout if one of your checks had bounced), it's not a legal requirement, says Deb Bortner. She heads consumer services for the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions.

Companies going under "could have literally thousands of customers when they go into bankruptcy," says Bortner. "I can't think of a single state that would require such a notice."

So in these rocky financial times, that puts the responsibility on home-loan holders to follow the news. One Web site that can help is The Mortgage Lender at http://mi-implode.com.

It tracks which companies are shaky as well as which have "imploded." So far more than 200 have gone out of business as the subprime meltdown continues to take a toll.