O R D E R
Amy Joan Schneider and Wayne Patterson sued the banks involved in foreclosure proceedings on Schneider's home. The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that the claims were untimely. We affirm. In 2002, Schneider took out a mortgage loan with Wells Fargo Bank on her home in Normal, Illinois. Patterson is a tenant of the property. When Schneider's financial circumstances changed in 2009, she reached out to the bank seeking a loan modification. After more than a year of phone calls and written correspondence between Schneider and Wells Fargo about modifying the mortgage, Wells Fargo offered Schneider a Trial Period Plan†in November 2010. In a written agreement, Schneider agreed to make three payments from December 2010 to February 2011, each lower than her original installments. The agreement stated that after the plan concluded, Schneider's loan would not be current, and Wells Fargo would review any outstanding payments to determine whether to proceed with a loan modification. The agreement continued that the "lender is under no obligation to enter into any further agreement."
But Schneider alleges that Wells Fargo orally agreed to permanently modify her loan once she timely made the three payments.
Schneider never received a modification, and Wells Fargo commenced a foreclosure action in state court in 2015. The foreclosure action became final in 2024. Schneider and Patterson sued Wells Fargo and other banks involved in the foreclosure proceedings in federal court in 2019. The district court stayed proceedings until the state-court foreclosure action became final. When the federal litigation resumed, the plaintiffs filed a third amended complaint in January 2025, alleging that, among other things, Wells Fargo breached the Trial Payment Plan agreement and violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act by failing to respond to Schneider's written requests for an accounting and payment history, see 12 U.S.C § 2605(e)(B), wrongly charging escrow fees, see id. § 2605(g), and proceeding with the foreclosure process while also reviewing Schneider's loan modification application, see id. § 2605(f). † The parties refer to the agreement as the Trial Period Plan, but the agreement attached to the plaintiffs' complaint is titled, "Special Forbearance Agreement." The plaintiffs also alleged that Schneider had another Trial Period Plan with Wells Fargo from September 2009 to January 2010.
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The district court determined that each of the plaintiffs' claims was time-barred. The court first concluded that the breach-of-contract claim was untimely because the Trial Period Plan was an oral agreement, breached in 2011, and subject to Illinois's five- year statute of limitations. The court was unpersuaded by the plaintiffs' assertion that the statute of limitations should have been tolled for fraudulent concealment, stating they did not allege affirmative facts showing how Wells Fargo delayed their ability to sue. The court then determined that the claims under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act were subject to a three-year statute of limitations. Those claims also were untimely, the court concluded, because they arose from conduct occurring no later than 2011.
The court then denied the plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a fourth amended complaint. It concluded that the plaintiffs unduly delayed and acted in bad faith because they filed the motion on the same day the defendants moved to dismiss and attempted to introduce facts they had known since 2023 but had not included in their third amended complaint filed in January 2025.
Within 28 days of the entry of judgment, the plaintiffs filed a "motion for leave to file motion to reconsider" and attached a motion to alter or amend a judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59. In the motion, they argued that the district court erred in dismissing the complaint and sought leave to amend their complaint again. The district court denied the motion, explaining in a footnote that leave to file a motion under Rule 59 was not required and construing the documents together as a motion to alter or amend the judgment. Less than 30 days later, the plaintiffs appealed. We first address our jurisdiction. Wells Fargo argues that the plaintiffs' appeal is untimely because their motion for leave to file a motion to reconsider did not toll their time to file the notice of appeal. Wells Fargo contends that the district court incorrectly construed the plaintiffs' motion as a motion to alter or amend the judgment. But we agree with the district court's construction. Labels are largely irrelevant to the suspending effect of a post-judgment motion: "A motion under Rule 59(e) need not be labeled as such or use the words 'alter or amend' so long as it 'instead uses a synonym.'" Carlson v. CSX Transp., Inc., 758 F.3d 819, 825 (7th Cir. 2014) (quoting Borrero
v. City of Chicago, 456 F.3d 698, 699 (7th Cir. 2006)). Although the plaintiffs' motion was attached to another filing unnecessarily, it was filed within 28 days of judgment, sought to alter the judgment, and was explicitly labeled as a motion to reconsider under Rule
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59(e). Thus, the notice of appeal filed within 30 days of the denial of the post-judgment motion is timely, and so our jurisdiction is secure.
On the merits, the plaintiffs first argue that the district court erred by concluding that Wells Fargo's promise to modify Schneider's loan after completing the Trial Period Plan was an oral contract subject to Illinois's five-year statute of limitations. See 735 ILCS 5/13-205. The plaintiffs contend that the written agreement Schneider signed, which stated that she must make three consecutive monthly payments, was the entire written contract, so the district court should have applied Illinois's ten-year statute of limitations. See id. 5/13-206. But they waived this argument because in the district court, they argued that the contract was made up of both written and oral agreements. See Bradley v. Vill. of Univ. Park, 59 F.4th 887, 897 (7th Cir. 2023). Regardless, the written agreement they point to, which they attached to their original complaint, supports application of a five-year statute of limitations. See Fin. Fiduciaries, LLC v. Gannett Co., 46 F.4th 654, 663 (7th Cir. 2022) ("[A] court may consider documents that are (1) referenced in the plaintiff's complaint, (2) concededly authentic, and (3) central to the plaintiff's claim."). The written agreement states that the parties were under no obligation to enter into a further agreement, and it does not contain any information about a permanent loan modification. A promise to enter the loan modification based on Schneider's performance on the three consecutive monthly payments is therefore outside the four corners of the written contract. And under Illinois law, a contract requiring extrinsic materials to make out the essential terms (here, the promise to permanently modify the loan) is an oral contract. Portfolio Acquisitions, LLC v. Feltman, 909 N.E.2d 876, 880 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009). The plaintiffs' complaint alleges a breach of the contract at the latest in 2011, so we agree with the district court that this claim, brought in 2019, is untimely under the five-year statute of limitations.
The plaintiffs respond that even if the claim were untimely, the district court should have tolled the statute of limitations based on fraudulent concealment. The plaintiffs assert that years after foreclosure proceedings began, they discovered that Wells Fargo represented for several months in 2010 that it was willing to engage in a permanent loan modification when it was not. Illinois law permits tolling of the statute of limitations if the plaintiff "pleads and proves that fraud prevented discovery of the cause of action." Henderson Square Condo. Ass'n v. LAB Townhomes, L.L.C., 46 N.E.3d 706, 716 (Ill. 2015) (citing 735 ILCS 5/13-215). But fraudulent concealment does not toll the statute of limitations if the plaintiff knew of the cause of action within the statutory time
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frame. Butler v. BRG Sports, LLC, 141 N.E.3d 1104, 1117 (Ill. App. Ct. 2019) (citing Morris
v. Margulis, 754 N.E.2d 314 (Ill. 2001)). The plaintiffs' complaint alleges that Wells Fargo's concealment continued only through February 2011, when the trial program ended, and Schneider knew Wells Fargo did not offer the permanent loan modification. The complaint lacks any other allegations of concealment beyond that date. So, even if Wells Fargo concealed its decision not to offer Schneider a permanent loan modification until 2011, tolling would not apply to this claim.
The plaintiffs next assert that the district court erred in concluding that their claim under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act was untimely. On appeal, they state that Schneider submitted written requests for an accounting and payment history from 2023 to 2025, which are "qualified written requests" to which Wells Fargo was required to respond under the Act. But those facts were not before the district court— the plaintiffs' complaint alleged violations only up to 2011. A complaint may not be amended on appeal. See Agnew v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 683 F.3d 328, 348 (7th Cir. 2012). So we agree with the district court that 2011 provided the outer bound of the alleged violations. Thus, the plaintiffs' claim filed in 2019 is outside the Act's three- year statute of limitations. See 12 U.S.C. § 2614.
Finally, the plaintiffs challenge the district court's denial of their request to file a fourth amended complaint. We review the denial for abuse of discretion. Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 97 F.4th 1077, 1088 (7th Cir. 2024). The district court denied the request because it determined the request was made in bad faith and the plaintiffs unduly delayed in seeking to amend. The court reasoned that the plaintiffs received the information that they wished to include in the amended complaint in 2023, yet they did not include it in the third amended complaint filed in January 2025. Because the plaintiffs provide no reason for their delay in seeking to amend the complaint for the fourth time, we see no abuse of discretion. See Johnson v. Cypress Hill, 641 F.3d 867, 871- 72 (7th Cir. 2011).
AFFIRMED
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