NEW YORK CITY-Fitch Ratings has come across a disturbing trend: CMBS loans returning to master servicing without current financial data. From a pool of loans returned to master servicing in July and August, Fitch found limited financial data. And of the loans pegged as current and still in special servicing, the firm found that 60% had not reported year-end 2010 financials.

“It’s difficult to say how common it is from a historical perspective,” Fitch Ratings senior director Adam Fox tells GlobeSt.com, “because it’s not something we’ve looked at in the past. It came to light as we were starting to review more recent vintage transactions.” Fox says an increased volume of loans returning from special servicing prompted a closer look.

That look was two-fold—first, the loans that are current and still in special servicing, and then a small sample of loans that were being returned from special servicing to master servicing in July and August of this year. A high percentage of these were also missing current financials.

According to Fox, it’s hard to determine the cause. “We’re in the process of investigating that further by getting some of the business plans from these workouts to see where the trend is,” he says. Fitch will then look at whether it’s a case of the information not being possessed or of the special servicer having the information and not passing it along.

Regardless of the cause, though, potential danger lurks for the investor, ratings agencies and others who are unable to properly monitor a property’s performance. “When you don’t have financial information, “Fox says, “be it year-end 2010 or even most recent, it’s hard for your models to gauge how the property is performing.”