PING!
I was thinking that what business have the banks in hiring private contractors to do this, shouldn’t they be working through the sheriffs?
But then I thought, it’s probably better that they use private contractors, because private contractors can be sued.
The headline is wrong. They were not “foreclosed” upon. No foreclosure proceeding was done. They were simply burglarized and forcibly ejected from possession.
Isn’t that [grand] larceny?
Wouldn’t the bank be very, very liable in court?
If they come home and discover a “contractor” burglarizing their house this way and the “contractor” happens to be shot during the resulting altercation what is the legality?
If they use deadly force on a brazen intruder do they get arrested? Convicted?
Any bank that makes this kind of mistake should be treated like a burglary ring. People should go to jail.
And, Harriet, you were right. You were robbed. Prosecute.
It has happened many many times. Often the target house is stripped to the walls. People have been forcibly ejected from their homes in “mistaken” foreclosures. “Wrong addresses” happen. People do not, of course, get their possessions back. Possessions are either sold immediately (by a contractor)or destroyed.
All I’ll say is if there were to happen to me I’d be on a no holds barred rampage.
“SafeGuard Properties, of Valley View, Ohio,”
2 minutes from my house! Never heard of them.
They might not know it, but the bank just bought these folks a lovely second home. if that’s what the folks decide to do with their coming flood of money.
“The bank” has done a great job keeping their name out of the article.
RICO charges should be filed against the bank and the company that did this.
The homeowners blew it by not insisting the promissory note be returned to them as their property when the loan was paid off.
Depending on year loan was taken out, it was converted to an asset as a mortgage backed security. When the loan was paid early, the bank kept paying the MBS because it had destroyed the original note in the conversion process. And /or it sold it into multiple security trusts, and the closing of one of the multiples triggered a false ‘foreclosure’.
Read Matt Tiabbi in Rolling Stone to get a real account of what’s going on behind the scenes.
I don’t wish this mistake on anyone. However, I hope they can look on the bright side. These folks have hit the Lotto.