This is the story:
It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn’t owe a dime on their home….
The couple said they paid cash for the house. The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn’t owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay. A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners….
After more than 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank’s assets.
Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the Nyergers’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it.
But the bank was able to produce a check at the very last minute and stop the foreclosure—a deus ex machina that can only appear in the dreams of struggling homeowners. But what is telling about the story is precisely the bank’s confusion. The bank saw one thing: no money was flowing from a house. And this absence of payments is an anomaly for the bank. Not paying because you have no money to keep your debt current is an anomaly; not paying because you “don’t owe a dime” is an anomaly. Not paying is the universal anomaly.
This isn’t nearly as unusual as the media would have you believe. Banks can be foreclosed on just like anything else. I foreclosed on the Bank of Aspen back in 1985. Put them out of business, too. It happens.
@1, so how does that work, exactly? Obviously Bank of America is a gigantic corporation so the entire corporation doesn’t go down in order to pay someone’s legal fees. Assuming Bank of America didn’t pull the money out when the lawyers+police came calling, what would happen? I can’t imagine Bank of America just closes. Are they legally separated into branches, so that whichever branch is responsible gets forclosed and the rest of the beast stays intact? I know that’s the way the Catholic Church avoided paying rape victims in some cases, by declaring diocese bankrupt and pretending they were independent entities, not associated with the wider church. Does something similar happen with banks?
Lynx, I don’t know how they’re structured, so I can’t answer that. If you get a judgment against a corporation, all of that corporation’s assets are fair game. But major corporations are set up with such complexity that it becomes a shell game.
Wow. Imagine a bank getting TARP funds and they’re still not enough to hire some people to proofread and double-check documents. What do you bet that the Nyergers tried to work this out with the Bank of America branch, and that the funds they won would have covered an average bank worker’s salary for a year?
Big Corporations flexing their muscles and doing everything they can to fuck over their customers is the capitalist’s wet dream.
@1 It’s not so much that a bank can be foreclosed on, who gives a fuck. The point here is that a multinational corporation let their legal troubles get so out of hand deputies showed up on their property ready to take away anything of value from their office with threat of violence until their debts were paid to the lawful owners. It’s an incredible personal statement about your affairs if you’re so incompetent that after being found guilty multiple times in a court of law you still refuse to pay up, after making record profits gobbling up a sizable share of their competition they can’t follow the law? Did we fucking stutter? What other parts of the law does this entity not think it’s required to comply with? It’s a sign of how much anti-trust law is needed in these companies that are not only too big to fail, they’re too big to function properly. This isn’t the first mistake a bank has made, and it’s not the first time a customer has had to demand their fair share. At a certain point you’ve got to look at the situation and say it’s a shit sandwich for everyone but the assholes making money off just having it. These are the people who, even if they make this kind of mistake a billion times will never face any kind of punishment. They are above the law because they own it, we’re still whining about banks that can’t stop foreclosing on houses they’ve never owned when the real criminals have already walked away with billions. It’s all in the game though, right? Who gives a fuck as long as I get mine, should have played the game better.
Eh, banks are notoriously incompetent. That’s not breaking news to anyone who’s had a lot of dealings with them. I guess that’s what you get when you pay your employees peanuts.
This story bothers the hell out of me. Not for the bank not paying the judgement until the wronged party foreclosed on them, but for the judgement itself being so paltry.
The bank initiated a wrongful legal action. They swore false papers that this person was in debt to them. They swore a false claim on the property owned by this person. They suffered no penalty at all, if all they had to do was pay the legal fees to defend against their action. They should be culpable for a lot more, not only to the person they tried to foreclose on, but to the Court, for basing a legal action on a complete falsehood.
This is the moral equivalent of letting a failed bank robber get off with just having to pay for the fingerprint card and photograph. What are we saying? Better luck next time?
@3: “I don’t know how it works, but I certainly know it doesn’t work that way.”
Lol, ok.
@4,
The judgment was only about $2,500. That’s not enough to keep a worker employed for a month, especially not if you include benefits and payroll taxes.
@8, what is have said is the dark truth about this mess. and there is also the emotional stress the bank caused. it’s really staggering.
@8 – Srsly. I was shocked to see no fines levied for the outright lying. Banksters!