Report: Lenders wrongfully foreclosed on over 700 service members
A review of foreclosure cases also turns up 20 homeowners who lost their home despite never missing a payment.
A review of thousands of foreclosure cases has found that major lenders wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 members of the U.S. military, as well at least 20 homeowners who had never missed a payment.
The wrongful foreclosures were discovered in a review required by federal officials after a more comprehensive foreclosure review process was called off, DealBook reports.
"It’s absolutely devastating to be 7,000 miles from your home fighting for this country and get a message that your family is being evicted," Col. John S. Odom Jr., who represents military members in foreclosure cases, told DealBook. "We have been sounding the alarms that the banks are illegally evicting the very men and women who are out there fighting for this country. This is a devastating confirmation of that."
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A $25 billion settlement reached among the big lenders, the state attorneys general and federal regulators last year included a provision that anyone whose home had been in the foreclosure process with one of 14 lenders between 2009 and 2010 could apply to have the case reviewed. Those found to be the victims of bank misconduct would receive cash payouts.
But just weeks into the review process, which had been widely criticized, it was stopped. At the time, federal regulators said serious mistakes had been found in only 6.5% of the cases. The subsequent reviews found significantly higher rates of error, The Wall Street Journal reported. That includes the 700 members of the military who were the victim of improper foreclosures.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act bars lenders from foreclosing without a court order on "active-duty military personnel who had a mortgage obligation prior to enlistment or prior to being ordered to active duty."
Three lenders – Bank of America, Saxon Mortgage Services and JPMorgan Chase – have previously agreed to compensate about 200 members of the military who were the victims of improper foreclosures, in addition to paying about 6,000 who were overcharged on their mortgages.
The articles in DealBook and The Wall Street Journal were based on reports from insiders who had seen the data, and we don’t know yet what else regulators found. We may never know. That has been one criticism of the decision to halt the reviews, that the public will never know what the scope of lender error was in the foreclosure crisis.
| Tags: | foreclosures |
the word 'corporate wasn't as dirty word?
when bankers were among the most stable and trusted members of our society?
when the common guy felt he would get a fair shake out of the system he lives in?
Just how did this phase shift happen?
And to express it more colloquially, 'who let the dogs out?'.............or IN.
IT IS AMERICA GROVEED AND CORPORATE THEFT... THOSE BANKS GOT ALL THE MONEY FROM STUPID GOVERNMENT PROGRAM AND THEY ARE STILL ROBBING THE COMMON POOR CONSUMERS.. AFTER SIX YEARS THE GOVERNMENT STILL CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO CLEAR THE MESS.. IT WILL NEVER HAPPENED IN CHINA AS THEY ALWAYS HANG THEM AND GET RID OF SUCH ROBBERS...
HERE LOOKS LIKE...GOVERNMENT IS SLEEPING AND DOGS ARE EATING.. IMAGINE HOW MANY POOR FAMILIES THEY DESTROYED... BANKS , CORPORATION AND PARTICULARLY GOVERNMENT IS TO BE BLAMED ... WE SHOULD GET RID OF ALL THOSE AND BRING STRICT LAW OF ARMY ...AND PUT ALL THE GREEDY IN JAIL..
The new capitalism and new corporate "democracy" victimize everyone. Of course, with a supreme court that does not hesitate to express an unfair bias toward their corporate benefactors and supporters, while protecting their personal stock portfolios, little else can be expected. With legislative and executive branches that bail out the banks after conspicuously bad decisions and criminal actions, there is little to prevent this type of behavior from continuing to happen.
The "home of the brave and land of the free" is now the home of corruptioin and land of the corporation.
I see Wells Fargo and Chase mentioned, what about Citigroup? Horrible customer service and they have sold a lot of their mortgages to their smaller subsidiaries...Citifinancial should be investigated because I'm sure there is some shady dealings in their files too!
2 recent cases in California (Wells Fargo):
In one case the owner made all of his payments on time, prepaid insurances and taxes. WF as forclosing on a different house on the same street, typo'd the parcel number for the other property, and forclosed on the wrong house. Then, rather than admit th error and fix it, WF fought it in Court. The homeowner had a heart attack and died at he court house.
In another case, WF typo'd and forclosed on a house that didn't even have a mortgage (the house was paid off already), much less one wth Wells Fargo.
To Big To Fail? More like To Big To Be Allowed To Exist.
About Teresa Mears
Teresa Mears is a veteran journalist who has been interested in houses since her father took her to tax auctions to carry the cash at age 10. A former editor of The Miami Herald's Home & Design section, she lives in South Florida where, in addition to writing about real estate, she publishes Miami on the Cheap to help her neighbors adjust to the loss of 60% of their property value.
