Active Duty Guardsman Sues Lender Over Allegedly Illegal Foreclosure; Loses Home While In Iraq Despite Legal Protection Under SCRA

In Michigan, National Public Radio reports:

• [Army National Guard Sgt. James] Hurley and his family had been living in a three-bedroom manufactured home on Michigan's Paw Paw River. But they fell behind on the mortgage, and their lender began foreclosure proceedings in 2004. While Hurley was in Iraq serving as an Army mechanic, the lender sold the house and evicted Hurley's wife and children. Hurley says he learned about it after the fact during one of his occasional phone conversations with his wife.

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• Now, the Hurleys are suing several parties involved with the foreclosure — including Deutsche Bank and Saxon Mortgage. The family says it should have been protected from foreclosure by a long-standing federal law known as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act — what lawyers call the SCRA.

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• "Military people need to have certain protections when they're off trying to serve us in a war," said Matt Cooper, the Hurleys' lawyer. "One of the rights under the SCRA is that you can't foreclose on them." [...] "It looks to me like the bank screwed up badly and needs to make things right," federal judge Nancy Edmunds said during a February hearing.

For more, see Lenders, Service Members Clash Over Law.

For copy of the original civil lawsuit filed in Detroit Federal Court, see Complaint - Hurley vs. Deutsche Bank National Trust, et al.

Go here for other posts on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.