Tuesday, July 20, 2010

BofA Accused Of Another Foreclosure Screw-Up; Northern California Couple Say They Never Missed A Payment, Claim Bank Wasn't Even Their Lender

In Kenwood, California, The Press Democrat reports:
  • Keith and Julie Hanover felt like someone was trying to steal their home. Bank of America had started foreclosure proceedings on their house in Kenwood. Yet the Hanovers had never missed a mortgage payment. In fact, Bank of America wasn't even their lender.

  • The nation's largest bank appears to have mistakenly determined it owned their loan due to a clerical error resulting when another mortgage company collapsed and was taken over by the federal government, according to court records. The Hanovers spent seven months hounding and pleading Bank of America to fix the mistake. But none of the numerous bank representatives they contacted was able to solve the problem.

  • "It's like their foreclosure process is on auto pilot," Keith Hanover said. "It starts and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it." Finally, distraught and exhausted, the couple hired a Santa Rosa attorney who got a court injunction to stop the auction of their home set for 11:30 a.m. April 30 on the Sonoma County courthouse steps. "You're just losing your mind," Keith Hanover said. "We had never even missed a mortgage payment."

***

  • The couple filed a lawsuit in Sonoma County Superior Court to stop the bank from seizing their home. "When they came and were literally going to pull our house from underneath us, we knew we had to sue," Keith Hanover said. [...] For the Hanovers, anxiety over the situation is still a daily presence. "You can't help but wonder what is going to happen. It just wears you down," Keith Hanover said. "The whole lending industry is such a mess. And it is affecting everyone in the country."

For more, see Frustration with banks reaching boiling point (Errors, inaction, morass of red tape vex homeowners trying to fend off foreclosure proceedings — and may end upcosting taxpayers billions).

(1) For other posts on Bank of America's seemingly relentless pursuit of homes that they have no apparent legal claim to, see: