Arriving at her home in Truckee, Calif., Mimi Ash found it had been emptied.
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Bank of America (nyse:BAC) has seen easier days. The bank been reportedly identified as a target by WikiLeaks, it reportedly maintains a war room to defend against the leak, it's the subject of a federal racketeering lawsuit, one of many high profile lawsuits involving its foreclosure practices. Now, the bank has been accused of breaking into a woman's home and taking her possessions, including her late husband's ashes.
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In a Sign of Foreclosure Flaws, Suits Claim Break-Ins by Banks
TRUCKEE, Calif. — When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks.
When she finally got into the house, it was empty. All of her possessions were gone: furniture, her son’s ski medals, winter clothes and family photos. Also missing was a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words “Together Forever,” that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert.
The culprit, Ms. Ash soon learned, was not a burglar but her bank. According to a federal lawsuit filed in October by Ms. Ash, Bank of America had wrongfully foreclosed on her house and thrown out her belongings, without alerting Ms. Ash beforehand.
In an era when millions of homes have received foreclosure notices nationwide, lawsuits detailing bank break-ins like the one at Ms. Ash’s house keep surfacing. And in the wake of the scandal involving shoddy, sometimes illegal paperwork that has buffeted the nation’s biggest banks in recent months, critics say these situations reinforce their claims that the foreclosure process is fundamentally flawed.
“Every day, smaller wrongs happen to people trying to save their homes: being charged the wrong amount of money, being wrongly denied a loan modification, being asked to hand over documents four or five times,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
Identifying the number of homeowners who were locked out illegally is difficult. But banks and their representatives insist that situations like Ms. Ash’s represent just a tiny percentage of foreclosures.
Many of the incidents that have become public appear to have been caused by confusion over whether a house is abandoned, in which case a bank may have the right to break in and make sure the property is secure.
Some of the cases appear to be mistakes involving homeowners who were up to date on their mortgage — or had paid off their home — but who still became targets of a bank.
In Texas, for example, Bank of America had the locks changed and the electricity shut off last year at Alan Schroit’s second home in Galveston, according to court papers. Mr. Schroit, who had paid off the house, had stored 75 pounds of salmon and halibut in his refrigerator and freezer, caught during a recent Alaskan fishing vacation.
“There is a stigma that we go in, kick the door in and throw grandma out head first and board up the windows,” Mr. Jaffa said. “We are doing a lot of good out there.”
But Alan M. White, a consumer law expert at Valparaiso University in Indiana, says: “Volume is not an excuse for violating someone’s rights.”
Continue reading at the New York Times...
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Video - ABC News
The reports of banks improperly entering homes have been gathering in recent months. In October, ABC News reported that banks had been using repo men to break into Florida homes. In some cases, firms hired by banks had entered homes that were not in foreclosure.
Recent stories on this subject...
Foreclosing on People Who Never Missed a Payment
Caught By Mistake In Web Of Foreclosure
Lenders Selling Foreclosed Homes Without Obtaining Title
Archive of Foreclosure stories - Just scan the headlines