One problem with people / institutions with real power is they frequently abuse it. This is a case it didn't go so well for the bank. Tickled my fancy it did.

http://www.newsner.com/en/2016/05/c...-medicine-after-the-bank-made-a-huge-mistake/

 

This is old news, but good news.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
The bank would have been happy to send armed men to throw the owners out on the street.
The unfortunate part is how rare it is to see justice.
The Wall Street bankers club has a thousand new millionaires. My neighborhood has a vacant house on every block.

 

I had the exact (or almost) thing happen to me. The previous owner of my "farm" (aka retirement home) had a loan with Wells Fargo. About 9 months after I closed on the house, I received a foreclosure complaint from WF which was filed by a "well known" law firm in Cincinnati (aka slimy and well-known for filing boiler-plate foreclosures).

In Ohio, there is a law that a lender must file a release of claim within 30 days of closing. Unfortunately, that law has no penalties associated with it. What I had on my side was the cancelled check, closing was by an attorney, and the complaint filed by Slimy and Associates had a serious error in the property description. The person who prepared the complaint didn't bother getting a current description of the property. She used a decades-old description, re-dated it, and claimed it was current "under penalty of perjury."

In brief, I called the attorney who handled the closing. He, of course, had a self-interest in the matter. Wells Fargo dragged its feet -- it felt it had nothing to lose. However, just days after I applied for a home improvement loan, which if denied based on the pending foreclosure would give me a tangible loss, Wells Fargo dropped the whole thing. I didn't make any money on the deal, but I didn't pay any attorney fees either. This was not the first time Wells Fargo screwed up and messed with me. I will never do any business with Wells Fargo, if I can possibly avoid it.

As anyone in the US should know, getting attorney fees awarded in addition to damages can be difficult in ordinary civil litigation. The couple in the matter cited by Wendy was lucky to get a compassionate judge. Note, there is no mention that they got any damages awarded. It would be nice if our state governments enacted actual penalties for slander of title (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander_of_title ), since showing damages can be difficult.

John

 

Wow, it's amazing that law enforcement stepped up and did the right thing to help that Florida couple. I wish they'd do the same to help those folks in California battling to get squatters out of their homes.