Since the housing bust, bank home foreclosure has become a rather everyday sort of event, but today there’s a new twist. A Florida couple that bought their home with cash — and never took out a mortgage, mind you — has lashed back at what could only be described as a predatory, and painfully incompetent, Bank of America branch.
Back in 2009, Warren and Maureen Nyerges, from Naples, Fla. area bought a home with cash, yet in 2010 Bank of America tried to foreclose on them. It took two months of phone calls and eventually court intervention to clear up the misunderstanding.
So they took the banking giant to court and a year and a half later, the foreclosure was dropped. The judge also ordered Bank of America to pay the couple $2,534 in legal fees.
However, after five months, the financial conglomerate still hadn’t paid the couple. That’s when the Nyerges couple’s lawyer, Todd Allen, decided to turn the tables on Bank of America.
Police and moving vans showed up at Bank of America to legally seize the corporation’s assets.
“I instructed the deputy to go in and take desks, computers, copiers, and filing cabinets, including cash in the drawers,” Allen told WINK, a CBS affiliate.
Allen was reportedly locked out of the bank manager’s office while the manager tried to figure out what to do. He said the bank supervisor on duty was “visibly shaken.”
“Having two Sheriff’s deputies sitting across your desk, and a lawyer standing behind them, demanding whatever assets are in the bank can be intimidating,” Allen told WINK. “But, so is having your home foreclosed on when it wasn’t right.”
An hour later, the bank cut a check. Allen called it “sweet justice,” because this case, he said, is a symptom of a larger problem. If you remember, Bank of America, GMAC, and JPMorgan Chase were forced to freeze their foreclosures late last year, to evaluate whether they had made errors.
“As a foreclosure defense attorney, this is sweet justice,” Allen added.
Watch the video below for more details:
Sources: OpposingViews, CBS News, WINK