The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.--David Foster Wallace
Knowing what a fan I've been of the foreclosure practices of Bank of American over the past few years, a member of the bank trade press sent me a link to a story that made my day, perhaps my week. Last February, we recounted one in a series of foreclosure mishaps by Bank of America, in that case involving Bank of America's foreclosing on a Florida home on which it never had a loan. According to the latest report, the couple in last year's incident was just part of a daisy chain of innocent homeowners who never had a loan with Bank of America, yet faced a foreclosure action by the bank. In both cases, the homeowners hired lawyers and sued the bank, at which point the bank did what every bully does when confronted with potential victims who fight back: it lawyered up.
The beauty part of the latest litigation is that the homeowners not only obtained a judgment against the bank for their attorneys fees incurred in fighting the wrongful foreclosure, but when the bank refused to pay the judgment, their lawyer foreclosed on a Bank of America branch.
After more than 5 months of the judge's ruling, the bank still hadn't paid the legal fees, and the homeowner's attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank's assets.
"They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, " attorney Todd Allen told CBS.
Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the Nyergers' attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks,computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers.
After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.
"As a foreclosure defense attorney this is sweet justice" says Allen.
Todd, as a community bank lawyer, I, too, must yell, as does that Dodge Hemi guy: "Sweet!"
View the embedded clip from a local TV station, because the shots of the moving vans, movers, sheriff's deputies, and P.O.'d homeowner looking for payback are worth the commercial message at the start, the sudden loss of sound toward the end, and the fact that in between, viewers have to listen to an attorney speak.
The rule of law: no bank is too big to fail to observe it.
It's now official: B of A has become the poster child for foreclosure dysfunction.
