Woman's House Mistakenly Auctioned by Bank

Anna Ramirez came home to find all her stuff on the lawn, the police chaining her door shut, and a stranger telling her that he had just bought her home for $87,000. Anna and her family have lived in the home for 3 years and had recently refinanced. Somehow there was a paperwork mishap at the Miami-Dade Clerk's Office and her house was put up for sale. The sale was reversed by a Miami-Dade judge two days later. "I have never seen anything like it. They literally threw all her stuff on the front lawn. I didn't sleep that night and it wasn't even my house," said neighbor Martha Taylor. I hope Anna got a really good rate on her refinance.

Comments

Woman's house, whose castle, whose mi$take

[harvey the nerd]

I'd say lawyer letter and lawsuit potential to fully restitute damages. Several someones appear to not have properly investigated this sale including the buyer and Chase. Lucky, no one got shot or hurt, because in other places the confrontation potential, with such strange, instant demands to surrender the castle, might be higher.

And one or two cops might not be enough. e.g. about 12 years ago, a manager for a Fortune 50 company got drunk (again), slapped the wife and before you know it, we had a 7-8 person SWAT team sealing the neighborhood and climbing roofs (including ours). In my city 1/4 of the houses probably have *a lot* of firepower (338 WinMag+, full auto, 2000+ rounds, and/or 10 or more guns). However, they waited and he was passed out when the remote control robot went in.

Re:Woman's house, whose castle, whose mi$take

[douglasdoughty]

Where I live (southern Louisiana), we have similar fire power, but not similar police force/equipments. Guns would have been blazing on both sides.

Re:Woman's house, whose castle, whose mi$take

[RockDoctor]

Several someones appear to not have properly investigated this sale including the buyer and Chase.

"Chase" being a bank or something similar involved in this fiasco? But the BUYER needing to investigate the sale? I've never heard of such a thing happening at a public auction, and I can't think of any grounds for a buyer at a public auction to have doubts about someone's title to the goods on sale.

Actually, now that I think on it, I have heard of such things, but in respect of cars, not houses. And for cars there are databases constructed by the car finance industry where, for a small fee, a potential buyer can investigate a particular vehicle's finance history and verify that there's nothing outstanding on it. But in a case like this, I can't see how the buyer is intrinsically at fault ; in fact, both buyer and (unwilling) seller have grounds for restitution from whoever set up the sale.

(The buyer may have been somewhat high-handed about how he treated the contents of the property, but since he had every reason to believe that it was his property now - building, land and contents - that's no business of yours or mine.)

Re:Woman's house, whose castle, whose mi$take

[Stargoat]

This used to be called Claim Jumping. And I have no problem with someone shooting a claim jumper.

It could have been worse...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This could have happened instead:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/06/11/wrong_house_demolished.html

Punitive Damages

[pleappleappleap]

If ever there were a reason for punitive damages...

Re:Punitive Damages

[FCAdcock]

Punitive damages? It probably won't even go to court. Chances by now, that lady doesn't have a mortgage anymore and there's a mortgage loan officer asking if you want to upsize your combo for 60 cents.

Seriously, if the bank expects her to pay them one penny after this, they're full of it and deserve the lawsuit.