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"Accidental Foreclosures" Aren't So Accidental. Homeowners Have Legal Rights Against Banks That Wrongfully Foreclose and Seize Their Homes.

The term "accidental foreclosure" (which is sometimes called "wrongful lock out") has been euphemistically used by the banking industry to describe situations when a bank incorrectly forecloses on a home of an owner who is in good standing and up to date on his/her mortgage or even where the owner doesn't even have a mortgage with that bank. Our firm has seen these so-called "accidental" foreclosures happen for a variety of reasons which include the application of mortgage payments to the wrong loan, misfiled paperwork, foreclosing on a loan that has already been paid off, and inputting incorrect addresses.

The word "accidental," though, means "occurring unexpectedly, unintentionally or by chance." The problem that we have seen in "accidental foreclosure" cases is that the one consistent theme seems to be that no matter what a homeowner tries to do to notify the bank that there is an error, for some reason the bank never stops the process before it is too late. It's almost as if once the bank starts "the foreclosure train down the track," it can't stop it before it plows through the life of a homeowner.

Consider this real-life example: a homeowner who consulted us had a first and a second mortgage with Bank of America (a few years ago before credit became so tight, it was not uncommon for a homeowner to have a first mortgage and then carry a second home equity line of credit (a "HELOC") with the same bank). She made all of her payments on time, never making a payment late.

The problem is that Bank of America allegedly was applying all of these payments to the first mortgage only! So, despite the fact that the owner was making her payments on time, Bank of America declared her in default on the other mortgage, reported her delinquent to her credit reporting agencies (thereby ruining her good credit scores) AND began foreclosing on her house.

When the homeowner finally became aware of what the bank was doing, she called them to explain the situation. She wrote to the bank and gave them copies of the processed checks. She even spoke with the foreclosing attorney's office to explain the bank's error. All of her pleas fell on deaf ears and the "foreclosure train" just kept barreling down the tracks.

We all mistakes and "accidents" do happen in life. But, when you see conduct like this over and over again by banks across the country, you begin to realize that the term "accidental foreclosure" is really just a euphemism put out there by the banking and trash-out industry to try to soften the reality of what is actually happening to homeowners - their houses are being wrongfully seized and, in some instances, actually invaded by banks.

The word "wrongful" is defined as "wrong, unjust and having no legal sanction." So for this reason, the term that our firm uses to better describe these types of cases is "wrongful foreclosures."

Legal Help for Wrongful Foreclosure and Seizure in Any State. Phillips & Garcia, P.C., a leading law firm in wrongful foreclosure and seizure cases, is now taking cases in any state where there has been a wrongful foreclosure, lock-out and trash-out of a borrower's home. Although we are licensed in Massachusetts, we associate with a qualified attorney in your state.

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