Posted on 09/06/2012 9:46:03 PM PDT by rawhide
The owners of a modest home near Twentynine Palms lost their cherished possessions after a bank mistakenly foreclosed their residence.
A crew broke into Alvin and Pat Tjosaas’ desert home and took everything after being directed by Wells Fargo to secure the structure.
The couple, however, didn’t have a mortgage on the home.
Alvin said the deputy sheriff said, “Good news, we know who took (your possessions)…Wells Fargo. Bad news, your stuff is all gone.”
All the married couple has now are three generations of memories.
Alvin, a retired mason, built the home with his father when he was a teenager.
“I know every inch, every rock…my mom mixed all the cement by hand,” he said
A spokesman for Wells Fargo released a statement apologizing to the couple.
“We are deeply sorry for the very personal losses the Tjosaas family suffered as a result of their home being mistakenly secured,” said Alfredo Padilla. “We are moving quickly to reach out to the family to resolve this unfortunate situation in an attempt to right this wrong.”
Alvin and Pat remain distraught.
“When you put your heart into something…it makes me real sad. I’m just glad I have my sweetheart. We’ve been together a long time,” said Alvin.
(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...
I met Marc Tow over 20 years ago, and he was a wheeler and dealer, then.
I had listings to sell several properties in downtown Long Beach, and he tried to scheme us and buy them with nothing down.
He is a lawyer.
My client-property owner lost everything, including his marriage, from his overly risky and highly leveraged gamble. Nice guy, architect-dreamer, Christian man.
But he didn’t fall for Tow’s scams.
Seems like the sheriff is taking Well Fargo’s side. He basically said we know who did it, but the property’s gone. Sorry.
“Ve are chust folloving orders. Ja.”
This did not fly in the courtroom in Nuremberg, and it won’t fly in ours either. Too bad the judgements won’t be as severe in ours.
I have rentals, the city sent out a Code enforcement for weeds. I called the tenant, lawn was mowed at the time it was written. The City worker wrote down correct house number, but the office clerk thought the 9 was a 7. Easy to do when people don't write plainly.
It actually was for the house next door, ending in #9.
Even the hospitals are making sure things are correct, hubby had back surgery recently, they used a magic marker to write on his back, instructions of where to cut. Too many stupid/needless mistakes can be made. Amazing but necessary these days.
This story is a sad situation for those owners, all their memories, can never get those items back. Sad
The bank has a title to your house (supposing a legit foreclosure) but they have no title to your stuff.
Once property is taken by a foreclosure crew it’ll be impossible to recovery. It’s scattered to the wind and likely in a landfill.
I understand that and quite agree with you on that.
But I’m saying that there is no way the bank did not know where it all went.
All this could have happened but then the idiot crew shows up at the wrong house.
OK, since you’ve obviously been living in another country for the past three years, here’s several:
1. Court-ordered foreclosure on a home which was bought for cash in Florida:
Since the bank can produce no verifiable documentation as to a mortgage being held on the property, they clearly committed a fraud upon the court at some point to get the court order. This is more common in Florida than other states, as the state has created fast-track court hearings to clear the foreclosure backlog.
2. Foreclosure on home in Massachusetts, again without any mortgage being on the property:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27370429/Cardoso-v-Bank-of-America
3. In Texas, home seized, power shut off, 75 lbs of frozen fish subsequently thaws... with predictable results:
http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=4e1cfb1bebbf31e1
Oh, yes, and this home was owned free and clear. No mortgage.
4. Now for something different. BofA forecloses on someone who is current on their loan:
There are dozens of other cases around the country of free and clear homes being either given notice of foreclosure or being entered by people employed by banks.
What the hell happened to their belongings?
This happened months ago, but is only now coming to light. Apparently because the family just recently visited the property and found it trashed.
Yes, the bank has a responsibility to secure personal property in a foreclosed home, but you have a specific time limit (IRC, 30 days in California) before the securing agent can dispose of the property however they see fit to ‘pay for the storage, cataloging and transport of possessions.’ Any excess money is supposed to be returned to the property owners or turned over to the state if they are unable to locate them.
In no way are the personal possessions security or payment for the outstanding balance on any home loan.
So, contractors go out, see very obvious signs on the property identifying the property owners which doesn't even come close to the name on their paperwork, and rather than stop (or secure the name tiles...), they continued with the process, only taking things they felt were of value. His father's World War I uniform, his tools, three golf carts, four riding mowers, etc.
He's hired a lawyer, he will be meeting with Wells Fargo's representative along with his lawyer tomorrow, but I'm going to guess that the real action will come in exposing the contractor who supposedly secured the property and their extremely selective and destructive manner in treating the property.
And while the bank might get away Scott free from this, it would not surprise me if we later hear about charges being filed against the contractor who caused major vandalism to the home, and committed grand theft. I'm going to guess that their insurance company is going to be paying out a very very hefty sum.
I'm sorry for the family for having their vacation home ramsacked, and sincerely wished they had some form of monitoring of the property (at least by a nearby resident.) But on the positive side, this is going to expose an industry that could do with some more scrutiny in how they conduct business, and more to the point, how they treat private property.
“So, contractors go out, see very obvious signs on the property identifying the property owners which doesn’t even come close to the name on their paperwork...”
The “subcontractors” who “secured” the house probably didn’t even speak English and also probably supplemented their sub-minimum-wage Amigo jobs by pawning the stuff they took from (normally legitimately) foreclosed properties.
In one of the shows dealing with auctioned houses on TV, it is said that they have to put the people’s property in storage.
It’s not jsut a mistake, it’s a crime to steal. Someone needs to go to jail.
Despite the nutty conspiracy theories, the US Constitution is still in effect and you can’t deprive a person of his property without due process of law.
In case you haven’t noticed, the process is broken.
Or took it back to Mexico.
Mistakenly secured? Is that a new name for breaking and entering and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling?
It makes sense if WF did all that but the clean out crew just went to the wrong address.
I think Mike would be more helpful.
A big reason why Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, etc.. were seen as victims in the 1930’s.
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