Foul-up leads to a threat of foreclosure — on the bank

Attorney Todd Allen helped a Florida couple prove they owned a home outright. A judge had ordered the bank to pay their attorney fees, it didn’t, so Mr. Allen got a judge’s permission to seize the bank’s assets. NAPLES (FLA.) DAILY NEWS Enlarge

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Months after Bank of America wrongly foreclosed on a house Warren and Maureen Nyerges had already paid for, they were still fighting to get reimbursed for the court battle.

So last week, their attorney showed up at a branch office in Naples, Fla., with a moving truck and sheriff’s deputies who had a judge’s permission to seize the furniture if necessary. An hour later, the bank had written a check for $5,772.88.

“The branch manager was visibly shaken,” attorney Todd Allen said Monday, recalling the visit to the bank. “At that point, I was willing to take the desk and the chair he was sitting in.”

After the moving company and sheriff’s deputies get their share, the Nyergeses should receive the rest of the money this week, ending a bizarre saga that started when they paid Bank of America $165,000 cash for a 2,700-square-foot foreclosed home in Naples in 2009.

About four months later, a process server knocked on their door and handed Mr. Nyerges a notice of foreclosure.

“This is a big mistake,” he recalled saying. “You must have the wrong house. We bought a foreclosure and don’t have a mortgage.”

That started 18 months of frustrating calls, paperwork, and court hearings. Whenever Mr. Nyerges called the bank, representatives told him to “come up to date” with payments. When he called 25 different law firms, no attorney would take the case. When he went to court, the lawyers for the bank filed incorrect motions and were woefully unprepared for the hearings.

“It was mind boggling,” said Mr. Nyerges, a 46-year-old retired police officer. “To try to unscrew the screw-up, it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

Eventually the Nyerges found Mr. Allen. They fought the foreclosure and won, proving that they owned the home outright.

During his research, Mr. Nyerges heard that his name got transposed from purchase agreements onto the prior foreclosure.

Last September, a Collier County judge ordered Bank of America to pay the couple’s $2,534 attorney fees. But by last week, the bank hadn’t paid up, so Mr. Allen got a judge’s permission to seize assets. Bank of America spokesman Jumana Bauwens apologized to the couple about the “delay in receiving the funds.”

The law office of David Stern, which handled the Nyerges’ case for Bank of America, told judges across Florida in March it will end involvement in 100,000 foreclosure cases.

The Florida attorney general’s economic crimes division is investigating three law firms, including Mr. Stern’s, over allegations that they created fraudulent legal documents, gouged homeowners with inflated fees, steered business to companies they owned, and filed foreclosures without proving the bank actually had legal interest in the loans.

According to employee testimony filed with Florida authorities, Mr. Stern’s employees churned out bogus mortgage assignments, faked signatures, falsified notarizations, and foreclosed on people without verifying their identities, the amounts they owed, or who owned their loans.

The attorney general is also looking at whether Mr. Stern paid kickbacks to big banks.