Flashback: Florida Couple Nearly Forecloses on Bank of America

File photo of a man standing at a Bank of America ATM branch in New York City, NY, Oct. 6, 2008. Mario Tama/Getty Images

A couple nearly foreclosed on a Florida Bank of America branch after the bank attempted to foreclose on them.

Warren and Maureen Nyerges paid cash when they purchased a Bank of America-owned home in Collier County, CBS News reported.

The Nyerges then took the multinational banking firm to court. About 18 months later, the foreclosure action against the couple was dropped.

A Collier County judge later said that Bank of America had to pay the couple’s $2,534 legal fees after it made a mistake.

However, five months later, the bank didn’t pay the couple. A lawyer for the Nyerges, Todd Allen, then attempted to legally seize the bank’s assets.

Days later, sheriff’s deputies and moving vans appeared at the Bank of America branch.

“I instructed the deputy to go in and take desks, computers, copiers, and filing cabinets, including cash in the drawers,” Allen told CBS. The attorney was then locked out of the bank manager’s office while the manager attempted to figure out his next course of action.

Allen told the outlet: “Having two Sheriff’s deputies sitting across your desk, and a lawyer standing behind them, demanding whatever assets are in the bank can be intimidating. But, so is having your home foreclosed on when it wasn’t right.”

Bank of America finally handed over a check to the couple, and no furniture or other items were seized. The bank apologized and said the check went to an attorney who was no longer in business.

Allen said banks often don’t follow through in certain foreclosure cases.

“As a foreclosure defense attorney, this is sweet justice,” he was quoted by CBS as saying.

Commenters noted that it highlights the sometimes abysmal customer service at major banks.

Meanwhile, in Riverdale, Georgia, a Bank of America branch manager was threatened with jail by a judge for contempt of court, ABC News reported.

“In dispute here is who owns an abandoned home that has become, in the words of Dr. Evelyn Wynn Dixon, Riverdale’s mayor, not just an eyesore but a safety hazard,” ABC reported.

In 2013, since the housing bubble in Florida burst in 2008, more than 400,000 people in the state had their homes foreclosed on by banks

CNN reported that Miami-based attorney Ben Solomon filed more than 1,100 liens against banks on behalf of homeowners and has pursued 131 foreclosures “In more than 90% of the cases, he said, the banks settle by paying the bills,” CNN reported in 2013.

A Wells Fargo logo is seen at the SIBOS banking and financial conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 19, 2017. Chris Helgren via Reuters

And in February 2019, Wells Fargo was hit with a proposed class action accusing it of violating numerous federal and state laws by foreclosing on hundreds of homeowners who were mistakenly denied mortgage relief because of a computer glitch the bank disclosed last year, Reuters reported.

Filed on Friday in a Washington state federal court, the lawsuit said the bank offered some compensation to affected homeowners but did not adequately pay them for going through “the nightmare” of foreclosure.