Topic: Bank contractors illegally break into homes
Sojourning_Soul's photo
Fri 07/20/12 07:54 PM


http://rt.com/usa/news/us-bank-home-safeguard-617/

Bank contractors illegally break into homes across the US
20 July, 2012, 17:34

Returning from work or vacation, homeowners across the U.S. are finding themselves locked out of their houses, with their homes broken into and many of their belongings stolen and destroyed.
The culprits? Bank contractors, hired to preserve abandoned properties. These contractors often ignore signs of occupation, including furniture, maintained gardens and turned on lights.

It is illegal for any bank representative to enter a property if they have not retaken it at a foreclosure sale – especially if there are signs of occupation. Yet contractors have been repeatedly ignoring these signs.

“For some reason when these contractors ride by residences and don’t see anyone home, they just jump the gun and change the locks,”said Richard Fersch, a Pennsylvania sergeant in charge of foreclosures.“They even lock pets inside.”

A Kansas man found his parents’ furniture missing. A Florida couple had a laptop, iPod and six bottles of wine stolen. In addition to a coin collection, a Pennsylvania couple was missing its pet cat.

But some contractors break in and change locks even while homeowners are in their house. Nancy Jacobini called the police after she heard someone rattling the handle of her front door and cutting the chain off at her home in Orlando. Several months later, the same thing happened again – but this time, a man emerged through the front door.
The break-in happened even though Jacobini had been making payments to her bank on a trial loan modification.

The break-ins are a problem widespread in the foreclosure industry, and The Huffington Post found more than 50 homeowner lawsuits against banks and the two largest U.S. property management contractors, Safeguard Properties and Lender Processing Services.

Safeguard spokeswoman Diane Fusco told the Huffington Post that break-ins are uncommon and that her company strives to minimize them.
But most of the lawsuits involve Safeguard, which inspects 1.5 million homes each month. The bank most often named in the lawsuits was JPMorgan Chase.

no photo
Sat 07/21/12 02:58 PM
It's those evil, rich republicans again.:angry: