Imagine your wife calling you with your youngest child crying in the background and his sister throwing a tantrum in the other room. Your wife is in tears because she’s gotten a foreclosure notice.
You’re doing the best you can to hold it all together from so far away, but you were just talking with your buddy about the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) about how legally, even in states that don’t require it, only a judge can authorize a foreclosure and only after hearing where you’re represented.
Nonetheless, the bank violates the law and kicks your wife and children to the curb, takes back the house where you built a small tree house for the kids, skipped rocks on the river with your wife, held countless barbecues and last kissed your wife goodbye when you were called to fight abroad.
Coming home to no home…
That’s not a horror story, it’s the story of Sgt. James Hurley who since before his return to the states in Decmeber 2005 (two years after Bush signed into law the revised SCRA) has had his home foreclosed on (sans judge) and sold by the bank for only $76,000.
Sgt. Hurley’s battle with Deutsche Bank is not an isolate incident. Service members are returning home to foreclosed houses without a judicial ruling, interest rates above 6% (also illegal under SCRA), evictions not in line with SCRA and more.
We take it with a grain of salt that foreclosure rates are up, but there are protections in place to protect service members against specific bank and landlord actions and Deutsche Bank (alongside several others like Morgan Stanley) are blatantly violating SCRA and getting away with it. We are appalled not only at the bank’s behavior but their directly giving a reason for more governmental oversight and regulation (oh boy, this should be fun).
How dare you abuse our defenders this way and how dare you beg Uncle Sam to micromanage you and slow down the housing recovery? Realtors, please get to know SCRA so you can stand up when you see wrongdoings! For the SCRA summary, click here and for the full text, click here.
