It seems that the banks, the lawyers and the courts are getting sloppy; who’d ‘a thunk it? Lauderdale man’s home sold out from under him in foreclosure mistake.
The thesis is that with so many thousands of foreclosures filtering through the courts mistakes are being made. Having done my fair share of short sales I can tell you from personal experience that common sense, a rare virtue in the best of times, is even more scarce once a huge bureaucracy like a bank gets involved. What else could we expect, after all. The banks are trying to process this mess by hiring people who know nothing of Real Estate, throwing some quick and dirty training on them and paying them $10 to $15 an hour to follow bank guidelines at top speed. The best interest of the bank, its shareholders and investors simply don’t fit into the cookie cutter mentality that these circumstances breed. Why do they breed cookie cutter mentalities? Metrics. As I was often told during my Navy days, “Walker, there are three ways to do anything: the right way, the wrong way and the Navy way. We don’t pay you to think, we pay you to do it the Navy way.” Right, Chief, Navy way it is.
As this wave crests in the coming year or so we’re going to see more of these “Oops!” moments. Pray that it doesn’t happen to you or someone you love.
