Imagine coming home to find the sheriff on your doorstep with an eviction notice, and then being given 3 hours to get the hell off your property, which is no longer yours because your bank mistakenly sold it out from under you for about a third of its value. Oops! Although we initially assumed WaMu/Chase was behind all of it, NCB Miami reports that actually “a mistake in the Miami-Dade Clerk’s Office appears to be behind the mishap, which landed Ramirez homeless for more than 24 hours.”

Thanks to reader fantomesq, we now know more of what happened.

According to the Associated Press,

Anna Ramirez thought she had dodged foreclosure after a judge stepped in at the last-minute to block her home’s sale. So it was a devastating shock when a buyer showed up with police to evict her family.

A clerical error at the court had let the buyer complete the purchase, and she and her family were told to gather their things and leave. She even tried showing the officers a judge’s order, but her family was still kicked out.

Ramirez’s parents had just completed a purchase of the house to reduce her mortgage payments, but apparently the Clerk’s Office hadn’t correctly noted the change. Chase told the AP that they did “everything we could to help the homeowner.” The Clerk’s Office now has the correct information on file.

“My Bad! Woman’s House Mistakenly Auctioned by Bank” [NBC Miami] (Thanks to Shawn!)
“Court mix-up leaves Fla. family evicted for a day” [Associated Press] (Thanks to fantomesq!)
(Photo: Dano)

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