A gas station owner in Florida’s monthly mortgage payment bounced on October 12th. The next day he put the money required into the bank account. In November and December he tried to make his mortgage payments as normal, but BB&T wouldn’t take his money. 10 months later, they still won’t take it. Instead, they want to foreclose on his gas station. All for being one day late.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that the man’s $4,964.93 auto-debit for the mortgage payment bounced on October 12. The gas station owner had had a cash flow issue after spending $75,000 to install new underground tanks. The man put the money in his account the next day and thought everything would be okay.

On October 25, he got a late notice. When he went back to the bank, he says a bank rep told him that they would just deduct the payment again from his account. Eleven days after that he got a second notice for the October payment, plus penalty interest. The gas station owner did nothing because the bank rep had told him that his payment would be reprocessed.

Then, on November 20th, BB&T sent him a letter demanding he pay the remaining balance on the account, $473,000. When the gas station owner tried to deal with the bank, they said they wouldn’t talk to him because he was involved in a different BB&T foreclosure in another county. When he contacted the bank’s attorney, he was sent back to BB&T. The gas station owner tried to make payments again in November and December but the bank refunded them and filed for foreclosure on December 20th.

“All the people that understand anything about mortgage foreclosures need to know this stuff,” Circuit Judge Amy Williams said during court proceedings. “This is the idiocrasy of this stuff. This is why we’re in a worldwide financial crisis because there’s no business sense any more in the foreclosure industry, none. And it blows my mind. Totally blows my mind.”

In court, the bank’s attorney argued that the bank had the legal right to demand the rest of the loan be repaid after the man missed a single payment.

The gas station owner has pledged to fight the foreclosure in court.

One day late with mortgage payment, gas station owner could lose business to foreclosure [St. Petersburg Times] (Thanks to Casey!)

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