Imagine that you’re working overseas when your home is destroyed by a hurricane. Sucks, right? But you keep paying the mortgage on the property because you hope to eventually rebuild. So why is Bank of America foreclosing?

This is exactly what happened to a man in Texas, who found out that his property — which had been destroyed in Sept. 2008 by Hurricane Ike — was set for foreclosure only two days before it was scheduled to be auctioned off.

“It wasn’t until about 20 calls that someone said, ‘We had a homeowner’s policy on your home that you reside in, and your monthly payments have gone up,'” he tells Houston’s KPRC-TV. “But they never notified me that my monthly payments had gone up.”

The bank says it did send multiple notices about the insurance and the rate increase to the homeowner but he says that doesn’t do much good when those notices are sent to a pancaked house with no mailbox. The man says that before he went overseas, he had given BofA an e-mail address and two phone numbers.

A rep for BofA tells KPRC that it appears the bank “incorrectly placed insurance” on a home that no longer exists, and that BofA now must audit the man’s account to make sure the bank corrects any discrepancies.

Quoth the rep:

There were a number of factors that contributed to the issues that resulted in the actions that we took on [this customer’s] mortgage and property. We continue to research the incidents. We have contacted [the homeowner] and we will work with him directly to address his concerns.

The owner of the destroyed home puts it more bluntly: “Bank of America is ruthless in their incompetency.”

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