• 01
  • July
    2011

If you haven't heard of wrongful "trash-outs" yet, you have now. A wrongful trash-out (closely related to a lock-out) is when a distressed homeowner comes home to find that all of his or her household possessions have been cleaned out and taken away.

In Benito Santiago Sr.'s case, his home was also padlocked. He couldn't get into his own home.

And worse of all?

Santiago wasn't behind on his mortgage. There weren't any debt collectors from his lender hounding him. For all we know, Santiago owned his house outright. (Santiago is 82 years old, as Eric Newcomer reports for the St. Petersburg Times.) He wasn't defending against home foreclosure.

Yet Field Asset Services came and took all his things away when he was out of town, including pictures of Santiago's late wife. It's unclear whether Santiago will be able to recover these items. Santiago is a former antiques dealer and values his possessions at more than $100,000, "at least," he says.

In fact, everything was gone, as Newcomer reports, from his photographs to the trash. Hence the name "trash-outs." Santiago says, "Everything was taken out of the property. I feel nervous. I'm not going back." Santiago has since moved into a friend's house.

If debt collectors can get telephone numbers wrong and dial the wrong person in an attempt to collect a debt, it stands to reason that so can contractors that work with banks to conduct trash-outs. But in the case of trash-outs, the wrong home address has a much worse impact than the wrong phone number.

That's exactly what happened to 82-year-old Santiago.

"'It had to be us. We had a work order to go out to 4255,'" recalls Santiago's son, who spoke to employees of Field Asset Services. Field Asset Services contracts with Countrywide, and presumably other big mortgage lenders, to clear out foreclosed homes.

And "business is booming," reports Newcomer.

The problem? Santiago's address is 4205, not 4255.

Source: St. Petersburg Times, "Tampa retiree says he lost belongings in foreclosure blunder," by Eric P. Newcomer, 06/25/2011