Increasing Numbers of Foreclosures Among Military Personnel

Working in the military is a tough job and does not come with immediate benefits, particularly early on. Soldiers sent off to places like Afghanistan and Iran face tough desert conditions. Pay should be higher for people in the military and they should receive more benefits, particularly veterans.

About seven hundred military servicemen and their families were foreclosed upon by large banks, like Bank of America and Citigroup, during the recent housing crisis. The surprising thing about this piece of information is that these people, including other borrowers these thieves foreclosed upon, paid their mortgage payments on time; there is no reason for them to carry out this horrendous action.

These mistaken foreclosures were acknowledged when several large American banks analyzed mortgages they had previously granted. This occurred because of a multibillion dollar settlement that happened between the federal government and these large banks. Federal regulators then demanded the names of the people affected to be released.

This finding was quite surprising because usually military servicemen are protected under the law from being evicted from their homes. The numbers of soldiers and their families affected was also quite astounding.

When JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America reviewed their records they found a whopping 200 servicemen whose homes were foreclosed between 2009 and 2010. Citigroup also had a large number in their records- 100 soldiers’ houses were wrongly foreclosed upon in their records.

This is a truly shame that such a travesty has occurred in our own country. Under the Service members’ Civil Relief Act, they are supposed to receive certain benefits and advantages.

Bank of America and Morgan Stanley will need to pay the many military families that were severely affected by this catastrophe. In total, they will pay need to pay $36.8 million collectively. However, there are potentially 5000 service members that were severely impacted.

In the future, there will be more settlements because not everyone has been identified as of yet. Time will tell when this whole situation will be resolved.