Uncontrolled real estate firm ransacks condo

Maybe foreclosures should be abolished altogether - for this is at least the second time within the past 3 months that a real estate company or a big bank has raided the wrong house and destroyed everything in it.

A Las Vegas woman recently came back from an outing only to discover that her condo had been foreclosed upon and emptied of all its contents.

It turned out the real estate firm had foreclosed on the wrong house.

The firm hired to empty the condo threw away all her belongings - including her sofa, computer, medical documents, priceless photos, and her father's military records. This isn't the first incident by the real estate company regarding her condo. Earlier, it had entered her condo without permission and changed the locks.

Big banks and real estate companies get to do whatever they want, I guess. They're a privileged class who no statute dares to control.

A new Nevada law lets victims of this greed sue for triple damages not just for the home itself but also for lost or ruined personal belongings. This law was prompted by a similar 2002 incident in which Countrywide Home Loans (which has made numerous harassing phone calls to me, even though I've never been a customer of theirs) destroyed a couple's home after mistakenly placing them on a foreclosure list.

Clearly, however, the law doesn't go far enough. The company that raided the woman's home in the latest case should be charged with burglary and theft. There should also be a law that says that companies involved in foreclosures can't remove residents' belongings unless the residents at least know that they're doing so. And the law should require removed items to be placed in storage instead of discarded.

There should also be stiff prison terms for the executives of companies that don't follow these steps.

(Source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jan/02/they-forclosed-wrong-house)