Now-Defunct Title Agency Typo Screw-Up Leads To Foreclosure Headaches For Former Homeowner Eight Years After Selling & Moving Out

In Plant City, Florida, The Tampa Tribune reports:

• Barbara and Rick Borchers sold their house and paid their mortgage in full eight years ago. But now, all these years later, another lender, Bank of America, is suing them for foreclosure on the same house. When the process server knocked on their door, lawsuit in hand, the Borchers thought it must be a mistake.



• "Everyone I tell says, 'That's impossible, it's a scam, somebody is pulling your leg,'" Barbara Borchers said. The lawsuit is no mistake. But it starts with one – made by the title company the Borchers hired to handle their sale in 2003. The lawsuit, real estate experts say, illustrates the complexity of foreclosure and how innocent people can get pulled into someone else's financial trouble.



• When the Borchers sold their home, the title company made a typo on the deed, according to the lawsuit and public records. Instead of "Bloomingdale Section R," the deed reads "Bloomingdale Section H," a legal description for a different house in the neighborhood. The mistake stuck with the home through three more sales.



• The last buyer in the chain is the one who fell behind on payments and may lose the home to foreclosure. But the error on the deed means that mortgage holder, Bank of America, can't take the home back because the property mortgaged is listed incorrectly.



• The bank can't get the clear title required for a transaction until the error is fixed. The bank named the Borchers – and all buyers after them – in the lawsuit.

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• This type of mistakes is why homeowners get title insurance in the first place, said Ron Donalson of Alday-Donalson Title Agencies of America. The homeowners should be able to go back to the title company and ask it to correct the deed. But in this case, the Borchers' title company is out of business.

For more, see Deed typo haunts couple in foreclosure suit years after they sold.