Soldier's home foreclosed while she was serving abroad

"I couldn't believe it," Capt. Tania Garcia said. "I was in shock."

                             

Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Jeff Weiner and Gary Taylor

Published September 6, 2010

   

Army Capt. Tania Garcia said she was on active duty in South Korea when she got the news.

Garcia's Realtor informed her that her south Orange condominium had been foreclosed upon. Suddenly, a soldier serving abroad had no home to return to.

"I couldn't believe it," Garcia said. "I was in shock."

More shocking news was ahead. Court files from the foreclosure showed an affidavit had been filed that stated Garcia was not in the active military and that the notice of foreclosure was served on her husband.

   

Two problems: Garcia said this week she was on active duty — and she is not married. Now, Garcia is fighting to win back the home she thinks was taken from her unfairly.
  
Garcia fell victim to a foreclosure process in which the most important element is the time it takes from start to finish, said Jeff Kaufman, senior partner with KEL Attorneys.
   
Garcia's condo initially was bought back by Flagstar Bank and then resold, Kaufman said. But because of errors in serving notice in the case, his law firm was able to persuade a judge to throw out the sale, he said.
  
Garcia said she laughed when she was told that her "husband" had been served — probably the only time she has found any humor in an ordeal that has often brought her to tears, she said.
   
Garcia had been in financial trouble for some time before the foreclosure, and she knew it. She was behind on mortgage payments and made the difficult decision to short-sell her home rather than lose it, in an effort to preserve her credit.

Tania Garcia stands in front of Casa Latino realty office in Hunter's Creek on Wednesday, September 1, 2010. Garcia, a soldier, returned from serving in the war to find her home was being foreclosed on.


Garcia's real-estate broker, Celia Ruiz of Casa Latino Real Estate, said she worked with the bank during the short sale, in which the lender allows a home to be sold at a price often far below the amount owed on the mortgage. She has e-mails from a bank employee stating the sale was approved.
    
Attempts to reach the employee and a Flagstar Bank spokesperson Thursday and Friday were unsuccessful.
  
Five days before the scheduled sale, Ruiz said, she received the bad news. Ruiz was flabbergasted.
   
"I've done a lot of short sales," Ruiz said. "I have never seen a property go to foreclosure while we are working on a short sale."
   
Kaufman said four firms in Florida handle 90 percent of the foreclosures. They outsource, using paralegals in other countries, and try to complete the foreclosures in no more than 160 days, he said. Most people never fight the foreclosures, he said.
  
Garcia said she was initially reluctant to wade into murky legal waters. "I wasn't going to do it, because I felt powerless," she said.
   
The "non-military affidavit" included in the court file attested to the fact that Garcia was not in the active military, and a military status report from the Department of Defense was attached, stating: "Based on the information you have furnished, the DMDC [Department of Defense Manpower Data Center] does not possess any information indicating that the individual is currently on active duty."
  
If a person is on active duty, the military must be served notice of the foreclosure to make sure the person is aware of it, Kaufman said. Garcia said there was "no way" that the bank could claim to be unable to contact her.
  
"They were able to find me to send me my past-due loan statements," she said.
  
Kaufman said the bank used legal advertising instead of contacting Garcia. Kaufman said the legal notice was published in Heritage Florida Jewish News.
 
Even if she had been stateside, "I probably wouldn't have read that newspaper," Garcia said.
  
Court records show that when the foreclosure suit was filed in January 2009, Garcia had not made a payment since August 2008 and owed more than $168,000.
  
Kaufman said his firm will work with Garcia to help her save her home, either through a loan modification or some sort of government program.
   
"Once they're thrown off their timetable, they're usually willing to negotiate," he said of the bank.
   
Still in the service, Garcia shipped off to Iraq on Friday with the legal battle serving as a constant distraction in a place where, she said, distractions cost lives.
   
"When I was not in this country, I was working to protect my country," she said. As she prepared to leave again this week, Garcia was hopeful that she would return to find the situation resolved.
  
"I'm really hoping to get the property back," she said.

 

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