Under federal law, soldiers fighting for their country are not supposed to have their homes foreclosed on by banks without a court order. But several of the country’s biggest banks ignored this law and illegally seized the properties of more than 700 military members during the housing crisis.

After reviewing their files as part of a billion-dollar settlement with the federal government, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each uncovered about 200 military members whose homes were wrongfully taken away in 2009 and 2010. A fourth bank, Citigroup, had at least 100 such foreclosures.

The foreclosures violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which requires financial institutions to obtain court orders before foreclosing on active-duty members.

The banks previously stated that very few borrowers had been evicted in error, including military members. Claims that military personnel deployed overseas were having their homes repossessed by banks triggered Congressional hearings in 2011. Some cases dragged on for years, and lenders agreed to some settlements, but the true extent of the foreclosures didn’t come to light until now.

“It’s absolutely devastating to be 7,000 miles from your home fighting for this country and get a message that your family is being evicted,” Colonel John S. Odom Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer who represents military members in foreclosure cases, told The New York Times. “We have been sounding the alarms that the banks are illegally evicting the very men and women who are out there fighting for this country. This is a devastating confirmation of that.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Banks Find More Wrongful Foreclosures Among Military Members (by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess, New York Times)

Big Banks Slither out of Mortgage Fraud Review with Minor Costs (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Congress Blasts JPMorgan for Military Foreclosures…and Suicides (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

JPMorgan Chase Advised Homeowners to Stop Making Loan Payments…and Then Foreclosed (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)