The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) was enacted in 2003 to protect US military personnel and their families from creditors while they are on active duty serving their country. But the law didn't stop Deutsche Bank from foreclosing on the property of Sgt. James B. Hurley, a reservist from Hartford, Michigan, while he was on active duty in Iraq:
In violation of a law intended to protect active military personnel from creditors, agents of Deutsche Bank foreclosed on his small Michigan house, forcing Sergeant Hurley’s wife, Brandie, and her two young children to move out and find shelter elsewhere.
Rather than admitting to violating the law and paying Hurley resitution for illegally taking his home, Deutsche Bank has forced the serviceman into a lengthy – and costly – legal battle:
Typically, banks respond quickly to public reports of errors affecting military families. But today, more than six years after the illegal foreclosure, Deutsche Bank Trust Company … [is] still in court disputing whether Sergeant Hurley is owed significant damages. Exhibits show that at least 100 other military mortgages are being serviced for Deutsche Bank, but it is not clear whether other service members have been affected by the policy that resulted in the Hurley foreclosure.
Sadly, James Hurley didn't just lose his home. He lost his family as well:
the foreclosure that cost him his home may also cost him his marriage. “Brandie took this very badly,” said Sergeant Hurley, 45, a plainspoken man who was disabled in Iraq and is now unemployed. “We’re trying to piece it together.”
The whole sordid story of the giant German bank's overreaching is on the front page of today's New York Times for all the world to read.
"A spokesman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment."
Evidently the Deutsche Bank will stop at nothing to achieve CEO Joe Ackermann's goal of 25% pretax Return on Equity.
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Well these kind of moral issues may work with American banks. But this is a European bank and there are no European soldiers affected.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. The other way around, it wouldn’t surprise anybody either.
That’s a pretty outrageous statement, Zyme. Deutsche Bank has a US charter to operate as a bank here, and as such it must abide by our laws and business practices.
Apparently there are different interpretations of these laws?
Are the judicial procedures over yet?
Why has it taken 6 years already, if the case is so clear?
I don’t get it either, if there is a law forbidding this kind of behavior, why does the soldier in question has to deal with it and put up money to enforce his rights. Why isn’t the state persecuting DB?
Or why does it take 6 years to get a verdict on a obviously clear cut case?
Zyme & Volker –
Good question. This is a case of David vs. Goliath :). Deutsche Bank has the best legal counsel money can buy.
I am writing my US representatives in Congress to press for an investigation into DB’s US activities and will post the letter as well as their response here.
After all, we taxpayers in the US bailed out DB with $13 billion back in 2008.
DBT originally Bankers Trust…….deal was brokered by AB Krongard……later a director for the CIA……2 months after the deal was brokered…..they thought he was such a great guy, he should head intelligence…..VP of Bankers Trust for 15 years? married to a Director of the CIA all that time.
Read about it all on Wikipedia…
In an era when biological mothers can reclaim their children years after they are wrongfully taken away from them. . . Why can’t this home be reclaimed and put back in the ownership of Sgt. Hurley?