Naples, Florida. 2009.
In this city on Florida's Gulf Coast, Warren and Maureen Nyerges bought a house without borrowing a cent. They paid $165,000 in cash.
It was a 2,700-square-foot home that had been foreclosed on, which means a bank had taken it back after a previous owner stopped paying the mortgage. Bank of America was selling it, and the couple bought it straight from the bank.
It was the middle of America's foreclosure crisis, when banks were taking back homes all over the country. With no loan at all, the Nyergeses seemed safe from it.
Warren was 46, a retired police officer. With no mortgage, there were no monthly payments to make, and no lender who could take the house away. The house was theirs, free and clear.
About four months later, a process server, the person who delivers court papers, handed them a document.
It was a foreclosure notice. Bank of America, the same bank they had paid $165,000 a few months before, was moving to take the house back. If the foreclosure went through, the couple could lose a home they had paid for in full.
“This is a big mistake,” Warren Nyerges said. He told the process server they had bought the home outright, with no mortgage at all.
The bank that had sold them the house was now trying to take it back, over a loan they had never taken out.