Foreclosing on active members of the military – either accidentally or intentionally – is one of the worst mistakes a bank could make in any lending environment.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even has a unit, led by Holly Petraeus, overseeing lending and mortgage finance issues impacting U.S. soldiers and their families. The New York Times reports that several hundred soldiers ended up losing their homes wrongfully to foreclosure during the housing crisis. The paper writes:
The nation’s biggest banks wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 military members during the housing crisis and seized homes from roughly two dozen other borrowers who were current on their mortgage payments, findings that eclipse earlier estimates of the improper evictions.
