By: Barbara Lipkin

Everyone has been hearing about foreclosures for years now. We have even heard about how the banks have been forced to start the process over after they used companies that rubber stamped the documents. This is even better – go on vacation and lose your house to foreclosure, even if you haven’t defaulted.

So here’s the story, an 82 year old retired Floridian went out of town for a few weeks and came back to an empty house. No furniture, no clothes, not even trash. He found a padlocked door and a sign for a company that cleans out properties in foreclosure. Interestingly enough, Benito Santiago Sr.’s home wasn’t in foreclosure according to public records. So what happened?

Well, Bank Of America, known for their mass-manufacture of foreclosure errors, sent a crew to a condo at 4255 W. Humphrey St in Hillsborough County, Florida. The crew ended up going to Santiago’s home by mistake. Something about Santiago’s mailbox really confused them. On one side, the mailbox displayed the number “4205.” But on the other side, the “0″ was missing.

The land formerly known as “4255 W Humphrey St.” does not exist in Hillsborough County Property Appraiser records. Santiago’s property is surrounded on three sides by Grand Reserve, a condominium complex that once used that address. Others have arrived in error to 4205.

To read more go to: foreclosure – huffingtonpost.com