Man seeks to undo 2-year-old foreclosure

DUNEDIN, Fla., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- A Florida man said faulty foreclosure proceedings unfairly cost him his home, which was sold to new owners.

Michael D. Carlson, 42, of Dunedin recently filed a motion in Pinellas Circuit Court to reverse a 2008 foreclosure he said he never knew about until the legal proceedings were over, the St. Petersburg Times reported Monday.

Carlson also wants his house back, but his lender, Bank of America, sold it to another couple more than a year ago, the Times reported.

Carlson's may be the first case of an attempt to reverse a foreclosure after the property has been sold to a third party, legal experts said, but it probably won't be the last.

Shortcuts by lenders' lawyers, such as the use of robo-signed documents, failure to properly notify delinquent homeowners or falsified affidavits as claimed in the Carlson case, may mean more similar cases are on the horizon, the newspaper said.

"One or two cases like this could create a lot of waves," said Alan White, a law professor and foreclosure expert at Valparaiso University in Indiana.

"The hardest case of all is when the property has already been sold and innocent parties are involved. But if the process was fundamentally deficient and the homeowner was deprived of constitutional due process, it's conceivable the court could set aside the foreclosure," White said.