One of the clues the repomen used was that her grass was high so it must be the abandonded home. They also blamed their gps for bringing them to the wrong house which was across the street from the actual repo.
Wanted to put a word in here because I used to do this kind of work for a national mortgage inspection company. If this guy is the same kind of contractor I was, he was doing dozens of stops a day. I used a software template that would ask me if the house was abandoned, then had checkboxes for different things. You get pretty good at recognizing abandoned houses after a while and tall grass is one of the major signs. An electric meter that's not moving is another (like if she was out of town). Sometimes we were told to verify verbally with someone in the neighborhood the resident's name and their residential status. I won't say it's an easy mistake to make but it DOES happen, and I've made it too. HOWEVER.
I also had to submit photos of all the indicators of abandonment. The company I worked for had desk monkeys double checking all the photos. If I gave them a different house compared to previous photos, they would send me back to the site. Even if I sent them the right house, and I said it was abandoned for the first time, they would send me out to put eyeballs on it again, regardless. (Always fun when it's a three hour drive...each way...and you don't have any other stops to make money in the neighborhood).
So it is possible that even if these safeguards were in place they failed, and the contractor gave the wrong info to the bank. In that case, I believe the cost of all this is actually going to be handled by the contractor's insurance. because he gave the bank incorrect, but legally actionable, information.
