Bank mum on 2m baht claim for seizing the wrong house

AN UNNAMED bank has so far not paid any compensation to the owner of a house in Pathum Thani which they seized by error on Sept. 5 when their contractor removed all the belongings, locked the gate with a padlock and put a for sale sign on it, Sanook.com said today (Oct. 3).

Mr. Ronnarong Kaewpetch, chairman of the Network to Reclaim Justice, said the couple who own this wrongfully seized house had met this bank’s officials in front of the police and demanded 2 million baht compensation which they refused to pay, saying the error was not intentional.

However they mentioned that some of the assets were kept in another location but others had been destroyed, such as clothes, old books, pictures and collectables, including their children’s belongings which have sentimental value and cannot be replaced.

The couple was alerted of the bank seizing their house which they did not live in by a neighbour on Sept. 15 who noticed that their house number is 99/38 but the sign said house number 99/44 was for sale.

On Sept. 18 the police came and took photographs and the owners put a new padlock on the gate because after the bank became aware of their error they had quickly removed their padlock and the for sale sign.

This couple now feels that the bank is not keen on resolving this issue for their family even though they had no dealings with this bank and had never been sued.

Ronnarong said the couple could sue the bank on three charges with these being trespassing, damaging property and defamation. Moreover he was going to take the couple to file an additional complaint with this being for the bank to thoroughly review its work procedure.

However this afternoon the bank contacted them and said their officials would be coming in to clarify the facts at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Caption:

The house that was wrongfully seized by a bank. Photos: Sanook.com