Estero homeowner sues Fifth Third for allegedly breaking into his home

ESTERO, Fla.-  A homeowner locked out of his home, the doors chained.

“The neighbor said ‘hey, are you aware there’s a sign in your window that says the house has been abandoned? Is everything okay?”

The homeowner wasn’t in foreclosure but he said he was booted out by his bank anyway. Now he’s suing Fifth Third Bank.

This is all playing out in the Bella Terra community, which is east of I-75.

“There’s been finger pointing, no one wants to take responsibility, no one’s issued an apology, and frankly, it’s just really disturbing.”

Harris Katz is the attorney for the homeowner Mike Tomasovich. He said Field Asset Services, or FAS, was hired by Fifith Third Bank to investigate Tomasovich’s home. Katz said they posted a vacant sign inside the window of the Estero home. The problem is, Tomasovich lives there.

“When Mike called FAS, FAS pointed back at Fifth Third and said ‘no, Fifth Third told us to go in the house.'” Katz said “either way, Fifth Third is responsible.”

Katz said FAS called a locksmith and broke in. “They drilled out a lock, they drilled into the screen in closure of the Lanai, they left holes drilled into this areas.”

He said “my client was paying his mortgage, he wasn’t in default, he wasn’t in foreclosure, there were no courts orders, they didn’t contact him and they chose to come down and enter his home and invade his privacy.”

But Katz said the damages go far beyond what was done to the house. “To Mike’s reputation to the fact that his home was violated that he was violated that they acted recklessly with indifference for the rights if the homeowner.”

He said ” Mike wants to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone again and… the bank needs to be held accountable for their actions.”

There are still a lot of unanswered question to what happened here.

WINK News reached out to Fifth Third Bank to get their side but they couldn’t comment because of the pending lawsuit.