a big mistake," he recalled saying. "You must have the wrong house. We bought a foreclosure and don't have a mortgage." That started 18 months of frustrating phone calls, paperwork and court hearings. Whenever Nyerges called the bank, representatives told him to "come up to date" with his payments. When he called 25 different law firms, no attorney would take the case. When he went to court, the lawyers for the bank filed incorrect motions and were woefully unprepared for the hearings. "It was mind boggling," said Nyerges, a 46-year-old retired police officer. "To try to unscrew the screw up, it's not as easy as it sounds." Eventually the Nyerges found Allen. They fought the foreclosure and won, proving that they owned the home outright. During his research, Nyerges heard that his name got transposed from purchase agreements onto the prior foreclosure. "I don't know if that is a fact, because no one really had the facts," he said. In September 2010, a Collier county judge ordered Bank of America to pay the couple's $2,534 attorney fees. But by last week, the bank hadn't paid up, so Allen got a judge's permission to seize assets. In an email to the Associated Press on Monday, Bank of America spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens apologized to the couple about the "delay in receiving the funds." "The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business," she wrote. The law office of David J. Stern, which handled the Nyerges' case for Bank of America, told judges across Florida in March that it will end its involvement in 100,000 foreclosure cases. The Florida attorney general's economic crimes division is investigating three law firms, including Stern's, over allegations that they created fraudulent legal documents, gouged homeowners with inflated fees, steered business to companies they owned and filed foreclosures without proving the bank actually had legal interest in the loans. According to employee testimony filed with Florida authorities, Stern's employees churned out bogus mortgage assignments, fa