In filings, Davis said she and her husband, David Davis, lived in the home starting in 1997. She said she sold the property just before her husband died in 2005 to a family member, who allowed them to stay but defaulted on his payments.

“Once he defaulted on the loan, I found out that fraudulent documents had been passed,” Davis wrote in court papers. “I have been trying to fight this thing for two years to no avail. I have proof because the mortgage person that brokered the deal is now in prison.”

Her motion does not mention the name of the “mortgage person,” and Davis declined to explain how she’d been defrauded when a reporter visited the home.

Records on file with the Miami-Dade County Recorder and Property Appraiser show that Davis and her late husband paid $20,000 in 2000 for the home via a quit claim deed, which transfers a grantor’s interest in a property without guaranteeing they own it or have clear title. Five years later, they sold the property for $375,000 to an Andre L. Williams, and signed over a warranty deed. Williams sold the home a year later to a Joel Mena, who after finishing bankruptcy proceedings, was foreclosed on in 2010 by U.S. Bank N.A., which purchased the property at auction.

Davis, however, fought the foreclosure. She appealed to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, which dismissed her case.

Davis is still fighting. She filed suit Dec. 6 against the bank over the foreclosure.

Makedonsky doesn’t believe her story. He thinks Davis is finding ways to stall eviction so she can live rent-free in his mother’s retirement home.

“This is a sophisticated squatter. She was mayor of the town, and she’s playing the system,” Makedonsky said.

While Makedonsky bought his home on a private auction, attorneys say more horror stories come from the clerk’s foreclosure auction in Miami-Dade, a county where there is a backlog of 53,000 foreclosure cases.

Nearly 100,000 properties have been listed on the clerk’s online auction since it opened three years ago. Last year, an average of 100 properties were sent to auction each day.

Properties can be pulled off of auction or purchased at the last minute by the distressed home’s owner, so not every property listed was auctioned. But Donet, the foreclosure attorney, said the vast new real estate frontier is attracting a new clientele, many of whom haven’t done the proper research on the properties they’re trying to buy.

“There are riches for sure,” he said. “But you may be opening up a can of worms that’s very expensive to get out of.”

Attorney Ferrer Shane said the most common mistake buyers make is not understanding what it is they’re buying. Many clients drop thousands on a home thinking they’re buying a foreclosed mortgage when they’re actually buying an association lien that will be trumped by the lender when the bank finally forecloses.

That’s what happened to Maria Alonso, who spent $9,100 in May on a 2,600-square-foot home in The Hammocks. The home was at auction because of a $7,482 judgment held by the Panache Homeowners Association over unpaid assessments by the previous owner.

Alonso, however, thought she’d bought the home outright and after fighting for three months to evict the previous tenants, she leased the home out, according to daughter-in-law Dayana De Latorre. And then they got a notice that their new property was to be auctioned again on Dec. 13, this time due to a judgment held by Wells Fargo.