Arriving home with his 12-month-old daughter, Matthew Brooks was in a rush to get her out of the rain.
Then he saw the large notice on the front door telling him that his house had been repossessed and the locks changed.
Mr Brooks, 42, knew he and his wife were up to date with their mortgage - but he also knew his protestations were unlikely to cut much ice if bailiffs arrived to start clearing the house.
Enlarge https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/01/753.jpg Blunder: The estate where the Chelsea Building Society seized the wrong home
Stranded on his own doorstep, and needing to pick up his elder daughter from primary school soon, he had to act fast.
A call to the estate agents named on the notice began to unravel the mystery and finally led to the blunder being laid at the door of Chelsea Building Society, which amazingly had made a mistake with the address of a house it was repossessing.
The society has now apologised to Mr Brooks and paid him compensation, but he said yesterday it had got off lightly.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/01/754.jpg Worry: The Brooks family feared bailiffs arriving
'To come home and find someone's gone through your house, changed the locks and prevented you getting in is a massive invasion of privacy,' he said.
'At least we weren't away at the time - if we'd been on holiday they could easily have sent bailiffs round before we knew anything about it, or we could even have been burgled.
'And now we're worried that it will come up as a black mark on credit checks even though we're entirely innocent in all of this.'
Mr Brooks's ordeal began when he arrived at his £150,000 home in Crewe with baby Loren.
'There was a note on the inside of the glass front door saying the house had been repossessed and all the locks had been changed,' said the supermarket quality control manager. 'I was left outside in the cold and rain with a baby - I was really angry.'
Needing to collect his other daughter, seven-year-old Melissa, from school, Mr Brooks ordered the estate agent, who had the new keys, to bring them round.
He then traced the blunder back to the Chelsea Building Society. It was handling the voluntary reposbefore-session of a property four doors away, but had inexplicably got the wrong house.
Mr Brooks and his wife Lindsey, a 30-year- old administration clerk, had to spend a week just before Christmas using the new locks, fearing all along that they could have some more unauthorised visitors, they were changed. The building society apologised and paid compensation of a few hundred pounds.
But Mr Brooks said: 'It paid for our daughters' presents, but really it ruined Christmas for all of us. It was like being burgled - I'm still furious at what happened. How can they try to repossess the wrong house - surely they check the address before they send people round?'
Chelsea Building Society said its agent had realised a mistake had been made as soon as he entered the house because he had been expecting an empty property, but by then the locks had been changed.
A spokesman added: 'As soon as it was identified an error had been made we liaised with Mr Brooks to rectify the situation immediately.
'We are extremely sorry this happened and can confirm this event will have no effect whatsoever on the credit rating of Mr and Mrs Brooks.'
