Renters received Trustee Notice of Sale

[mickeysfriend]

We are the renters!

We had received some mail addressed to the home owners from their bank. Kind of had a bad feeling about it, mailed it to them but never heard anything from them. Walked out the door today and found the Trustee Notice of Sale. I'm SO mad! They've been taking our money and not paying the mortgage since July! They even came to 'inspect' the home in October.

Anyhow...We're in Oregon, what happens now as a renter? We lost our home last year, but is it different as renters?

I'm sure I can kiss my deposit goodbye. I'm thinking they're not getting any more of my $!!!!

[daxtell]

i work for a real estate company that sells foreclosed homes for banks. renters have more rights than the owners. you are not obligated to pay any more rent to the owner after the sale date. which is the date the house is foreclosed on and they deed the house back to the bank or to another buyer. after that you have options to include: continuing your lease with the new owner, getting cash for keys money for leaving within a certain time period, or waiting out the normal time until you have to be out which could be 90 days. all these options vary with whoever the new owner happens to be.

[chicagoannie]

The same thing happened to me. My long distance landlord wasn't paying the mortgage on the house I was renting. I found out when "save your home from foreclosure" type postcards starting showing up in my mailbox. And the delinquent tax notice tacked to the front door. And a friend of his told me he filed for bankruptcy...it just went on and on. Don't pay your landlord another cent, and yes, you likely will not get your security deposit back.

[frogger]

More than likely, your landlord had to sign an "assignment of rents" clause when financing the properties. This gives the landlord rights to collect the rent if the landlord defaults on the property payment. You may indeed get a notice from the lender (your new landlord) instructing you as to where to make the payments. As to your deposits, provided you have a written copy of your lease stating what the deposit is, I would make sure that I deduct the deposit from my last rent payment.

It is probably forbidden by your lease to do that, and it will probably pi$$ off the lender, but they can pound sand....

[2011]

More than likely, your landlord had to sign an "assignment of rents" clause when financing the properties. This gives the landlord rights to collect the rent if the landlord defaults on the property payment. You may indeed get a notice from the lender (your new landlord) instructing you as to where to make the payments. As to your deposits, provided you have a written copy of your lease stating what the deposit is, I would make sure that I deduct the deposit from my last rent payment.

It is probably forbidden by your lease to do that, and it will probably pi$$ off the lender, but they can pound sand....

this happened to me maybe 12 years ago... I moved in 1 month and the very next started getting foreclosure letters.... asked the LL questions & was told "no problems".... then I got notice of trustee sale and then I stopped paying rent and the landlord had the nerve to take me to court for eviction. ( in the meantime, he filed BK for temporarily avoid foreclosure) I had all of the foreclosure letters & such and the judge did not care, says I had no right to not pay rent just because LL was in foreclosure.... I became a deadbeat renter ( banked my rent for an additional 2 months..now giving me about 6 months rent in savings) ... when he took me back to court, I told the judge I was moving in 3 days... he gave me notice to quit & I was outta there!!

LL did a short sale a few weeks later... found out that I would've lost my security deposit because of LL filing BK, so I had no guilt about playing it as I did...

[mickeysfriend]

So, do I have to continue paying them rent? Wont they be breaking the lease when the house is auctioned? I'm going to talk to an attorney friend next week.

[frogger]

So, do I have to continue paying them rent? Wont they be breaking the lease when the house is auctioned? I'm going to talk to an attorney friend next week.

I would start NOT paying your rent immediately. Set the money aside in case you need to pay it later. After all, if you are in possession of the house, then you do owe someone for it.

As to your lease, in most cases, it attaches to the house. Therefore whoever buys the property will be subject to your lease.

[mickeysfriend]

They finally answered my email & claim they didn't know this was happening. How do you owe $10,000 in back mortgage payments & not know it's in foreclosure? Seriously. They said that 2 months ago they decided to try to get a modification or refinance (Wells Fargo) and learned that the loan had to be at least 2 months behind so that's what they're doing. Ummm...we had Wells and they don't do mods! We tried!!! The home owners know this.

Ugh. I really have a bad feeling about this.

[KeithDoxen]

This happened to me as well. It worked out pretty well for me, as the bank is required to give you, as the renter, a certain amount of time to get out. It may have been as much as 90 days. Because the bank wants to sell the place right away, they will often offer you "cash for keys," meaning that you sign away your rights to the place, as a renter, in exchange for cash. It can often be a few thousand dollars depending on how badly the bank wants you out. You have a LOT of rights here as the renter.

Some advice: now that the property belongs to the bank, there is NO REASON to pay your old landlord another dime. You are now essentially "renting" from the bank, not your former landlord. I would get in touch with the bank that now owns the property ASAP. When this happened to me, I thought all hell would break loose. Instead, the bank rep just shrugged and dispassionately found the paperwork for situations like these. This happens all the time apparently.

[mickeysfriend]

They're still the 'owners' because the sale has not happened yet.

[daxtell]

Well, as I said in the beginning of the thread, you will be responsible for rent to them up til the sale date; which is the date the property is sold at foreclosure. Probably on the courthouse grounds. After that the new owner which could be the bank who held the mortgage or even fannie mae or freddie mac who takes over those loans from the banks will hire a local management company and attorney to handle the proceedings from there. they have to go out to the property to post notices informing anybody living there of their rights of which I also explained earlier. You have a lot of options as a renter. Good luck.