This new bills protects tenants from being evicted without notice or with limited notice when the home they rent or lease goes into foreclosure. Tenants must be given 90 day notice to vacate the property. If the tenant holds a lease, the lease is good until the end of the lease unless the new owner of the property plans to live in the property, then the leasee must be given 90 days notice of lease termination. The bill does not protect tenants who fail to make their monthly rent payments on time. They can be evicted under a shorter time frame based on the individual state landlord/tenant laws.
Section 8 tenants take precedence and cannot be evicted before the term of their Section 8 lease is fulfilled. In this case, foreclosure is not a valid reason to terminate the Section 8 lease.
If a tenant is given anything less than 90 days to terminate tenancy by a new owner, without stating a specific reason, the tenant is responsible for sending the landlord a letter telling the landlord that s/he must give you a 90-days notice of termination of tenancy under this new bill.
The new law does NOT affect any state or local law that provides longer time periods or other additional protections for tenants. More information as well as sample letters can be found at the National Low Income Housing Coalition – www.nlihc.org .
This new bill could potentially negatively impact the struggling housing and foreclosure market. Investors and potential new home owners may be more hesitant to purchase foreclosed homes because they will have to take possession with the existing tenants intact. They can and should negotiate the closing to coincide with the tenant 90 day vacating or delay the closing if they do not want to honor the 90 day period with the existing tenant.
Author Andee Nast is free lance writer, Real Estate Investor, Coach/Consultant, and California Realtor (License #01854926). You are welcome to contact Andee at andeen@charter.net or on her website http://www.andeeallen.com
Posted June 17th, 2009 by andeallen
