This is my first time posting. My dh and I moved to FL last May signed a year's lease. Paid every payment on time. Paid to have carpets cleaned 6 months in and planned on paying every 6 months. Just signed a lease renewal for another year so we would have a lease until May 1st, 2009. Then just last week we were served a foreclosure notice on the rental house :confused: . What do we do? The process has just started so I know foreclosure typically takes 6 months. I have heard because we have a baby and school age kids we could get 90 days after the foreclosure. I can't find this in the laws at all well I can't find anything in the laws about foreclosure and rental. Can anyone tell us what we do? What do we do about rent money for the time being?

Tammy

Keep paying the rent... the landlord still owns the property and has plenty of time to stop the foreclosure... besides, not paying rent will only lead to an eviction. As far as the law on having school aged children and a baby... having previously read through Florida landlord/tenant laws... there is nothing that protects you in a foreclosure. Unfortunately, once the foreclosure takes place, your lease becomes void and you will need to vacate upon the banks request... but like I said, your landlord has time to pay and stop the foreclosure.

He is not going to pay we know this. We have talked to the court and they said not to pay the guy but to pay to the lawyers for the mortgage company or to the court. He was a guy that bought during construction and then sold for profit when they were done. He has 12 or more homes in foreclosure now. I believe he probably can even be on the hook for mortgage fraud if any of the many banks he used goes after him. I have a half a mind to think he has probably skipped town or maybe even the country. (He may not even be a US citizen although I haven't tried to see if there is a way for me to verify that or not.)

However, we are thinking now we would rather just move and be done with it. Is our lease voided the moment it goes into foreclosure? He has not made a payment since Sept 2007. We moved rent into our savings account for right now as we are not paying him and are trying to decide if we want to move or not. Dh gets a bonus check in Apr so we could move much easier then but we are trying to get the equal of our deposit back because we know we won't see it from him.

[I also meant to add the current lease ends the end of April. Is the new lease voided if we were served foreclosure notice the day we signed it? We mailed the papers that morning and we were served about 2 hours later.

Tammy

If he still owns the house, and they are not foreclosed, if you do not pay the landlord, you will and can be evicted for non paymnet of rent.
And unless the court will give you that in writing, guess who is out on the street for non payment.

You may want to consult a real estate attorney, but the mortgage company and/or their attorneys have no legal right to collect the rents.

As for as taking 6 months, yes depending on how far they are now, and how fast they wish to foreclose, normally they will give notice, then have a home inspection and still go a few months trying to allow them to work out something. After it is foreclosed, the 90 days is only what can happen, you will get served a notice to move by the new owner if sold at auction or by the bank, it will be a 3 day to a 30 day notice, you appeal it to the court, and the judge can give you longer, normally will, but does not have to.

Please don't take the advise of some court clerk. Call the banks attorney and find out if the foreclosure has gone through and if the landlord still owns the property... if not, you still need to pay rent to him. If the foreclosure has taken place... the bank will advise you of the next step.

Thanks for the replies. Yes we are not skipping out on rent. It is just we don't pay it to him. We are to set up an account with the court then they pay to the party who "wins" the case. We will set up the account for April's rent. I am hoping we may be able to get our deposit back from this amount. I was wondering if anyone else had luck but it sounds like everyone hear just pays the guy type of thing.

We are trying to figure out when we can and need to move out. The foreclosure process has started end of Feb. but we just signed a renerwal to go to May 2009 so is the renewal undone by the foreclosure process? Current lease is done end of April I am hoping to move first week of June as that is the boys last week of school.

Tammy

If the court has setup an escrow account for you to pay rent to, then, by all means do so, just make sure you have a copy of the court order saying to pay into that account.

Did you ever consider making an offer on the house? If the owner is going to lose it in Foreclosure anyway, he may be willing to accept a nominal payment to sell it to you. The bank doesn't really want to foreclose, so they may be willing to arrange financing for you.

We were never able to talk to the guy but one time by phone he normally only answers emails.

As for making an offer we would rather not. The house was built very crappy. We moved in and it was not even a year old. We had the builder come out at the year anniversary for the fix ups and there is a crack in the foundation the tile guy said he would not come near this house as far as owning. The builder's rep shrugged his shoulders over it. The owner we informed but did nothing (now I found out he was paying the mortgage at that point).

I am hoping we can get the bank to do a cash for keys type of thing. Where they will give us money to move out without being a problem and cleaning the house. I really don't want to have to put a ton of money into moving to another rental UGH.

Tammy

OK had a lawyer look over everything. He basically said this guy picked out a poor internet ready lease that states month to month and then throws in something about an annual date. So he basically said we are bound by the lease even though the house is in foreclosure; however, due to the poor lease we can give a 30 day notice and move out. He would draw up a letter if landlord tried to argue anything. So now I have to sit down with dh and see what we want to do and when we want to move. The kids are not out of school under the first week of June so we would prefer to move the end of May then I would shuttle kids to school for only 3 days so we would not have to worry about school changes this close to the end of school year.

Tammy