WTF?! Foreclosure.... puzzled.

blt2krawl

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem
Kinda long...

So I have been renting a place for the last 18 months... Never been late, always paid out of pocket to fix the place up. About November of last year my room mates and I started getting some weird mail from various banks addressed to our home owner who now resides in Florida. Our property manager (Coldwell Banker) doesn't think it's any big deal. So we get through our 12 month lease in Decemeber, I grad from college this May so we decide to sign another six month lease in December to go through this month. The letters became more frequent, mostly from Wells Fargo. This week I went to sign another six month lease, room mates are moving out. We have been a little uneasy about it so I confront my lease agent again. He speaks to the homeowner and assures us everything is fine he is just thinking of doing a REfi. Well not even three days later the Sheriff comes to our door, serves the house foreclosure papers. My lease agent is astonished (has zero answers for us) and all he can tell us is he's called the home owner with no response. Court date for the property is on May 14th, auction is on June 3rd.

Can someone please give me so insight as to what I can/cannot do?

Thanks, Nic
 
Time to move out. You might have been paying the rent, but the HO wasn't paying the mortgage. I'd say your new lease is null and void at this point.
 
Actually I'd be inclined to sit right there and make them evict you. As a renter you have rights. If you stop making payments, simply save them in an envelope or clearly save them (in saving account) etc. so you can easily/quickly square up with any potential new owner from when they takeover. I think a new owner would like having tenants already vs buying any un-rented place. my .02
 
I just took my real estate continuing education and we talked about this exact thing. I wasn't paying alot of attention but if I'm not mistaken they changed the law last summer on tenant eviction based on foreclosure. From what I remember Tenant has 90 days right of stay from foreclosure court date. Not 10 days like in the past. Do some research!!! Bill Gallagher was my teacher and he is a super nice guy. I think he will answer your questions about your situation. Keep in mind he isn't a lawyer. http://www.ssore.com/askbill.php If he won't talk to you and give you the info your looking for let me know and I'll talk to him I'm sure he will talk to me since I hold a NC Real Estate license and also one of his students. Just let me know what you find out. I hope this helps you.
 
I think your in a bad situation because the home "owner" hasn't paid the mortgage....Just because you paid him doesn't mean the mortgage has been paid which Im sure, unless there are renter's laws, means when the house goes in to foreclosure the people go with it...Although I know a guy that got foreclosed on a while ago and he has been living in his house, basically free of charge, for about 6 months now and will be evicted soon but has not been evicted yet....He also is the owner of that house though......
 
yup...stop paying rent immediatly. save it like yager said. Start looking for a new place.
 
If you like the place, check into your renter's rights and see what you could buy the place at. Im sure whatever mortgage payment you would get would be lower than your rent.
 
Thanks for the help guys I will keep you posted. I like the place, but it doesn't kill me to move. The problem I have with moving are the two customers vehicles i'm moving, just starting a new job(s) and graduating from UNCC in May, I don't wanna to worry about moving in such a short time span with school and work and all is just a serious amount of hassle.
 
I would agree with all those above who said to look into your rights. Call the NC HUD office. Most people think HUD only deals with "givernment housing" but they do a lot with renters rights and renter/landlord disputes as well.

If you do have to leave, I bet you'd be within your rights to file a claim for damages (moving expenses) against the homeowner, since its his/her fault that you have to leave.
 
I went through this same crap 2 years ago. I was leasing to own a house because my credit isn't in the best shape due to a layoff almost 6 years ago. I was paying the home owner every month on time and I got the pre-forecloser letters in the mail. I contacted my leasing agent and they did all of the legwork for me. I didn't send the HO another dime and took 2 months looking for another place and took my time getting all of my crap together to move. I used the money I had put back from not paying the lease to put down on the house I'm in now. Worked out good since I like my new place much better. Turns out the HO was going through a divorce and using my money to pay for his divorce lawyer and whatnot.
 
haha, we've been getting letters at out house too. our lease is up come august so i dont really give a crap. our landlord/owner is one shady dude.
 
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