Tenants in Foreclosure- The Lease

It has been a while since I’ve given an update on my situation. Quite honestly, I didn’t know that anyone was reading until last week when I was speaking to my friend, Nicole from Bank of America, and she told me she was dying to know what was going on. I was thrilled that someone was listening! I’m hoping others are too.

There is not much to update on my home. I am constantly in a state of feeling unsettled. We have begun to look for a home to purchase, but I think I’ll write about that in another post.

My landlord has been working with me after my strong response to his attempt to evict me from the home. I did offer to sign a six month lease with the landlord and continue to pay at the current rate that I have been. Why would I sign another lease when the home was still in foreclosure?

My lease coming up due put me in a hard situation. In July my landlord could have told me that he did not want to renew the lease and give me 30 days notice to move out. This would not have been in his best interest though because he would have a really hard time renting the home after I left. If her were to rent the home again he would legally be responsible for telling the new tenants that the home was in foreclosure.

The reason why I wanted to sign another lease was because it would allow for me to stay in the home longer if the home was sold due to the foreclosure. The new legislation provides for protection to tenants who are affected by a home sold due to foreclosure.

In Oregon, if you home is sold and you are a tenant here are the timelines you have to work with on moving out. The landlord or new owners have to provide you written notice that you need to move out:
• If you have a month to month rental agreement then you must be provided with a 90 day notice to move out.
• If you have a lease, then you are the best off because the new owner must allow you to stay in the home until the lease expires. The only way that you would not get the full lease time would be if the new owner intended to use the home as their primary residence. If that was the case then they would have to give you 90 day notice.
• If your lease is set to expire in less than 90 days, then the new owners still have to give you 90 days to move out.

So you can see that my having a lease is in my best interest to be able to stay in the home as long as possible. My concern with not having a lease was that I would have to move out of the home sooner. My existing lease did not default to a month to month contract once the lease expired so I without a lease or month to month contract I run the risk of having to leave sooner if the home is sold.

Even though my landlord told me on July 14 they would sign the 6 month lease I requested in my July letter they did not provide me with the new lease agreement until Aug 1. Since I felt that I had the upper hand here I requested some items in the lease that I would not have normally asked for including:
• There would be no security deposit on the home while it was in foreclosure. I agreed that if the home came out of foreclosure I would reinstate the security deposit within 30 days of notice.
• There would be no penalty for my terminating the lease prior to the end with 30 days notice. I felt this was important because due to the situation I am not forced to look for a home to purchase. If I find the perfect home before the lease is up I want to make sure that I can get out of the lease without penalty.

The landlord seems to have slowed in response, so as of right now I do not have a signed lease back from him. I’m not too concerned though because he has now accepted rents from me beyond the lease period which sets precedence for month to month contract.

Still, there is still a sale date set for August 23rd on the county steps. My next post will talk more about my gathering information from on the foreclosure.