June 07, 2012
Landlord is letting house we rent go into foreclosure
Dear Consumer Ed:
We have been leasing a home since July 2010. Our lease is set to expire in August 2012. We just found out today that the landlord has let the rental home go into foreclosure, with a sale date of July 3. Whom do we notify, advising them of our lease?
Consumer Ed says:
First, you should know that, until at least the end of 2014, under the Federal “Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009,” tenants have the right to stay in a foreclosed property through the end of their lease, unless the new owner is planning to make the foreclosed property his or her primary residence. In that case, the owner may terminate your lease, but you must be given 90 days’ notice to vacate the premises. If you don’t have a written lease, if your lease is month-to-month, or if there are fewer than 90 days left on your lease, you are still entitled to 90 days’ notice.
You will want to notify in writing the bank that is foreclosing on the home of your lease. The simplest way to find the bank’s identity is to ask your landlord for that information. If your landlord is unresponsive, there are other ways to identify the bank. In Georgia, sale of foreclosures must be advertised at least once a week for four weeks immediately before the date of sale (in this case, July 3). Rather than searching through newspapers, you can go to http://georgiapublicnotice.com to search for the advertisement. Note that you may not be able to find who put out the ad by simply searching the address, since the address is not required to be included in the notice.
If the bank hasn’t been publishing the sale as the law requires, then you may be able to find out the name of the bank that foreclosed on your landlord by searching for the deed stating the foreclosure (it will state the date of foreclosure and the name of the bank). Deeds are public records, and you should be able to search for it at your county’s clerk’s office by using the property’s address. Many, but not all, counties have their tax assessor’s records online. If your county doesn’t have its records available online through its own website, this website may help: www.gsccca.org.
Once you do find out which bank owns the home, call the bank and tell them about your lease (if they don’t already know, which they may). Ask if there is a management company temporarily in charge of the rental home, and if so, the contact information of someone whom you can call directly if there are any problems with the apartment (leaky faucet, etc.). And, don’t forget to ask where to send your July rent check.