Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

If you have a long term lease that does not end until after the foreclosure would take place, he has breached the rental agreement. But if you are the more typical situation of a month to month tenant, then legally the landlord has not done anything impressible. You have no guarantee of being able to continually live there as every 30 or 60 days the landlord can give notice that he is not willing to renew the lease. As long as you live there, you are getting the benefit of living in the unit, so why should you not continue to pay the rent? The arrangement he has with the lender is between them and you are not directly involved. You can ask for some type of assurance that you will get your security deposit back [contact the lender to see what they will do]. You need to speak to him as to how you will be able to recover.

Shers answer is simply wrong in many respects. First off, there is no breach of the rental agreement by any pre-foreclosure proceedings. Until your right of occupancy is actually disturbed after foreclosure, there is no breach of the lease. Furthermore, recent legislation wiped out the rule that if a lease was entered into after the loan, the foreclosure wipes out the leasehold. Under current law, the new owner (whether it is the bank or a buyer at the foreclosure sale) must let you stay for 90 days OR until the end of your lease, whichever is LONGER. So if you are on a month-to-month you may actually get more time than if the landlord just decided to terminate the tenancy. Therefore there is no way you can have your right to occupancy disturbed before the end of your rental rights, and so you can never sue your landlord for breach of the lease due to foreclosure. Shers is right that the landlord can do whatever he wants with the rent and you must continue paying it as long as you occupy the property. If there is a foreclosure you will have to pay the new owner or the 90-day-or-lease-term right is lost. If you want to stay you still have to pay rent. As for your deposit, Shers is wrong that you have to ask for what will happen to make sure you get your deposit. Civil Code section 1950.5 requires the landlord to return your deposit at the time he stops owning the property, or deliver it to the new owner. If the old/current owner fails to do either one of those, the new owner becomes jointly and severally liable with the old owner for return of the deposit. The burden is on the new owner to get the deposit from the old owner. So if your current landlord gets foreclosed out and doesn't return your deposit or pay it to the bank or new owner, you would have the right to sue both the old owner and the new owner together in small claims court for your deposit. Chances are at least the new owner will be good for it.