Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Landlord breaking lease

There are two quite different outcomes possible here.

If the owner sells the house, the new owner will become your new landlord, and you will legally be able to stay there until the lease expires, unless there is a VERY unusual clause in your lease saying it can be terminated upon a sale of the house. Without such a clause, and they are rare but not unknown, the new owner takes title "subject to" your lease and can't kick you out.

The other possibile outcome is a foreclosure sale, and that will wipe out your lease unless another rare condition exists, that the lien being foreclosed is junior to your lease; since your lease only dates to 8/07, it is undoubtedly junior to the lien.

However, even if your lease is wiped out, it is possible or even likely that the buyer at foreclosure is looking for an investment, not a place to live, and if there are good tenants already in place, said buyer (probably a bank) will very likely want to reinstate or rewrite you lease and therefore won't evict you.

If you lose your lease due to the landlord's fault, you might win a suit, but maybe this landlord is broke and couldn't pay a judgment anyway.