Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

If you don't continue paying your rent, your landlord has the right to evict you. The landlord's pending foreclosure has nothing to do with the contract between you and the landlord. Only the landlord's lender (and perhaps some law enforcement agency if the landlord is "rent skimming") has standing to take any action against the landlord.

Well, while it is indeed legally "necessary" that you make the required payments under your lease without regard to any foreclosure efforts, as a practical matter it is difficult to advise a tenant to do so when the landlord failed to disclose this important fact and you may lose both your right of possession under your lease or rental agreement and any deposit you've made.

Also, "in foreclosure" is kind of a vague expression. Usually, there's about three months (at least) between the recording of a Notice of Default (which starts the foreclosure process) and a Notice of Trustee's Sale, which is given a few weeks (or more) prior to the actual foreclosure sale. Some landlords will be able to bail themselves out of trouble in the interim, and withholding rent that early in the game isn't going to help and may get you kicked out well before it would otherwise happen.

So, bottom line, its kind of a guessing game and the more information you can get about what's going on, the better, so maybe communication with the landlord would be useful. On the other hand, this landlord hasn't been very candid with you in the past. Overall, and in general, I think I'd recommend paying if you're in the Notice of Default stage and withholding once a Notice of Foreclosure is recorded and served. Keep the money handy, though; you may need it to renew the rental with the new owner!

I'm going to state it simply. You pay rent to your landlord until there is a trustee's sale or a receiver appointed to collect rent or you receive notice from the lender to pay rent to them.