Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
We are renting a home in California that has a trustees sale date of June 28, 2012. After we moved in 1 year ago, we discovered they were 2 years behind in their property taxes and we've been on pins and needles for a year wondering when the house was going to foreclose. We've always paid on time and now have given our 30 day notice and told them to apply our security deposit as last months rent. The landlord emailed us back saying we needed to pay per our lease agreement. We've also received a voice mail from the office assistant to discuss our options. The landlord is part of a LLC that owns multiple properties, although we do not know if their other properties are foreclosing. We have already signed a lease for another rental with the move-in being June 30th. We don't want to live in fear or be harassed for the next 30 days. Also, we don't want to pay last months rent because we have no reason to believe we'll ge our security deposit back. We've also been receiving annoying calls from collection agencies on our home phone for our landlord for the past two months, so we know she's in financial trouble. What are our options? Can a real estate attorney help us out of this mess? This is the 3rd time there was a trustees sale date on this house, the landlord claims they are still trying to get a loan modification through. What do we do from here??
2 Answers from Attorneys
The landlord would love to have you send him another month's rent, but if you don't, what's she gonna do? You have given notice, so there isn't much point in trying to evict you. My advice would be to make sure you leave the place on time and in as near-perfect condition as possible, so there would be no claims against the deposit. If the trustee's sale does take place, you'll have a new landlord for the last couple of days, but you may not even learn who it is before you're gone. Post on LawGuru again if anything major happens between now and the 30th, but I'd doubt it.
You don't mention whether you are breaking a lease or not. That is KEY to whether Mr. Whipple's advice is correct or not. If you are on Month to Month, you only have to bear in mind that they will harass you. They will probably start eviction proceedings, but they will never get them completed before you move. If they report to credit agencies it will go on your credit report that you failed to pay rent when due. That can mean a pretty big hit to your rating, and make it hard to rent in the future. If they are really nasty they will also convert the eviction case to a small claims case for the unpaid rent, if your unpaid rent plus proper deductions from the deposit other than rent is greater than the deposit. If you are breaking a lease, you are really setting yourself up, because the pending foreclosure does not in any way shape or form give you a right to break a lease. So they can sue you for breach of contract. Your problem is that renters actually have more rights in a foreclosure sale situation than just a regular sale of rental property. As a renter your property can be sold at any time. The fact that it is a foreclosure rather than a market sale makes no difference to your rights and responsibilities, except that if the new owner wants you out, you have MORE rights after a foreclosure. So there is really zero reason for tenants to panic about a foreclosure.
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