Dear PoPville – Renter’s Rights?

Photo by PoPville flickr user brunofish

Dear PoPville,

We’ve just discovered that our landlord, who has been consistently shady in communications with us (including asking for additional money, avoiding repairs, etc), has been foreclosed on, and the entire row house that we reside in is owned and for sale by the bank. We live in the basement unit, and only became aware of this by people on the street asking us if our house was the one for sale. Upon a quick Google search, we had found that it was indeed on the market without our knowledge, for almost a month now.

We were hoping to ask you some advice in the case that you have any knowledge on this type of situation. Our landlord has been MIA for a few weeks now, and we are unsure how and when we will receive notice to vacate. We don’t know our rights. All we can assume is that our lease, which is month-to-month, will give us 30 days to find a new place.

Also, we are pretty sure that he must have been aware of the house falling into foreclosure at the time of signing our lease, as we have only moved in recently. This puts us in a very uncomfortable situation.

We have read that banks sometimes pay a settlement for tenants to vacate immediately, which would be nice, since we’ve paid for paint, repairs, and other improvements to the apartment. We’re just not sure what to do, or how to proceed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

You should def. contact the Office of the Tenant Advocate. Anyone else have experience dealing with a situation like this?