Tenants' Rights During Foreclosure in NJ (apartment, lease, condo)

[diorgirl]

I ran across some interesting info researching this subject for a friend and thought I'd share it here. She was threatened with eviction after the guy who owned the condo she was renting defaulted on his mortgage and the bank foreclosed.

We learned that tenants in foreclosed properties have rights, and cannot be evicted due to foreclosure under New Jersey law.

The New Jersey Public Advocate has a good brochure summarizing tenants' rights in this situation at: New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate | The Rights of Tenants During Foreclosure

[Bill Keegan]

Originally Posted by diorgirl

I ran across some interesting info researching this subject for a friend and thought I'd share it here. She was threatened with eviction after the guy who owned the condo she was renting defaulted on his mortgage and the bank foreclosed.

We learned that tenants in foreclosed properties have rights, and cannot be evicted due to foreclosure under New Jersey law.

The New Jersey Public Advocate has a good brochure summarizing tenants' rights in this situation at: New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate | The Rights of Tenants During Foreclosure

That's correct. The new owner has to honor the lease that is in place when he takes posession. Of course, so does the tenant. Who threatened the eviction?

[diorgirl]

Originally Posted by Bill Keegan

That's correct. The new owner has to honor the lease that is in place when he takes posession. Of course, so does the tenant. Who threatened the eviction?

The new owner threatened the eviction -- even had her served with papers. She had no idea that the former owner had defaulted, and the first she heard of it was through the new owner's eviction notice to her. He told her he was going to renovate the apartment and rent it at a much higher rate. She just assumed that the new owner had the right to evict her until we did a little digging. It was a good reminder to us all that you really should do some independent investigation before uprooting your life on the basis of some official looking court papers!

[Bill Keegan]

Originally Posted by diorgirl

The new owner threatened the eviction -- even had her served with papers. She had no idea that the former owner had defaulted, and the first she heard of it was through the new owner's eviction notice to her. He told her he was going to renovate the apartment and rent it at a much higher rate. She just assumed that the new owner had the right to evict her until we did a little digging. It was a good reminder to us all that you really should do some independent investigation before uprooting your life on the basis of some official looking court papers!

If he got the papers filed and served, there may be something to this. Are yuo sure they are actual eviction papers, or is it just some official looking form from the owner? Do they have a signed lease? Have they done anything that can be construed as breaking the lease?

[diorgirl]

Originally Posted by Bill Keegan

If he got the papers filed and served, there may be something to this. Are yuo sure they are actual eviction papers, or is it just some official looking form from the owner? Do they have a signed lease? Have they done anything that can be construed as breaking the lease?

You must be psychic! The eviction papers were not genuine! They looked real, but they had not actually been filed with a court. That should have been the first clue -- but none of us had ever been evicted before, so we had no idea was was missing from the papers he "served" her (she found them under her apartment door one evening).

[JCParalegal]

There are a lot of "if's" at play here.

You can be evicted through a few methods, but you can't be evicted for the sole reason that it's a foreclosure.

If you are a tenant in a two or three family owner occupied home, when your term lease ends, your new landlord will terminate your tenancy so they can get you out to do the renovations and let it at a higher rate. These building don't fall under the anti-eviction act.

If she's not in a rent controlled unit, the new landlord can raise the rent to try and get her out. As long as the new rent isn't considered unconscionable (like going from 500 to 3,000), she won't have much leg to stand on.

She should see a lawyer who specializes in landlord & tenant law to find out all her rights and options.

[diorgirl]

Originally Posted by JCParalegal

She should see a lawyer who specializes in landlord & tenant law to find out all her rights and options.

If you check the date on the original post, you'll see that it was on June 9. Your response -- while interesting -- is a bit late to act on in this situation.

[JCParalegal]

Originally Posted by diorgirl

If you check the date on the original post, you'll see that it was on June 9. Your response -- while interesting -- is a bit late to act on in this situation.

I can (and did) read the date, but thank you for typing it out for me.

Your friend is not the only person in New Jersey who is or has faced this situation. Many people believe that they are safe from the threat of eviction completely because of the foreclosure and do not realize there are other avenues that the landlord could take.

The vast majority of people in this situation, after having heard that they can't be evicted because of foreclosure, would not even stop and consider "well, I can't be evicted because of this, but what else can they do to me?". Hopefully someone in this situation will come across my post and be thankful that someone took the issue a step further.

[diorgirl]

Originally Posted by JCParalegal

I can (and did) read the date, but thank you for typing it out for me.

You're welcome!

In my experience, most legal professionals pay lots of attention to detail -- particularly to specific time frames set by the courts for responses in cases and to deadlines before which one must file certain claims.

I was frankly surprised that your response made no mention of any time frames -- since, in the case of eviction, time really is of the essence. To suggest three months after the fact that my friend consult legal advice for a situation that is well past its expiration date seems impractical at best.

In the future, you might consider starting a separate thread on an issue that interests you (perhaps on eviction in a broader sense). When you comment in existing threads, you might consider including some reference to the timeliness required for responses to those particular legal actions.

Choosing to direct your response to this particular case -- eviction due to foreclosure -- you imply by omission of the time factor that such situations have no deadlines.