Thursday, July 29, 2010

Action Guide for California Tenants in Foreclosure Situations Released

Due to overwhelming demand, Tenants Together, California’s Statewide Organization for Renters’ Rights, today released the Action Guide for California Tenants in Foreclosure Situations to help tenants caught up as innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis learn, assert, and expand their rights.

The Action Guide includes four sections:

· Section 1 helps tenants learn what stage in the foreclosure process their home is in.

· Section 2 helps tenants learn and assert their rights so they can stay in their home for as long as possible, maintain their home in a habitable condition, live free of harassment from their landlord, and recover their security deposit.

· Section 3 helps tenants learn how they can pressure bad actors (typically banks, private investors, real estate agents, and eviction law firms) by shining a public spotlight on them. The Action Guide includes downloadable sample-letters to banks and to elected officials as well as a web-based, sample letter to the editor.

· Section 4 helps tenants work to expand their rights by forming local Tenant Action Groups and by demanding that their city council pass a local just cause for eviction ordinances to provide long-term protections for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Time and again we have seen banks and private investors back down when tenants stand up for their rights. Our Action Guide will help tenants fight back and turn the tables on these abusive landlords after foreclosure

For a printer-friendly version of press release, click here

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

President Obama extends and clarifies the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act

By Kent Qian

Last week, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Public Law 111-203).  The Act is most known for reforming the financial system and creating an independent consumer protection agency.  But more importantly for renters, Section 1484 of the Act extends the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) to 2014 and clarifies that the PTFA protects all bona fide tenants who entered into a lease before the transfer of title by foreclosure.

Under the PTFA, all bona fide tenants must receive a 90-day notice before they may be required to vacate.  Tenants with more than 90 days remaining on a lease may remain until the end of the lease, if the tenant entered into the lease before the "notice of foreclosure."  Initially, the term "notice of foreclosure" was not defined in the PTFA.  Seizing on this ambiguity, banks and other post-foreclosure owners have insisted that "notice of foreclosure" means one of the earlier foreclosure notices, such as a notice of default sent to a defaulting borrower in California.  Tenant advocates, on the other hand, argued that the PTFA's legislative history evidenced Congressional intent to protect all leases entered into before the transfer of title by foreclosure.  Until now, the case law on what "notice of foreclosure" means has been mixed.

The Dodd-Frank Act removes this ambiguity by defining the date of "notice of foreclosure" to be the date complete title transfers through foreclosure.  Because it is meant as a clarification of existing law, this provision should apply retroactively to pending evictions to ensure that bona fide tenants may remain until the end of any lease entered into with a landlord who still owned the property at the time.

Kent Qian is a Skadden Fellow at the National Housing Law Project.  His work at NHLP focuses on protecting renters' rights in foreclosure.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sacramento Renters: We Deserve More

By Alison Brennan

Sacramento is one of the many places in the country where tenants are nonpersons. Coming from the Bay Area where the majority of the population rents and where tenant participation in civic affairs is expected, it was a bit of a shock to find out that, in Sacramento, tenants cannot expect to get many of the services from government and elected officials that homeowners receive as a matter of course.

My first experience of this was when I sought to obtain legal counsel for one of my neighbors who was threatened with eviction by the property manager. Unfortunately for the property manager, she sought to evict my neighbor for complaining about conditions at the property--one of the few instances in which tenants are protected from eviction by law. All I wanted was to find a lawyer who could write a stern letter to the property manager explaining that and, of course, detailing the consequences if she pursued the eviction. So I did what people do in San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley all the time. I called my City Councilmember's office. And was stunned when his staff person informed me that she couldn't help me, but could have helped me had I been a landlord seeking the same assistance. Gulp.

My next encounter with government officials was when I sought to get a copy of a county publication, "River-Friendly Landscape Guidelines," which I'd read about on one of the local gardening websites. I got online and requested it, leaving the space to indicate whether I was a homeowner or landscaper blank. The county did send it to me, but first telephoned to grill me as to my intentions. Gulp. Again.

It's unfortunately no surprise that our government officials and the local press have largely ignored the effect of the foreclosure crisis on tenants. So today, Tenants Together is taking us to the City Council meeting, where will attempt to interest them in the plight of the thousands (yes, thousands!) of tenants who were displaced when their landlords allowed their buildings to go into foreclosure. Maybe they will "see the light", but I suspect that this will only be the beginning of a long process.

Alison Brennan is a member of Tenants Together who lives in Sacramento. She runs a blog entitled Tenants and Foreclosure: Information for California Renters in Foreclosed Properties, which is a valuable resource for tenants in foreclosure situations.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Committee stops anti-rent control bill

AB 761 (Calderon) would have been devastating to mobilehome residents who are protected by rent control. Mobilehome owners are both owners and renters: they own their homes, but rent the land underneath from park owners. AB 761 was the latest in a series of attacks on rent control by greedy park owners and their allies in state government.

Last year, AB 761 narrowly failed, and the bill was back in this second year of this 2-year legislative session. Fortunately, Judiciary Committee members Senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) stood firm against powerful park owners that seek to take rent protections away from residents.

This is a major victory for mobilehome residents, especially the many seniors living on fixed incomes in mobilehome parks.

Congratulations to the Golden State Manufactured-home Owners' League (GSMOL). GSMOL closely monitored the legislation, mobilized residents against this unfair attack on rent control, and successfully lobbied to defeat it. Score one for the good guys.