Uncle Fatlips

Last month Uncle Fatlips wrote a post titled Los Angeles Tenants Facing Landlord’s Foreclosure: Don’t Take The Money. In it I outlined local tenant rights and provided resources on where tenants facing a landlord’s foreclosure can find help. This is the second installment of a 3 part series I’m doing on the foreclosure/tenant situation in Los Angeles. I had something else lined up to write about but this weekend I came across the Web site Rentalforeclosure.com. Run by Las Vegas-based real estate experts Dave Madam and Shawn Shepherd, the site offers a free service that based on the information you provide it can tell you if your landlord is in foreclosure on the property where you reside.

Here’s how it works:

you select the state you live in and then input your home address and neighborhood.  The site searches through its nationwide database of public record information made available by County Registrar’s offices.  It checks the public records of the county you reside in to see if you your landlord is in foreclosure on the property address you provided.

Around since last September  it’s odd that Uncle Fatlips hasn’t heard of Rentalforeclosure.com sooner. But it seems to be on the up and up. Looking at the media/press information that’s listed on the Rentalforeclosure blog that’s linked to the main site the service has been mentioned by a Utah TV station and a Sacramento CBS affiliate TV station news report. Not only that, if you check out the comments section of the site there seems to be plenty of activity with concerned tenants asking questions about their situation or comments thanking the site for providing the information for free. Rentalforeclosure.com also features up-to-date news items regarding recent state laws for tenants and the latest scams on tenants facing foreclosure. Here’s a recent scam warning for tenants on the site Uncle Fatlips found quite interesting.

Renters Stuck When Landlords Decide To Walk Away From Upside Down Mortgages

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Home owners trying to walk away from upside down mortgages are enlisting the help of unsuspecting renters. In an effort to get out from under their mortgage home owners are buying new, more reasonably priced homes. In order to qualify to purchase a loan to purchase the new home they have to show how they are going to pay for their current mortgage. To do this they find a renter. Usually the owner will give the tenant a very attractive rent. The home owner, now landlord can now qualify for the new loan because the renter is now paying for some or all of the first mortgage.

Here’s the catch; shortly after closing on the new house many of these new landlords stop paying on the first mortgage. Soon after the tenant gets the boot from the bank.

Now more than ever tenants need to watch the signs. Remember if it sounds to good to be true it probably is! Many times, just to get a rental agreement in place, these new landlords are offering these homes for discounted rental rates. Be diligent, check up on your landlord, keep track of the status and don’t get blindsided by unscrupulous landlords trying to take advantage of you!

For kicks I ran my address information on the site.  The result was as I expected; no foreclosure for me. That said, it should be noted however that Rentalforeclosure’s database is limited. The surefire way is to go to the County Register’s office.

But if you’re still feeling too lazy to make that trek just yet you can also do some quick snoop work by researching pre-foreclosure listings on the Internet. Real estate Web sites such as Foreclosurelistings.com maintain listings of homes and multi-family dwellings that are currently in pre-foreclosure. When using sites like this however just be sure that you don’t sign up for a free trial period to the listings if it’s not your intention to use them on a continual basis.  Otherwise, if you provide a Web site with your credit card information for the free trial you could end up paying a monthly for a service for something you only wanted to use just once if 7 days go by without cancellation. Happens all the time.

Thing is, look at all of these online resources as preliminary research tools. Ultimately to find out the absolute truth you will have to make a trip to the County Register’s office. It is nice though to be able to do some early investigation so at least you’re not completely in the dark about your living situation. These kinds of sites do in fact turn up pre-foreclosures that concerned tenants didn’t know about until they did some research and then went and confirmed their findings with their local Registar’s office.  So Web sites like Rentalforeclosure.com and Foreclosurelistings.com aren’t a waste of time they’re just the first step in your attempt to uncover the information you want to know about. For detailed info regarding what to do if you’re a tenant facing a landlord’s foreclosure please read my earlier post Los Angeles Tenants Facing Landlord’s Foreclosure: Don’t Take The Money. Good luck!

~Uncle Fatlips:)

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