Massachusetts Lawmakers Considering Proposals To Protect Tenants In Foreclosure Evictions

The Boston Herald reports:

• "State lawmakers are weighing a proposal to make banks that foreclose on rental units honor renters’ leases, aiming to help tenants caught in the middle of property seizures. A mortgage-reform bill currently before the Legislature would prohibit parties that acquire homes through foreclosure from automatically voiding tenants’ leases. Current law generally doesn’t require lenders or private investors who purchase homes at foreclosure to honor landlord-tenant agreements. Instead, as the Herald first reported Saturday, lenders who’ve been seizing Bay State rentals from landlords who fall behind have been evicting even tenants who paid rent on time."

For more, see Bill would help renters after foreclosures.

Editor's Note: The tenants who paid their rent on time and who are being evicted anyway after foreclosure are victims of equity skimming, where their prior landlord pocketed their rent without paying on the mortgage. The Massachusetts legislature should probably also consider going after those landlords and pass legislation (if they haven't already) making equity skimming illegal, the way some other states have, and similar to the law contained in the Federal statute, and then vigorously enforce it.