Massachusetts Foreclosures Hammering Tenants

The Boston Globe reports:

• The foreclosure crisis increasingly is claiming the homes of people who never made the mistake of taking out an unaffordable mortgage: renters. Hundreds of tenants in foreclosed buildings have been evicted or are facing eviction by mortgage companies that do not want to be landlords. [...] Through mid-August this year, 1,376 multifamily properties in Massachusetts had been foreclosed, according to new research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. There were 750 multifamily foreclosures in Massachusetts in 2006. The one-two punch of foreclosure and eviction often thrusts three or more families into a sudden housing search.

• Tomorrow, US Representative Barney Frank said he plans to introduce federal legislation on foreclosures that includes a provision that tenant leases remain in effect after foreclosure, and that tenants without leases must receive 90 days notice before eviction. "Banks will no longer be able to put their convenience ahead of people's ability to live," said Frank, who chairs the House Committee on Financial Services. "We have asked lenders, saying, 'You really shouldn't do this.' Now the next step is to make it mandatory."

For more, see Default crisis is evicting renters (Tenants forced out by foreclosures) (if link expired, try here).

For other stories on tenants unknowingly renting homes in foreclosure, go here, or here, or here. equity skimming unwittingly delta