Sunday, March 23, 2008

Rent Skimming Landlord Pockets $2K Security Deposit, Leaves Tenants High & Dry

In Gaithersburg, Maryland, WJLA-TV Channel 7 reports:
  • Renters are getting evicted because their landlords are not paying their mortgages. A few weeks ago, Tameka Edwards and her roommates got the shock of their lives. Their townhouse had been foreclosed without their knowledge, while their landlord continued to take their rent money. [... Julio] Rodriguez, a broker with Showcase Home Reality, informed the tenants a bank, not their landlord, now owns the townhouse because the property had been foreclosed. "That is so unprofessional for someone to actually demand something for nothing when knowing he doesn't have rights to the property," he said. Rodriguez suspects this landlord inappropriately collected three to four months of rent from his tenants during the foreclosure process, misleading them to cash in on their trust, instead of informing them they would soon be homeless.

For more, see Renters Get Evicted As Landlords Don't Pay Up.

For other posts involving the problems tenants face in homes in foreclosure, go here, go here, go here, go here, and go here. equity skimming unwittingly epsilon