F'closing Bankster Scores Sleazy Win Over Unwitting Tenant; Boots Family Of 11 Receiving Sec. 8 Rent Subsidy By Failing To Ask For, Collect Back Rent

In Washington, D.C., WJLA-TV Channel 7 reports:

• A family of 11 people in the District is on the street Tuesday night after getting caught in a foreclosure nightmare. The family got a shocking surprise Tuesday morning when a team of marshals showed up to throw them out of their home.



• Janice Johnson knew a bank foreclosed on the house she rented through Section 8 for the past four years. She says she repeatedly talked with the bank about continuing in the federal housing program and assumed she could remain here.(1)



• Johnson says the bank simply had to request it and would get back rent. Johnson says had she known in advance she would have found another space. On Tuesday night, while neighbors take some of her things off the street, others are scrambling to find a mother and her children somewhere to stay.



• “There's a place were on Rhode Island Avenue we are going to go talk to to see what options are available,” Rev Robert Childs, of Berean Baptist Church says. While she wonders where her family will end Tuesday night, Johnson worries about her children returning from school to find their things on the street. “They should not have to come home from school to walk into something like this,” she says.

Source: D.C. family evicted after foreclosure nightmare.

(1) In the case of a tenant receiveing a Section 8 federal rent subsidy (ie. a "Section 8" tenant), federal law prohibits a new owner, including foreclosure purchasers and foreclosing lenders, from evicting Section 8 tenants unless they first go to court and prove they’re being economically harmed by having a tenant remain in a building, or show other good cause. However, many Section 8 tenants panic and don’t fight eviction notices, not realizing they have these special rights granted by Federal law (even if they do, may be unable to find and/or afford competent legal representation).

See generally, Foreclosures hit tenants (Activists: New owners trample on renters’ rights).

For the specific federal regulation on this point, see 24 CFR 982.310(d)(1). Go here for the regulations (24 CFR 982) regulating the Section 8 rent subsidy program.