August 2018 Archives

Anyone who was involved in the post-foreclosure eviction world in the last decade will certainly recall the 2009 Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act ("PTFA").  That measure, part of the larger Dodd-Frank reform laws, added significant "protections" for unwitting tenants who were caught up in situations where the home they were leasing or occupying was subject to foreclosure during their tenancy.  Whereas, prior to 2009, many state laws only required relatively short notice periods before the purchaser at the foreclosure sale could file an action for unlawful detainer (eviction), the PTFA granted any "bona fide tenants" a minimum of 90 days notice before an unlawful detainer complaint could be filed.  The PTFA also afforded additional time to bona fide tenants pursuant to a "bona fide lease" entered into prior to a "notice of foreclosure."  Those tenants in possession pursuant to a bona fide lease could remain in the leasehold until their bona fide lease expired.  Those provisions, with their attendant ambiguities, slowed many post foreclosure possession actions and made verification of "bona fides" a constant part of any servicer, purchaser or attorney's work.  They also engendered substantial litigation trying to fill in the contours of those ambiguities.