This whole process happened to our family last year. The house we were in was foreclosed upon and we ended up going through the entire process.
Federal law states you have 90 days after change of ownership. If your current lease is longer than that, you have good grounds to negotiate with the bank, but from what I hear, it won’t be pleasant.
We negotiated with our LL a reduction of rent and it was his choice to use the Security Deposit in lieu of one of the months of rent. I also negotiated not paying any rent during the month in which the bank takes ownership (auction date)…this was recommended from a tenant attorney, and it worked out well for us (auction date was at the end of the month).
Bank offered us (through their “handlers” working for Prudential RE) 3 months rent to be out in 7 days. Actually, I requested that on the phone with our handler, and he said “the bank will never do that” so I said “that’s fine, we’re in no hurry to move…we’ll stay our 90 days”. He called me back a day later and said they accepted our offer. In hind sight, I wish I had asked for more than 7 days to move out…and I wished I had asked for more than 3 months rent, knowing I’ll have to pay taxes on that check.
Start to finish for us, was NOD filed in January/February…we were moved out by Oct. 5th.
