the landlord hired a property management agent to rent this property, when we asked him and the agent if the property was not on risk of foreclosure, both assured us that the landlord was on time on his payments, however two weeks after moving in a representative from wells fargo knocked at the door and we found out that he was seven! yes seven months behind on his payments, for the last two months, the landlord has promised to solve the issue by modification or bringing the payments current, recently through public records we found out that he has not even paid the taxes for year and a half. although legislation is directed to stop lenders from evicting tenants, the act of a landlord that is is still not in foreclosure, but that actually knows that he is behind on his payments should be addressed also through cohesive laws that protect the tenant. The purpose of any legislation that is pursued in these hard times is to ultimately protect the tenant from being evicted or spending sometimes thousands of dollars seeking stable housing and findign out that this is not the case. A common sense legislation should be proposed to penalize the landlord that deceives a tenant into moving on a property with more than 2 months behind on the mortgage payment. Another option is a law that requires the landlord to deposit the tenant's monies into an escrow or trust in order to guarantee the proper payment of the mortgage and taxes, ultimately the landlord is speculating with the property for financial benefit, he or she will not be detrimentally affected if the rent paid goes directly to the lender and to the property taxes. If the rent does not cover the mortgage payment, then why in the world should a landlord be allowed to enrich him/herself by hurting others through commiting what could amount to fraud. If a landlord is upside down and loses a property he/she should not be allowed to practically steal from the tenant by not paying the mortgage, that is unconscionable and lacks any common sense that could effectively hurt a tenant that falls into the hands of these crooks. getting a rent on an encumbered property knowingly that foreclosure is imminent and not using the benefit of the tenant's rent to cover such responsibility should be not only penalized civilly but in the penal code.
