I’ve been hearing a lot of ads on the radio lately for a website called RentalForeclosure.com. The ad does tell the truth about tenant’s rights during a foreclosure: the tenant has very few rights. Nevada does have a loophole for those (rare) cases when the tenant’s lease pre-dates the landlord’s mortgage. It also appears that Nevada is considering additional protections for innocent renters.

Here’s the problem:  legal notices are served to the owner, not the property itself, until the foreclosure is complete. That means the person living in the property might not know anything is wrong until the bank’s representatives show up with a new set of locks for the front door!  Often, the renter will get just a few days notice.  Another twist on the problem is a scam where an unscrupulous “landlord” leases out a random vacant property to someone who thinks they are getting a great deal on a rental. And it is a great deal, until the real owner (usually the bank) shows up.

So what can you do?

First, arrange your rental through a licensed property manager.  Property managers in Nevada are real estate agents — Realtors — who have gone through additional training and have an additional certification to manage rental properties.  The first thing these managers do is make sure the property in question is actually owned by the person who says they own it, and that it is not in foreclosure.

Second, if you don’t know the status of your rented house or condo and you live in Clark County NV, visit the Clark County Website and select “property lookup” from “online services.” Search for your address.  The search will give you the property’s APN or parcel number, which is how the county keeps track of individual properties for tax and recording purposes. From here you can verify the owner, and such.  Use your computer’s “copy” function on the APN, and go to the Clark County Recorder’s website. Select “Search Records”, and then choose “Advanced Search.”  Enter the APN where it says “ParcelNum”, remove all the dashes from the number you pasted, and click on the “Detail Data” button below.  If the most recent entry is something like “breach” or “notice of trustee sale” or “notice of default”, you have a problem and need to call your landlord immediately. Unless there’s a really good answer, start planning to move.

And one more thing,  just because the landlord is in default doesn’t mean you can stop paying the rent.

Although I don’t normally handle rentals except under very special circumstances, I will happily recommend a colleague who does upon request.

This entry was posted on October 3, 2008 at 3:34 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Las Vegas Rental and Apartments Nevada The Law by Bridget Magnus Comments Off