Renters Have Immediate Protections from Foreclosure Under New Bill
Renters Have Immediate Protections from Foreclosure Under New Bill
Washington, DC - May 20, 2009 - (RealEstateRama) — Renters whose landlords fall into foreclosure will have new protections from evictions under a bill passed by Congress this week and expected to be signed by the President today.
The House and Senate each passed S. 896, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, on Tuesday, May 19. Once signed by the President, the bill will provide renters whose landlords have lost their properties to foreclosure the right to stay in the home for 90 days after the foreclosure or through the term of their lease, unless the property is sold to someone who will occupy the home. The bill will also provide similar protections to housing voucher holders.
The renter protection provisions go into effect as soon as the bill is signed and expire at the end of 2012.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that 40% of the households who lose their homes because of foreclosure are renters. In most states, renters have very few rights upon their landlord’s foreclosure and are often evicted with little or no notice. NLIHC is planning a public education campaign to make sure that tenants, their advocates, and lenders know what the new bill requires.
“This bill is a major victory for the one of the innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis—the families who, after paying their rent each month, are suddenly told they must move out of their homes because their landlord has gone into foreclosure,” said NLIHC President Sheila Crowley. “We applaud Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN), Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), Michael Capuano (D-MA), and Barney Frank (D-MA) for making passage of this provision a priority.”
Also added to the bill as an amendment was legislation to reauthorize and improve HUD’s McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs. The bill includes S. 808 / H.R. 1877, the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH). This provision will consolidate HUD’s homeless assistance programs with an emphasis on homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing, and its passage has also been a priority of NLIHC.
Established in 1974 by Cushing N. Dolbeare, the National Low Income Housing Coalition is dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that assures people with the lowest incomes in the United States have affordable and decent homes.
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National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)
727 15th Street NW, 6th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005
202/662-1530; Fax 202/393-1973; 
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