I received this email the other day and thought it would be interesting to answer it online. I know the recent foreclosures have created this problem for many tenants in the Sacramento area and all I can say is that my heart goes out to them. I have always emphasized that landlords treat their rentals as a business - an ethical business - and this is obviously no way to do so. Read on:
Sacramento Real Estate Gal,
We are renting a house in Fair Oaks. The mortgage went into default in December, but we continued paying rent through February. The landlord has denied any problem every time we ask her. My husband decided to withhold March rent because she definitely won't refund our deposit. She served us with eviction papers March 10th, we received a Notice of Trustees sale on the door March 11th. The sale is scheduled for April 1st. We have been told we have to pay rent, don't pay the rent...what should we do? - S.P.
S.P.,
My recommendation to you would be to start looking for another place right away. Serve the landlord with a 30 day notice and pay the rent. Then you can pursue your deposit in small claims court. California has very strict laws about returning a tenant's deposit. You can read about them here.
To the landlord involved: shame on you. It's landlords like you that give the rest of us a bad name. Unfortunately, you are who the tenants think we all are and so it seems to make it okay for otherwise law-abiding tenants to want to steal from their landlords.
For the rest who are considering becoming landlords, you might want to head over to Landlord Land Mines regularly to make sure you're not blowing your leg off!
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