Eviction can come suddenly for renters

By Cynthia Osterman

SEATTLE (Reuters) - As the mortgage crisis forces more properties into foreclosure, even renters are feeling the pain.

When a landlord cannot pay the mortgage, tenants can face eviction, financial loss and pressure tactics from new owners who want them to move out. And some are ending up homeless.

Teacher Stuart Briggs was plunged into a nightmare when lenders foreclosed on his landlord last year: Utilities were cut off and he endured months with no lights or working toilets.

Vagrants took over an empty unit, and the building, in Oakland, California, fell into disrepair. Next the bank demanded that he and the other tenants pay five months rent at once or face eviction in three days.

"We had no idea this was coming. We were stranded," he said.

Realtytrac, a firm that monitors foreclosures, estimates that 20 percent of foreclosures nationwide involve rental property and that number rises to around 45 percent in some places like Las Vegas and San Diego.

In Minnesota, tenant hotline HOMEline found the number of calls it got from renters facing eviction due to foreclosure rose to 427 last year from 47 just two years earlier.

For renters, the crisis often begins unexpectedly as owners are rarely required to tell tenants they are in arrears.