Monday, December 1, 2014

And If I Can't Move Within the 90 Days?

What if I can't move in 90 days?

It's possible that you can negotiate with the lender for more time,
particularly if you only need a week or two. A local lender is more likely to
be amenable to an extension than a European bank. (European bankers love the American landlord-tenant system. They can do things here that they would never get away with in European countries, and they tend to do them. My reading indicates that Deutsche Bank has been particularly nasty.) European banks treat American tenants the way US corporations treat agricultural workers in Central America.

If you can't negotiate with the lender, you must move by the time the 90 days is up. If you don't move, the landlord can file an unlawful detainer and ask the court to evict you. Most tenants don't know this, as they aren't often faced with eviction, but the right of private reporting agencies has eviscerated the rights of California tenants to defend themselves in court. Court documents are a matter of public record, and that enables various landlord reporting services to compile information on tenants who have had unlawful detainer actions filed against them in court. These services don't care whether the tenant won or lost the case, since most landlords don't want a tenant who has defended her rights against a landlord. The eviction reporting services look at filings; they don't care how the case was resolved. You must move before an unlawful detainer is filed. Period.

However, do remember that the lender has to give you 90-days' notice and wait for the full 90 days before filing an unlawful detainer. Less than honest real estate "professionals" are still trying to frighten people out of their homes by saying things like, "If you don't take our 45-cent cash for keys offer, we'll begin eviction proceedings." Well, yes they will, but those eviction proceedings don't become a court action until your 90-days' notice has expired.