Renters hit by foreclosure to get warnings

CITY COUNCIL PANEL | If no notice, tenants could break lease

Chicago renters caught in the middle of the foreclosure epidemic would get an early warning to prepare for the worst, under a crackdown advanced Monday by a City Council committee.

The General Assembly has already guaranteed renters a minimum of 90 days notice before being thrown out of foreclosed buildings. That’s up from as little as five days notice previously.

Now, landlords will be required to notify their tenants within seven days of being served with a notice of foreclosure.

Tenants who don’t get that notice would be free to terminate their lease, under the ordinance advanced by the City Council’s Buildings Committee. Landlords would face a $200 fine.

“There’s a rash of foreclosures. More are going to be coming. Tenants should know if their place of dwelling is at risk — rather than, in some instances, the first notice they get is when the sheriff’s deputy shows up with an eviction notice,” said Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th), chief sponsor.

The notice would include the court in which the foreclosure action is pending along with the case name and number. It would go to tenants and third-parties with “a consistent pattern and practice of paying rent … on behalf of a tenant.”

The language would clearly state: “This is not a notice to vacate the premise. This notice does not mean ownership of the building has changed. All tenants are still responsible for payment of rent and other obligations under the rental agreement.”

Buildings Committee Chairman Bernard Stone (50th) called the rent warning critical.

“Many of these properties are small properties. You have good owners who get themselves in difficult times — and they eventually work themselves out of it. . . . We don’t want to take good housing stock off the market. We don’t want to create abandoned buildings. We don’t want to punish a good landlord either,” Stone said.

Brian Bernardoni, senior director of government affairs and public policy for the Chicago Association of Realtors, noted that the foreclosure process can drag on for well over a year.

Without a reminder that rent must be paid, Bernardoni said, “You may see tenants panicking . . . into not paying rent and, perhaps, vacating premises,” pushing good landlords teetering on the edge into the foreclosure abyss.

In 2007, more than 35 percent of Chicago foreclosures impacted small, multi-family rental buildings that serve as the backbone of Chicago’s stock of affordable housing.

This year, 2,500 families and 10,000 tenants are expected to face evictions tied to the mortgage foreclosure epidemic, according to the Lawyers Committee for Better Housing.