I have a close friend - let's call them "Sam" - that discovered that they were renting a home in foreclosure. While this is probably not surprising to many, it was disappointing for me. You see, I found Sam this home to rent - we looked at it together, met with the property management company - it's a FANTASTIC house in a small town. Sam moved from another state to rent this house and has been in the house for four months. This week it was discovered that is going to auction next month yet Sam has received no notice from the property management company, owners, title holder, auction company, city, state....nothing. Sam found the auction notice in the paper. Further research shows that although Sam has paid rent on time each month, the owners have not made a payment in over a year.
While I could go on about fairness, get angry, disappointed, mad - all of the emotions one can go through, I just find the situation yet another example of what's going the wrong way. Clearly the owners knew it was in foreclosure and knew it would be auctioned yet they rented it anyway and to protect themselves, did it through a property management company. They didn't care about the person who would rent it only to be kicked out at some point. I imagine it must be a HUGE disappointment to lose your house in a foreclosure but to spread the misery to an unexpecting person who signed a lease, paid the deposit and pays rent on time each month is cruel, misleading and wrong!
I know that bad things happen to good people and Sam did not deserve this at all. Sam is a good person with a heart of gold. It cost Sam thousands of dollars to move to another state to be in this house and there just isn't money to have to pack up and move all over again four months after moving in.
As a country we have such a powerful story of fleeing persecution for religious freedom (among other freedoms) and thousands of immigrants come to this country in search of the same thing. Yet here we are a few hundred years after establishment and we don't seem to be grateful for what we have. We are not kind to our fellow man and are knowingly screwing over our neighbor. Each morning when I wake up I try to focus on a positive thought but it seems lately that there are so many challenges to doing that simple task given all of the challenges we're facing.
They say that ignorance is bliss and in my days of ignoring the news and being absorbed in my own life, I definitely found it easier to cope. But as I get older that sort of denial that serious issues exist seems naive and frankly, dangerous. If we don't pay attention to the issues that are eating away at our foundation, they don't go away - they go unchecked and become dangerous. Ever have weeds in your yard? Pull the weeds when they're young and they're a lot easier to pull....wait until their roots have firmly established and it will take three times the effort and time to pull them out.
Back to the issue of renting a house in foreclosure to an unsuspecting renter - it's frustrating when all you can do is hope for the best and know that karma will take care of the rest. The time and energy it would take to try to find some legal ground or restitution in this case just isn't worth it. It would cost more money and time and won't change anything. Let's face it, this has been going on for years with nothing in place to stop it except some "for appearances only" legislation (which, if you read, sucks) that won't be put into effect until 2012 which in my opinion, is too late. We needed some penalty staring in like 2008! But like everything else lately, we wait until the cow is not only out of the barn but in the next county before we decide that perhaps we should have closed the barn door - and instead of spending the time to figure out how to fix it, our government just spends their time trying to pin the blame.
Maybe we're all in the same boat. This country is our home and our landlord is the government, who, let's face it, at times resembles the unethical landlords that Sam has. Perhaps we're all naively renting a home in foreclosure and we just haven't received the notice yet.
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