Florida Senate Bill 524 and House Bill 779 would provide certain protections to tenants after the foreclosure sale of residential property. The bills, both of which were introduced on March 3, 2015, would add back certain tenant protections that previously existed under the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA), which sunset on December 31, 2014 and was not renewed.
The bills, if enacted, would prescribe that a purchaser taking title to a tenant-occupied residential property following a foreclosure sale takes title to the property as a landlord, subject to the rights of the tenant. The bills outline the conditions under which the tenant may remain in the property based on whether a written rental agreement was entered into before or after the purchaser took title to the property following the foreclosure sale. The bills also mandate that a prescribed 90-day notice of termination of the rental agreement be provided to the tenant.
The proposed protections and requirements would not apply in certain situations, such as when the rental agreement was not the result of an arm’s length transaction. The proposed exemptions are similar to the prior PTFA exemptions.
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