The other thing is that if you want to keep the house, once you file BK, you will not be eligible for any type of workout from your service or the government. The BK is your workout. Do you really want to go this route, do you have to?? If you want to keep the house but still need to get out from other debt, you can permanently bring your house-payment current (call your lender to get a reinstatement map) and then BK the rest of your debt. The mortgage will have to be included but as long as you continue to make your payments on time, the bank/investor will not pursue you to take the home back. The banks don’t want to foreclose and won’t, as long as you meet your monthly obligation. But, if you do file BK and continue not to pay there are protections for the bank in place as well – they can remove themselves and continue foreclosure, as can car companies and credit card companies (but this is unlikely).

Excellent Luck

Find out from the owners if a sheriff sale has been scheduled. That will give you a excellent assess of when they will no longer be the owners of the house.

Then, look up your state laws to find out if there is a redemption after the sale. If there is no redemption, then you have to go out soon after the foreclosure auction, or you will be evicted.

If there is a redemption period, you can stay living in the house until after the redemption. This is a period guaranteed by state law for homeowners to keep possession of the house and attempt to pay it off or sell it. So the bank can’t evict you until after the period is over.

In some cases, the bank can offer to give you a thousand dollars or so just to go out. It’s called a “cash for keys” deal, but the amount offered will not be very much. Banks do it as a sign of excellent belief, and to persuade homeowners to leave lacking destroying anything or stealing all of the copper pipes to sell for moving expenses, etc.

But how long you have depends on how much time has already expired and what the state foreclosure laws have to say.

Excellent luck.
ForeclosureFish

It sounds like the bank anticipates that it will be the high bidder at the public auction, or else your landlord has has discussions with the bank about them giving the bank a Deed In Lieu of Foreclosure. In any consequence, the bank would prefer to re-sell the house free of any tenants. That means that they will offer you a certain amount of money to leave voluntarily, and if you don’t accept their offer then they will start legal proceedings to evict you.

You force want to consult an attorney who has some knowledge about how much you can demand from this particular bank. A protracted legal proceeding will cost the bank time and money and delay the repair or improvement and re-sale of the house. But it may also cost you a substatial amount of attorney’s fees to defend persons eviction proceedings. So you should seek a reasonable sum of money (in addition to negotiating the restore of your security deposit and/or last month’s rent) that will allow you to rent a comparable apartment in the area. You should also question for the bank to reimburse your moving expenses or pay you a fixed sum of money that you can apply against your moving expenses.

Excellent luck. If you feel confused or intimidated by the bank, then consult an attorney.

Although the bank is not obligated to pay you to go, sometimes they will do this. For example, if they are just going to tear the building down and place up something else, then the sooner they have you out, the sooner they can do that. There are laws about evictions – they can’t make you go for X days. But they force be willing to part with a couple thousand to get you to go out sooner (time is money).