UNBELIEVABLE...

You know, we were scared to death to rent our home out and move to a short term rental. We have heard the horror stories and have had friends and acquaintances that have fallen victims to renting homes that have gone into foreclosure.

I have watched the recorders website like a hawk to make sure that we wouldn't come home to a notice taped up on the door. I was surfing around tonight (because that is my habit- even though we have three contracts out and at least two accepted I simply cannot stop looking for alternate plans) and low and behold guess what I came across?

Yes, somehow in my daily search of the recorders office I was using their pre-set formula for searching foreclosure documents. Unfortunately that pre-set list of doc types did not include the one where the NOD was filed on the property we are renting.

We signed the lease on August 13th. The NOD was filed on August 17th.

I cried.

I cannot believe this. We have been so careful- have worked so hard to make sure we watched for this. We felt like we could trust our landlord. Now we are scared to death we aren't going to get our $2500 security deposit back because there is a good chance it could already be spent or that he never intended to give it back. And we are also worried sick that we won't finalize something with our housing situation soon and will indeed come home to find that notice on our door.

Fortunately the laws have changed to improve the rights of tenants living in foreclosed homes. I am going to have to spend some time brushing up on them soon, just in case.

At this point we are:
1) hoping we get the contract on the FNMA owned home and can close within 45 days.
2) considering if we do not get that contract asking the seller of short sale #2 (Suntrust) if they will sign a two year lease to us and let us proceed with moving into the home. Knowing full well we will definitely end up paying rent that will not be paid to the bank and also knowing full well that if the short sale does not go through and the home does foreclose we will have to move yet again.
3) considering skipping any further thoughts of trying to get into the resale market here and instead going straight to another new construction home.

What would you do?