State's Budget Bill Amends Tenant Protection Act

Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Legislation, Evictions, Foreclosures / Comments

On June 29, 2009 Governor Jim Doyle signed the 2009-11 state biennial budget bill into law.  This law in part made modifications to the Tenant Protection Act (starts on page 108) which offers tenants certain protections during the foreclosure process.  My earlier post on the Tenant Protection Act can be read here.

Specifically, the state budget bill modified the current law related to tenant protections in foreclosure actions as follows:

1.      ADDED - If  an eviction action seeks to remove a tenant whose tenancy was terminated as a result of a foreclosure judgment and sale, the complaint must identify that the lawsuit is an eviction that is being brought as a result of a foreclosure action.

2.     ADDED - A tenant cannot be named as a party in a foreclosure action unless s/he  has a lien or ownership interest in the property.  The fact that a tenant lives in the rental property that is being foreclosed upon is not enough to name them as a party in a foreclosure action.

3.     ADDED - If a tenant is improperly named as a party in a foreclosure action the court shall award the tenant $250 in damages plus his/hers reasonable attorney's fees.

4.     DELETED - The portion of the Tenant Protection Act that required the exclusion of any tenant information related to foreclosure actions from appearing on CCAP.   That section was replaced with #2 above.