Sadly, my San Antonio evictions practice frequently involves the filing of FE&D suits to remove former owners from homes they lost through a foreclosure and the attendant sale on the Courthouse steps. My client is almost always an innocent third party who purchased the property at the foreclosure /Substitute Trustee's Sale, but cannot take possession because the former owner refuses to vacate.
Theses cases are never fun, and I feel bad for the former owner. However, I find a little solace in the fact that the former owners have a set of remedies available to them. Further, those remedies are not against the new owner, but rather, against the bank or other lender who posted the home for foreclosure, and ultimately sold it to the new owner (my client).
It seems like lately, more often than ever, the former owners are fighting the evictions -- which the new owner rarely loses based upon the Substitute Trustee's Deed evidencing the change in ownership. When the former owner is unsuccessful in stopping or defeating the eviction, he or she frequently "lawyers-up" and runs to District Court to file a new lawsuit and obtain a Temporary Restraining Order that prevents the Eviction Judgment from being carried out.
Invariably, the new suits allege all sorts of misdeeds on the part of the lender who foreclosed, allege that the foreclosure was invalid, and seek a court declaration that the sale to the new owner is invalid and should be reversed.
When neither the new owner nor the lender who foreclosed are Texas residents, these suits usually end-up in federal court. Yes -- eviction suits wind up becoming "federal cases."
Increasingly, it seems that the Judges -- both state and federal -- are now recognizing that the new owner had nothing to do with the mortgage loan, how it was serviced, or whether the lender violated some law in conducting the sale. Instead, the new owner is just somebody who spent their money and received nothing in return but a lawsuit. In light of this recognition, we are achieving a large degree of success in obtaining possession of the property for the new owner, notwithstanding the fact that the "wrongful foreclosure" lawsuit against the lender remains pending.
Purchasers of real properties on the Bexar County courthouse steps who find themselves wrapped-up in a wrongful foreclosure suit against a foreclosing lender are well advised to hire an experienced eviction lawyer.
Purchasers of real properties on the Bexar County courthouse steps who find themselves wrapped-up in a wrongful foreclosure suit against a foreclosing lender are well advised to hire an experienced eviction lawyer.
