Bankers in St. Louis are estimating that one in five foreclosures right now are affecting renters. Unfortunately renters don’t have many rights when it comes to renting from an owner of a property that gets foreclosed on but many are pushing the local government to do something about it.

In fact at the moment there are two bills in the Missouri House and another in the state Senate that would change the way foreclosure notice is given, or even institute a waiting period for a new owner to properly evict prior tenants.

Currently Missouri law only requires the mortgage holder to notify the property owner, but not renters, 20 days prior to a foreclosure sale. Once the property is sold, the previous rental lease is void and the new owner, usually a bank, can move to evict the current tenants. Many would like to see that 20-day notification increased to 45 days to give tenants more time to sort out new housing arrangements.

All of these new proposals are work in progress and will take some time to work through the system. Sadly it won’t help many that are in the middle of this situation right now.