The current “renters” or squatters, or whatever you want to call them, may well have a signed contract - the only problem being that it’s utterly bogus.
In the 90s, a friend of mine was the victim of a con like this up near Seattle - she rented a house from the ‘owner’ only to find out (far too late) that the ‘owner’ was actually a tenant, and the real owner had privately sold the house to another person. She was quite surprised when the new owner showed up one fine day to move in. And she was even more surprised, and horrified, to discover she’d been swindled.
I’d think that tracking down the previous tenants might be highly useful; most likely, they made off with the current occupants $$$. My friend got screwed out of first month, last month, and security deposit.
Now if these are just good old-fashioned squatters, then throw them out on their keesters. I admit to having a bit more sympathy towards their situation if they were indeed the victims of a con-artist.
But if not.....well, tough ****.
Yeah.... you're probably right, but the real problem is that it takes a court to decide that it is really bogus. Courts take their own sweet time.
you are exactly right...sometimes an owner moves out and rents their house out right before a foreclosure and then continue to cash the rent checks even when the house gets sold in foreclosure.
New owner shows up and surprises the existing renters. They may not actually be squatters and they should have some rights in that case.
This exact thing happened to a guy I know from Australia that was investing in Houston. The guy who handled the purchase for him never bothered to go by the house and see if it was occupied prior to the foreclosure sale. It took 6 months to get the renters out because their attorney was good at working the system.
If you are an investor, make sure the house is actually empty!
I suspect this may be the situation.