Q: Just found out the house I’m living in is going through foreclosure am I a bona fid tenant

A: Unless you have a formal written lease and live in a separate unit with its own entrance in the property, you will not likely be treated as anything other than a member of the owner’s extended family. Regardless, you have a lot more than 90 days if the house has not yet been sold at a foreclosure auction. It can take up to a year for all final audits and sale proceedings to get approved and a deed transferred to the new owner. Eviction proceedings happen after all of that, and would further need to follow the course of the court rules, and that process alone can take months from the point of filing. Even after a judgment of possession is awarded to the new owner, the eviction process has to follow the local Sheriff procedures. Depending on the county you’re in, and the current eviction backlog, that can be as short as a couple weeks or as many as three months. Generally speaking, you can safely gamble that you have at least two months after formal service of process of the initial complaint for judgment of possession. That process cannot start, however, until final audit approval and deed transfer occurs in the foreclosure action, and that could be 6 months to a year or more depending on the jurisdiction. The owner can extend that process even longer by filing bankruptcy before the auction sale, as much as 6 months to a year longer, depending, and even work out a way to keep the house. You can follow along with what is happening in the foreclosure proceedings by running the owner’s name in Maryland Judiciary Case Search online. Plan your time in the home and your move-out date accordingly.