Q: I rent a home in Suisun City. My family and I have been in this house for almost five years now. In fact, we moved in when the owner bought it new.

We have never been late on a rent payment and have done a lot of work on the place that really should have been the landlord’s job to do. But the landlord always seemed like a good guy and pretty much left us alone, so we didn’t mind fixing little things at our expense.

My wife came home yesterday and discovered a letter taped to the front door addressed to the owner. We opened it (I know we probably shouldn’t have) and discovered that the place is about to be sold at a foreclosure sale! We received no notice and, like I said, kept paying our rent totally unconcerned about something like this.

Isn’t it a crime for the owner to have taken our rent and not paid the mortgage? What about our $2,000 deposit? What is going to happen to us next?

A: If it makes you feel any better, and I know it doesn’t, you aren’t alone. Not by a long-shot.

When someone is going to let a house go into foreclosure, they almost always will let a rental go rather than their primary home. That’s the reason non-owner-occupied loans are more expensive.

At the same time, the defaulting landlord can pocket the monthly rent with virtually no overhead, i.e. it’s pure profit.

It’s just intuitive that there’s something illegal about it. But the truth is, there’s not.

Nope, it’s perfectly legal.

That’s not to say the landlord might not have some small amount of liability for having breached a long-term lease, but that liability would pale in comparison to the 10 to 12 months of rent he’s collected.

Only when you think about it awhile, does the logic behind the lack-of-a-law make some sense.

When you signed a lease with your landlord, you agreed to pay a certain amount of rent in exchange for having a roof over your head. As of today, you have a roof over your head. Right?

In exchange, you paid your rent. Legally speaking, what the landlord did with the money is his business. There was nothing in the lease that required him to pay the mortgage, though perhaps tenants will start asking for such a clause in the future.

The question is whether you are suffering any monetary damages for which the law will allow you to be compensated.

You didn’t mention if you were on a one-year, or month-to-month lease.

If the home is foreclosed and you are forced to relocate in, say, the middle of a one-year lease, the landlord could be liable for a portion of your moving expenses.

Plus, if renting a similar property is more expensive than what you were paying, the landlord could be liable for the difference until the time when your lease would have expired anyway.

Like I said, we’re talking about a potentially relatively small number here.

If you were on a month-to-month lease, you’ve likely not suffered any financial damages. The landlord is only required to give you a 60 day notice to vacate, while the bank generally has to give you 90 days.

And during those 90 days the banks are generally not too concerned about collecting rent.

What will likely happen is that in about a month or so, a nice Realtor will come to the door to see who lives in the house the bank now owns. Be prepared to show her the lease.

At that point they may decide to try and bribe you to leave earlier than the 90 days.

Tim Jones is a real estate attorney in Fairfield. If you have any real estate questions that you would like to have answered in this column you can contact him at [email protected]