TITLE VII—PROTECTING TENANTS AT FORECLOSURE

I just had an interesting experience at an eviction hearing. I purchased a property at Trustee sale in September and trying to determine who is in the property. It looks like they're just about moved out, but no one ever there when I go and no one responds to all the letters both posted and mailed to the property. We go through eviction, no one responds until we file a motion for summary judgement, then low and behold the occupants have a lease. We had our hearing last week and the "tenants" produced a 1 year lease for about half of market rents allegedly signed March 1st. The NOD (CA property) was filed in December 2010, NTS filed March 4, 2011. We said they were not bona fide tenants based on the date of the lease (after NOD filed) their attorney argued the definition of Notice of Foreclosure as being that of the second notice. Since neither notice in CA is called "Notice of Foreclosure", he and the judge went back and forth. Has anyone else seen this argument? We had other amunition, like markets rents so put an end to the "Bona Fides" of the tenants and the judge told them to gather their boxes and move.

Since this is a Federal Law, my guess is they had to draft common language to cover all states, but would think there is a list of definitions somewhere. I was thrown off by this line of defense. I though a public record (NOD) puts everyone on notice and would fulfill the Notice of Foreclosure definition. Not sure how this would have turned out if this was our only defense.