Two Common Moving-Company Scams and How to Avoid Them

Nothing is worse than having a landlord tell you something and then pay for movers and other expenses, only to find out that you have to move out in a month or two.

Although you didn't say so in your letter, I'm guessing that you're losing the property to foreclosure and probably have stopped paying your lender each month. Now you want to rent the property to someone who has no interest in becoming involved in the foreclosure. He or she only wants a place to live.

Are you planning to use the rental money to pay the lender? If not, it seems highly unethical to rent the home, pocket the money from the tenant and then have the tenant forced out when the lender takes over the property in short order. Would you want to be treated like that?

Your agent should know about the foreclosure. It's quite likely that he will work hard to find a tenant for the property -- maybe even succeed -- and then the deal will fall apart when the sheriff arrives at the home to clear it out and give it to the lender.

If you're upfront with the agent and the tenant, and the tenant decides to use the home for a short-term rental, fine. But it's up to the tenant to make that choice.

We bought a timeshare through a company in Minnesota. After we bought it, my husband had a neck injury, and he is now disabled. He was unable to work, and we fell behind on our maintenance payments. I arranged to get the fees caught up but just found out through the paper that the timeshare company filed for bankruptcy. They notified us that this happened, but they are closed for business.

Are we obligated to continue making these payments? If we don't make the payments, what would happen to our timeshare? We would like to sell but have not been successful because of the bankruptcy.

The turbulent real estate market doesn't affect just home buyers and sellers. As you and many others have discovered, it can affect ancillary businesses as well -- like your timeshare management company.

Nonetheless, you own an interest in a timeshare development. With that ownership interest come certain responsibilities, including paying monthly maintenance expenses, real estate taxes and other fees associated with the timeshare.

While the timeshare developer or operator might have filed for bankruptcy protection, your financial obligations will continue. If it's the timeshare developer that is in financial trouble, you may experience problems with the overall experience of owning your timeshare. If you bought your unit early and there are many units left to be sold, you may be in a precarious position.

If the building is not completed and there are units left to be finished and sold, the timeshare developer may never be able to finish the development. That would be terrible for you, unless some other developer comes in to finish the project.

If during bankruptcy a new developer comes in and sells out the remaining units at a fraction of what you paid, you may never get your money out of this purchase.