I'm well aware of all the stories of people getting screwed over by banks while trying to renegotiate their mortgages, and I'm also well versed in foreclosures,

I'm well aware of all the stories of people getting screwed over by banks while trying to renegotiate their mortgages, and I'm also well versed in foreclosures, since a few people that I've known have gone through this process via strategic defaults. I would hazard a guess that I know more about this process than you do. But I still don't believe that the reaction of the landlord makes sense to me, unless the author was missing some key facts. The article says that not only was he renting the house for several years, but the landlord also raised his family in it. So, depending on how long the landlord owned it, there must be considerable equity built up in the house. To let something like this slip away without fighting it would be ridiculous. If the account of the author is accurate, then it sounds like the landlord walked away from the place. It just doesn't make sense that he would be apologetic to the renters, but instead he should be steaming mad, and would be trying to protect his investment. If this were me, and I just lost a house that I put a few 100k into it, and I had good renters, I would tell my renters "Don't move anywhere, I'll handle everything." But it sounds like he hung he renters out to dry. Remember, in order to get a loan mod (which the landlord claims he was in the midst of), the landlord at some point must have stopped paying his mortgage, so he definitely was collecting rent without paying the mortgage. Landlords letting their rental units slip into foreclosure, which collecting rent is even more common than banks screwing up and accidentally foreclosing on homes, so to me this is the more likely scenario.