Former Owner or Holdover Tenant? A Third Party Foreclosure Purchaser Attorney on the Two Removal Paths

The first question a third party foreclosure purchaser attorney asks about any occupied trustee-sale property is not "how fast can we file." It is "who exactly is inside." Washington law gives the purchaser two different removal paths after the hammer falls, unlawful detainer and ejectment, and the occupant's status decides which one you are allowed to use. File the right one and possession is measured in weeks. File the wrong one and it is measured in refiled months.

This is a working map of that fork in the road, part of our post-foreclosure and REO practice hub.

Before you bid: the occupant question is a bidding question

Under the Deeds of Trust Act, the purchaser at a trustee's sale is entitled to possession on the 20th day after the sale, as against the borrower and those holding under the borrower, per RCW 61.24.060. That phrase does the sorting. Whoever is inside either holds under the old borrower or claims something more, and everything downstream follows from that. Smart bidders form a view on occupancy before raising the paddle, because the two paths carry very different budgets.

Who is a former owner

The former owner is the foreclosed borrower, plus the household holding under them: spouse, family, invitees. Once the trustee's deed records and the 20 day period runs, a holdover former owner has no possessory right and no tenancy. They are not your tenant, no matter how long they stay, and the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act notice menu does not govern them. Their removal runs through the summary unlawful detainer procedure that RCW 61.24.060 borrows from RCW 59.12.

Who is a tenant

A bona fide tenant is someone who was genuinely renting from the foreclosed owner before the sale: arm's length lease, real rent, not the borrower's spouse or child. Federal law generally entitles a bona fide tenant to 90 days' written notice before removal, and often to the remainder of an existing lease term. A tenant can become a holdover tenant only after that protected period lapses. Skipping the analysis and treating a tenant like a former owner produces a void notice and a dismissed case.

The ejectment path

Ejectment under chapter 7.28 RCW is the full civil action for recovery of real property. It is the required path when the occupant claims a right the summary procedure cannot decide: an asserted ownership interest, a challenge to the trustee's sale, a competing deed. Ejectment means ordinary superior court litigation, discovery, motions, possibly trial. It is slower, often six months or more, but it resolves title questions for good, which unlawful detainer cannot.

The unlawful detainer path

Unlawful detainer under RCW 59.12 is the summary track: notice, summons and complaint, show cause hearing, writ of restitution, sheriff. For a garden-variety holdover former owner or a tenant whose protected period has run, this is the fast lane, typically six to ten weeks when the paperwork is clean. The trade is scope: the court decides possession only. If real title disputes surface mid-case, the summary track can collapse and send you back to square one in ejectment.

Myth: "One filing covers everyone in the house." Purchasers inherit mixed households all the time: the former owner in the main house, a genuine tenant in the basement, an unknown occupant in the garage unit. One complaint naming everyone under the wrong theory does not clean that up. It hands each occupant a ready-made motion to dismiss. Each class of occupant gets its own notice and, where necessary, its own track. The occupant-by-occupant playbook is detailed in our removing-occupants guide

.

Here is the cost of guessing wrong. A purchaser self-files an unlawful detainer against an occupant who turns out to hold a two year lease. The case is dismissed at the show cause hearing in week six. New 90 day notice, new filing, new service: call it four extra months. At $2,600 a month in carrying costs on a Spanaway house, the wrong caption cost roughly $10,400, plus a second round of filing and service fees, before the occupant ever packed a box. The full stage-by-stage clock is mapped in our eviction timeline pillar [link to: pillar post].

Picking the right one

The decision comes down to three questions. Does the occupant hold under the foreclosed borrower, or claim something independent? Has any federal or state notice period for tenants fully run? Is there any live challenge to the sale or the deed? Holding under the borrower with no title dispute: unlawful detainer. Independent claim or sale challenge: ejectment. Unclear: investigate before filing, because the cheapest week in this process is the one spent finding out who is actually inside.

How this plays out across Western Washington

• Pierce County (Tacoma, Spanaway, Lakewood, Puyallup): Our home court and the region's busiest trustee-sale market. Pierce County Superior Court moves summary cases efficiently, which makes choosing the right track the main variable you control.

• Kitsap County (Bremerton, Port Orchard, Silverdale): First-time auction buyers are common here, and so is the one-filing-covers-everyone mistake. The compact docket rewards clean paperwork.

• Eastside King County (Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah, Renton): Higher-value assets mean a wrong-track dismissal costs multiples of what it costs elsewhere. At Bellevue carrying costs, four lost months can pass $20,000.

• Snohomish County (Everett, Marysville, Lake Stevens): Same statutes, similar timelines to Pierce. Multi-county buyers should expect calendar differences, not legal ones.

Your next step: a two-minute self-audit

If you hold an occupied post-sale property, answer four questions in writing: who is in each unit, what does each occupant claim, which notice has been served and when it expires, and which track (unlawful detainer or ejectment) fits each occupant. Any blank answer is a dismissal risk. Send us the trustee's deed, any leases or notices you have, and your best occupant list, and we will confirm the right path before you spend a filing fee on the wrong one. Book a consultation and file once, correctly.