Buying a property with a tenant not paying rent

[Elias Barend Westhof]

So we’re about to buy our first home. It’s a 4-plex in downtown LA. One of the tenants in the house has not been paying rent for several months, and owes $14.000 in rent. The person has not been evicted because of the LA moratorium.

The question is: When it is time for the tenant to finally pay, does the tenant pay us (the new owners), or the old owner whom the debt accumulated under?

Thank you for any input!

[Ronald Allen Barney]

The bigger issue is the moratorium.  If the language of the moratorium is that it also applies to new owners of a property, you've got a non-paying squatter courtesy your state government, until the moratorium ends.  When it ends it's the normal eviction procedures.  You will never see that money, I guarantee you.