Landlord in foreclosure

Eviction proceedings show up on all court records searches. The resulting judgments for monies owed afterward show up on your credit report and affect your credit score. Those will affect your purchase of a home. You will likely not be approved for a mortgage until the judgment is satisfied. (Especially with the new tougher mortgage regulations.)

Judgments are good for quite a few years, although it varies in each state. Once they begin to expire, they can be renewed for another term. (For example, if the state allows a judgment for 10 years, it can then be renewed for another 10, making ot stay on your credit report for 20 years!) Interest will accumulate until the judgment is paid, so it can grow to be more than what you originally owed. So yes, they affect your ability to buy a house.

I'm in Tallahassee, FL. My landlord is also facing foreclosure (stopped paying mortgage 2 months into my lease), and in this case, he has stopped paying utilities, cable, internet, etc...The terms of my lease are that I pay the monthly rent and half the utilities to him, and he pays the utility company (the other half was to be taken care of my the landlord's daughter, who has since moved out). I recently found out that the utility bill was overdue, and after many unanswered requests to please pay the utilities, I ended up paying the utility company myself on the last possible day before they were turned off. I am planning on moving out as soon as I can, but in the meantime, can I deduct the extra utility expenses from my rent check? According to my lease, I am only responsible for half, and I have a feeling I won't be getting my security deposit back, so I don't want to throw any more money away than I have to.
Would opening an escrow account be a possibility? Technically, my landlord has done something to make the house unlivable--he has not made sure that the utilities stay on. Again, I want to pay this man as little as I have to so I can put enough money together to cover the cost of a move out of this place.

You were responsible for 1/2 when there were 2 people living there. Now you are the only one living there and the only one using those utilities. Why would you now think that you are still responsible for only 1/2 of them? I think he'd have a god argument in court to have you pay the whole bill unless there are utilities on in another part of the building that you don't use (someone else is using those utilities). If you're the only tenant that is left, those bills are yours.

So it doesn't matter that my lease specifically says that I am responsible for half of the utilities? We had an agreement that when my roommate was gone for the summer and I was the only one living there that I was still only responsible for half of the utilities. Why shouldn't this be the same in the case where my roommate (the landlord's daughter) has moved out without telling me anything, despite multiple attempts to contact both her and my landlord to find out about the situation? My landlord is being irresponsible--it is his duty to make sure the utilities are paid and he's not paying them, or even letting me know that if I want my water and electricity kept on, I need to pay the city myself. Aren't landlords responsible for making sure that their buildings are habitable? The only way I found out that they were going to be shut off is that the city has an online system to track anyone's utilities, even if they aren't yours.

The roommates for that unit were told that you were responsible for the utilities. Whether each of you paid half or some other portion is immmaterial. The fact that your roommate left is immaterial. The whole rent and utilities are due. You are the only one in that unit using those utilities now. Why wouldn't you be responsible for them? Why would you only be responsible for 1/2 of them when you are the only one there using them? I suggest you pay for them, then sue your former roommate for her share if she broke her lease or left without proper notice.