Keith and Bernadette Grindley have three homes in foreclosure yet found a way to make money from the experience.

They put up the homes for rent.

Over the last two years, the Grindleys collected more than $150,000 on their luxury homes in St. Pete Beach and Belleair. That makes them characters in a previously untold chapter of Florida's foreclosure crisis.

As of last month, the Grindleys and at least 2,009 others in the Tampa Bay area were renting out homes in the foreclosure process, collectively taking in millions of dollars. And those numbers are conservative.

Using the Multiple Listing Service, the St. Petersburg Times counted just homes listed for sale, in foreclosure and occupied by renters. That tally would not capture hundreds, maybe thousands, more homes in foreclosure being rented that are not for sale.

Nothing requires homeowners to give rent money to banks during foreclosure, which offers little comfort to the other characters in this story.

Some are losing money. These include the public, whose tax dollars fund many cash incentives that lenders use to entice renters to leave foreclosed homes without damaging them; and banks, who lose out on mortgage payments and must still pay property taxes on the homes even though the owners collect rent each month.

For others, it's a matter of fairness: Homeowners, for instance, who don't rent out homes and make their payments even when they owe more than their homes are worth.

Ultimately, just about everyone pays a price for those who don't pay their mortgages, use the legal process to delay eviction and, at most extreme, rent out homes in foreclosure.

"Taxpayers are paying for it," said Brenda Wade of Signature Realty Associates in Valrico. "It encourages abuse. You and John Q. Taxpayer are on the hook for it. There's definitely a loophole in the process. People … know how to work the system."

• • •

Peter Nemethy of Re/Max Metro in St. Petersburg helped the Grindleys find tenants for their three homes, which together are worth nearly $3 million. He hoped to land big commissions when the houses eventually sold.

But the Grindleys or their tenants would allow him to show the homes for only one hour on Thursday evenings. Nemethy believes Keith Grindley had no intention of selling the houses.

"It came back to bite me,'' Nemethy said. "The tenants didn't want to move out of a luxury home."

The monthly rent on the three homes averaged between $3,000 and $6,000.

After Century Bank took possession of the Belleair home in July, it offered the tenant two months of free rent to move out by October. The tenant had been paying $4,000 a month. The two St. Pete Beach homes are still being rented.

Century Bank seized one of the St. Pete Beach homes in July. The tenant is still in the home and said he now pays the bank $6,000 a month. The market value of the two seized homes now totals $2.1 million. But the Grindleys owe the bank nearly $3.9 million.

Wells Fargo has not yet seized their other St. Pete Beach house. In March, Bernadette Grindley requested that the case enter mediation, which homeowners are entitled to do in Florida. That process would stall the eviction even longer. Then the bank's lawyer switched firms, which further delayed the case.

Little could be learned about the Grindleys. Records show they never had a homestead exemption on any of the three houses.

A 2009 article in the DuPont Registry magazine said that Keith Grindley worked for Hammerscotts Homes. It is not listed in Florida corporate records.

The article quoted the Grindleys as regretting having to sell the Belleair home.

"What I'll miss most is the scale and scope of the rooms and the immediate proximity to the Belleair Country Club, where I play tennis several times a week," Bernadette Grindley told the magazine.

The Times could not reach the Grindleys for comment. Realtors said they thought the couple were in England. Attempts to reach them via phone and e-mail were unsuccessful.

Bernadette Grindley's attorney, Steven Moore, declined to comment.

"I have no real contact with them,'' said the Grindleys' son, Steve. "They are out of the country. Keep sending them messages on Facebook."

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Renting a home in foreclosure is something Jonathan Graber learned about by accident.

He and a friend signed a $1,400 a month lease on a South Tampa home in 2009. Weeks after they bought furniture and moved in, foreclosure notices arrived in the mail.

The bank listed Graber and his friend as defendants, even though they were just renters.

Graber suspects an employee with a mortgage service company rifled through the mailbox to find their names. Both men confronted the landlord.

"She hadn't paid the mortgage in four months," he said. "She never once mentioned (the foreclosure)."

Knowing that foreclosures in Florida take a long time to complete, Graber and his friend finished out their six-month lease. Afterward, to keep them in the home, the landlord lowered the rent and switched them to a monthly lease.

The men rented the home for 19 months, then the landlord asked them to leave. By that time, she had refused to fix the air conditioner and wanted to rent the house to a friend.

Graber doesn't know what the landlord did with the rent money each month.

The owner, Angelia Tellone, who collected more than $10,000 in rent, could not be reached for comment.

• • •

The foreclosure process in Florida, from first filing to the bank seizing the home, takes an average of 633 days.

The owners, in the meantime, live in the homes for free.

If they go further and collect rent on houses in foreclosure, Florida Bankers Association chief Alex Sanchez said: "They're stealing from banks. It's a lose-lose situation for everybody. It shows the shenanigans that people are doing."

While critics call this a ripoff, housing advocates say it enables struggling homeowners to rebuild finances gutted by high mortgage payments or job loss. As the housing market remains stagnant, real estate experts predict more people will rent out homes in foreclosure.

Lenders could stop many people from renting homes in foreclosure by decreasing the time it takes to accept offers on short sales, said Steve Capen of Keller Williams Realty in St. Petersburg. "Some lenders are completely unreasonable."

He has sympathy for some of the struggling owners, but he knows others have no intent to sell. He declines to list those homes.

Critics say the drawn-out foreclosure cases affect everyone.

Taxpayers' dollars pay relocation costs up to $3,000 for home­owners who cannot qualify for loan modification programs. Some banks, in what amounts to a payoff, give homeowners between $20,000 and $30,000 if they agree to list their house in a short sale instead of going through foreclosure. Some banks also make payoffs if owners agree not to trash their homes before leaving.

In the meantime, banks also pay thousands of dollars in property taxes for delinquent mortgages.

Some homeowners cheat the system at both ends of the foreclosure process, said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. Homeowners delay eviction and either live rent free or rent out their homes. When finally faced with giving up their homes, they take cash incentives to leave the houses in good shape. Responsible homeowners, he added, get no reward for paying their mortgages and taxes on time.

"There are no handouts for people who do the right thing," Snaith said. "In more ways than one, they're stuck with the short end of the stick."

Times news researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report. Mark Puente can be reached at mpuente@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8459. Follow him at Twitter at twitter.com/markpuente.