Some businesses do not merely bend the rules. They build a business model around hoping consumers and tenants do not know the rules exist. That is especially true in the overlap between landlord-tenant law, debt collection, and Housing Court. A landlord obtains or claims a debt. A property manager tries to prosecute a case. A…
Read moreMassachusetts Landlord-Tenant Law Is Not Unfair: Ianello v. CMC and Tenant Rights Against Retaliation
he simple facts of that case show a landlord who decided it was a one way street, trampling over the Legislature and Courts in the childish tantrum, and unilaterally effectuated a partial actual eviction of the tenant from that exercise/conference room by locking the door indefinitely – when the legal remedy was eviction for non-payment of rent after determination of the tenancy – which may in itself be insufficient to rebut the Anti-Retaliation law, M.G.L. c.186 s.18 and M.G.L. c.239 s.2A.
Read moreCommercial Tenants: Fewer Protections, But Not Without Rights In Massachusetts
Commercial landlords in Massachusetts have far fewer legal obligations than residential landlords. That is the first reality every Massachusetts business tenant needs to understand before signing a commercial lease. Residential tenants receive a thick layer of statutory and common-law protections. Commercial tenants do not. A business tenant is generally expected to read the lease, understand…
Read moreMassachusetts Tenants and Access for Repairs: When Must a Tenant Let the Landlord In?
A Massachusetts tenant has a right to privacy in the home. That right matters. A landlord does not get to barge into an apartment because he owns the building, because he is curious, because he wants to snoop, because he is angry, or because he has decided that the tenant’s schedule does not matter. But…
Read moreCan a Massachusetts Landlord Force You Out? Constructive Eviction and Tenant Rights Massachusetts
Not every eviction begins with a notice to quit. Sometimes the landlord does not file a summary process case. Sometimes there is no constable, no court date, and no execution. Sometimes the landlord does something more cowardly and more chaotic: the landlord makes the apartment so difficult, unsafe, unlivable, or intolerable that the tenant leaves….
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