Real Estate Management Advisory: The Massachusetts Eviction Moratorium Expires on October 17th; Now what?
When you arrive at work on Monday, October 19, 2020, the Massachusetts eviction moratorium will have expired and (with certain limitations), you will be within your rights to serve notices to quit again and request that our office process your court eviction filings. The following items are important matters that we want you to be aware of as you transition back to some semblance of “business as usual”:
If your property is financed with a “Federally-Backed Mortgage,” the first notice to quit for nonpayment of rent that you serve on any given resident must be a 30-day, rather than the standard 14-day notice. This requirement also applies to any of your tenants (or units) that have a Section 8 subsidy, or any other type of federal government subsidy. In contrast, if you had already served a notice to quit for nonpayment on a resident, but no case was filed due to the shutdown/moratorium, and your property is not financed with a “Federally-Backed Mortgage,” we can still utilize that prior notice to quit by serving an eviction summons so long as the resident’s balance was never satisfied over the last seven (7) months.
If your property is located in Cambridge, you are subject to the “Tenants’ Rights and Resources Notification” Ordinance (the “Cambridge Ordinance”) which requires that you provide tenants with “notice of basic housing rights and resources, including a list of organizations available to assist tenants . . . .” whenever you serve tenants with a notice to quit or notice of nonrenewal or notice of lease expiration. Cambridge’s form of that notice is available at the following link which you must attach to any notice to quit or notice of nonrenewal or notice of lease expiration: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/citymanagersoffice/tenantrights/cambridgetenantrightsandresourcesnotificationordinanceinformationpacketfinalrev.pdf . This notice must also be provided to new residents when you sign a lease with them.
If your property is located in Somerville, you are subject to the “Housing Stability Notification Act” which requires that you provide tenants with the same type of notice that is required by the Cambridge Ordinance. Somerville’s form of that notice is available at the following link which you must attach to any notice to quit or notice of nonrenewal or notice of lease expiration: https://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/OHS_HSNALLRequiredDocs_LLOPEZEDITED.pdf . Unlike Cambridge, you do not need to provide this to tenants at the beginning of their tenancies.
If your property is located in Boston, you are likely to soon be subject to requirements similar to the Cambridge Ordinance as its own “Housing Stability Notification Act” is pending before the Boston City Council, but has not yet passed. We will let you know if that passes and, if so, what it requires of you.
If you received a completed “CDC Declaration” [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/declaration-form.pdf] from a resident and you need us to proceed against such resident for nonpayment of rent, please send us the Declaration so we can determine what limitations, if any, you may be subject to.
If you received funds from the government or any agency for a portion of your resident’s rental arrearage and you still need us to proceed with an eviction case based on a remaining balance owed by such resident, please send us copies of all documents you received from (and/or signed with) such agency as there may be limitations or special requirements that you agreed to upon receiving said funds. In most cases, you will be required to sign some documents before you receive government aid for tenants. Before signing any documents, we would advise that you let us review those documents first.
For cases that had court dates scheduled but which never occurred due to the shutdown and/or the moratorium, you do not need to do anything at this time because those cases will automatically be rescheduled and we will reach out to you when that occurs to obtain updated ledgers.
For cases where we already have residents under Court agreements that they are behind on, simply send us their ledgers and we will file a motion to obtain a hearing.
Because there is expected to be an avalanche of cases filed early on, the courts will take the matters in the order of their filing. As such, we would advise filing early to avoid longer wait times due to the expected volume of cases to be filed.
We know you will have many questions about a variety of different issues concerning the status of the eviction process and cases that we are handling for you. Please do not hesitate to contact any member of our team with such questions as we travel through this unchartered territory together. Lastly, your company may have made an internal decision to restrict itself from taking steps in the eviction process in a manner that is more restrictive than what the CDC Moratorium mandates, so please confirm with your upper management if it is “self-imposing” any such additional restrictions.
Kenneth A. Krems-David R. Jackowitz-Scott D. Carman
Krems, Jackowitz & Carman, LLP
141 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02111
Telephone: (617) 556-0244 SCarman@kjcllp.com; www.kjcllp.com