Year 2021 Summary Process Filings Remain Below Pre-Pandemic Baseline
Residential summary process filings – the first step to starting the eviction cycle in court – settled down to a baseline consistently lower than the level of filings before the…
How to Avoid Housing Discrimination Based on Genetic Information
By Kimberly Rau, MassLandlords In 2000, Massachusetts became one of the first states to enact protections for genetic information. This legislation added “genetic information” to the state’s list of protected…
Rent Control Reform in Cambridge: 1991 Report Paints Grim Picture of Stabilized Housing
By Kimberly Rau, MassLandlords The year 1990 marked the twentieth anniversary of rent control in Cambridge, having been first enacted in 1970. In February 1991, the city’s subcommittee on rent…
Notes from Boston Eviction Moratorium Appeal Hearing January 19, 2022
These notes were taken during a hearing presided over by Judge Joseph M. Ditkoff in Suffolk County Housing Court, considering the “validity and enforceability of the temporary order establishing an…
MassLandlords: Don’t stop landlords from trying to recover owed rent from the pandemic
By Kimberly Rau, MassLandlords Inc. In late 2021, the Massachusetts appeals court heard Sanchez v. Collins, a case that sought to determine whether a landlord had the right to bring…
Chicopee Housing Authority’s Executive Director Charged with Discrimination
By Kimberly Rau, MassLandlords The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts filed an amended complaint against Monica Blazic, executive director of the Chicopee Housing Authority (CHA), in December 2021, alleging that…
Letter from the Executive Director for March 2022: Creating Better Rental Housing
In February 2022, our initiatives all moved forward. We started our broadcast communication opposed to local rent control and right of first refusal. We opposed a motion to dismiss our…
DHCD Lawsuit Update: Half of Applications Rejected, One Third Lost?
By Douglas Quattrochi, Executive Director MassLandlords’ 2021 lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has revealed that more than half of all applications for rental assistance have…
Local Control of Housing Policy: A Bad Idea. An Open Letter to the Joint Committee on Housing
The Joint Committee on Housing will report a slew of bills on rent control (H.1378, H.1440, H.3721, H.4229, S.886, S.889) and right of first refusal (S.890, H.1426, H.4208) between March…
Renters Insurance: Can Landlords Legally Require it? What About Pet Insurance?
By Eric Weld, MassLandlords, Inc. The question of renters insurance and whether it can be legally required as a condition of starting a lease in Massachusetts is open to debate.…