Final week, I settled a case regarding the Metropolis of Boston Yard Sale Program. The lawsuit I introduced involved some attention-grabbing subjects in Massachusetts actual property legislation, which can inevitably come up once more for different properties bought by means of this program.
What’s the Metropolis of Boston Yard Sale Program?
The Metropolis of Boston Yard Sale Program was a program that the Metropolis of Boston administered to promote vacant tons throughout the town. Boston had acquired many vacant tons from tax foreclosures gross sales and different means through the years and needed to protect them for open-space functions.
Beneath this program, the town would supply to promote these vacant tons to abutting owners for pennies on the greenback: usually between $500 – $1,000. The catch? Such properties may solely be used for open-space functions, corresponding to gardening, landscaping, and off-street parking.
I’ve included a replica of 1 Yard Sale Software under (the particular yr of this software is unknown, and I make no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of this doc).
Whereas the information for the Yard Sale program are usually not the very best, it seems that the sale of those vacant tons was supposed to stick with the property of the house owner who bought them. For instance, in the event you owned a residential dwelling in Jamaica Plain and bought an abutting lot beneath the Yard Sale Program, you had been anticipated to promote the Yard Sale lot as a part of any dwelling sale.
Authorized Points
In my case, I represented a Boston house owner who lived subsequent to a Yard Sale property. The prior proprietor of my consumer’s dwelling had bought the Yard Sale property within the Nineteen Nineties however by no means offered the lot when he offered my consumer’s dwelling. The proprietor of the Yard Sale property was making an attempt to promote it to a developer who needed to assemble housing on the lot. My consumer, who lived subsequent door to this Yard Sale lot was, after all, not completely satisfied about this.
I filed a lawsuit in Land Court docket difficult the sale and spent a number of years preventing this matter in courtroom. Happily, my consumer and the proprietor of the Yard Sale lot had been in a position to settle this matter in an ideal deal for my consumer (and, in my view, for the Yard Sale lot proprietor as properly).
As a result of we settled the case, we by no means acquired a ruling from the Court docket on this program’s many attention-grabbing authorized points. For instance, it stays unclear whether or not properties offered by means of the Yard Sale program should completely stay accessible for open-space makes use of or whether or not these restrictions ultimately expire. It’s also unclear whether or not the proprietor of one among these properties can take away these restrictions voluntarily (the Metropolis of Boston started an software course of a number of years in the past permitting homeowners to hunt permission to do that).
Sensible Implications
If you’re shopping for or promoting a Boston property with any involvement within the Yard Sale program, you need to converse to an skilled actual property lawyer. Understanding the numerous nuances of those properties and easy methods to navigate these authorized issues is essential.