Non-payment Evictions Put On Maintain Till Tenant RAFT Functions Are Denied/Authorized
Ignoring robust opposition from property house owners, the Legislature and Gov. Healey have re-enacted a Covid-19 period tenant safety regulation (Chapter 257 of the Acts of 2020) which places an indefinite maintain on any non-payment eviction the place the tenant has utilized for rental help (RAFT) till such time as the appliance is authorized or denied. This was a part of the FY24 price range signed by Gov. Healey in early August, and fell beneath the radar of many people within the rental property neighborhood.
Because the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. The online impact of this reenacted coverage shall be delay, delay, delay for all landlords submitting non-payment of lease eviction circumstances, on prime of the already hefty delay brought on by the pandemic backlog of circumstances. When this regulation was initially put in place in 2020, landlords noticed their time in courtroom triple, in line with Housing Court docket statistics. We are able to count on that to stay the identical, and even worse.
Much more problematic, the restrict for RAFT help in any 12 month interval has been diminished to $7,000 — barely sufficient to cowl a couple of months lease within the Better Boston space. Most housing suppliers don’t begin evictions till tenants are behind a number of months, so by the point they get to courtroom, arrearages are usually within the many hundreds, and infrequently effectively over the $7,000 cap. Moreover, understaffed state businesses dealing with RAFT purposes could be hit and miss. Throughout the pandemic, tens of hundreds of rental help purposes “timed out” with out rationalization. Tenants will have the ability to additional drag out the eviction course of, leading to many landlords being compelled to barter big unpaid lease concessions simply to achieve again possession of their models. I see this in courtroom every day.
The “new” Chapter 257 regulation gives as follows:
In an motion for abstract course of for nonpayment of lease, a courtroom having jurisdiction over stated motion for abstract course of shall:
(i) grant a continuance for a interval because the courtroom might deem simply and affordable if, both on the time the reply is well timed filed or on the date the trial is scheduled to start: (1) the tenancy is being terminated solely for non-payment of lease for a residential dwelling unit; (2) the non-payment of lease was on account of a monetary hardship; and (3) the defendant demonstrates, to the satisfaction of the courtroom, a pending software for emergency rental help; supplied, nevertheless, the courtroom might take into account any meritorious counterclaim introduced in stated motion for abstract course of;
(ii) difficulty a keep of execution on a judgment for possession if the necessities in clauses (1) to (3), inclusive, of paragraph (i) are met; and
(iii) not enter a judgment or difficulty an execution earlier than the appliance for emergency rental help has been authorized or denied.
The “new” Chapter 257 solely applies to non-payment circumstances; it doesn’t apply to no-fault, for trigger, or put up foreclosures circumstances. The regulation additionally incorporates some language which might permit a landlord to problem whether or not the nonpayment of lease is definitely on account of a professional monetary hardship. This may almost certainly require some kind of evidentiary listening to. I’ll maintain you knowledgeable as to any additional developments with the brand new Chapter 257.
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