Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Massachusetts

Hello,

Here is my problem: We have been renting a house in Ma. since Feb 2009, we had a lease, the lease expired and the landlord has been to busy to write a new one. We are tenants at will. In the begining, he took 1st, last & security, the security was never put in a seperate account or any rental account, he applied the check to his home equity loan. When I found this out, I demanded it back, after many emails and words, he offered to credit the security dep to the Sept. 2010 rent. I agreed. We paid the October rent. While we were going back and forth over the security dep., he would not acknowledge the last months rent, I asked him three times and he ignored the question. In an effort to back track he had my name put on an existing account and tried to say this was the security dep. account, it was actually the account I deposited my rent to every month. Because I did not know what he was up to and thought he was attempting to take or hide the last month rent, I did not pay the rent due 11/15 and insisted that because of his game playing, it should be given back to me. He finally blew his mind and in a rage admitted that he had the last months rent, that conversation went to email and he told me I could apply the last month anywhere I wanted, his wife also called us and in her conversation, she told me twice I could apply it to the November rent. Now he is trying to evict us for non payment.

I have two questions:

1. Any opinions as to how a court would look at the eviction part?

2. Can I go after him for treble damages of the security deposit?

1 Answer from Attorneys

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