Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Massachusetts
rent payment checks
My landlord has not cashed several checks from 4 and 6 months ago for rent. If after six month months are the checks still ok to cash on a Massachusetts bank? If the checks are not cashed, is it our responsibility to mention this, incur stop payment fees, etc? What are our rights?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: rent payment checks
Your best first course of action is to send a written reminder to your landlord that he should cash the checks immediately, or they will be put into a separate escrow account.
If you do not get a response, you should put the funds in question into a segregated account, like ING Direct or a bank savings account, and cancel the old checks.
In the event that the landlord goes to cash the checks months from now and then moves to evict you for non-payment when the checks bounce, you will have a paper trail proving that you did tender rent payment in a timely manner and you will have the money to pay any rent due.
You may want to get an attorney in your corner too in the event that this does eventually blow up.
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