Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts

Re: Eviction notices....and tenants rights

It doesn't matter if you call it rent or occupancy. The procedure for eviction is the same. Once he accepts a check, he has created a new tenancy. Since rent is paid in advance, it can't be occupancy if paid and accepted in advance.

Re: Eviction notices....and tenants rights

I sorta concur with Alan Pransky's reply, though not fully. (I don't think the litmus test of whether the money is paid and accepted in advance makes it rent instead of 'occupancy' and there is a distinction between the two; the latter is probably the right term for a tenancy at sufferance, one where you're not welcome and you've been notified to quit (leave).)

In general, a well-written 30 day notice to quit these days will state that any money paid after the expiration of the notice period is for use and occupancy only. Did yours? Failing that (and/or as an extra precaution), landlords will write on the back of the check as clarification of the purpose of the check "for use and occupancy only" and thus not waive their rights to consider the moneys received as NOT creating a new tenancy. All that is generally legal and allows them to collect "rent" by another name while they drag you into court to get you evicted should you choose to stay after the notice.

I will now assume that you did not get summoned to court ever. In that case, under a less than perfectly clear set of laws, your landlord will PROBABLY be deemed to have waived his rights under the March notice to quit April 1st and to have actually acquiesced to a new tenancy, which is a tenancy at will. He ought to send a new notice to quit to start an eviction proceeding against you at this late date, or he'll risk going to court and losing and having to THEN send you a new notice to quit and restart the court process. There are other risks to him at this point also.

Do you still have a copy of the notice to quit? Do you have copies of your checks (and especially the backs)? If he never says for use and occupancy only, you're in great shape to fight an eviction based on the old notice.

One other point for you: you say you received the notice "in March for April 1"; what date in March did you receive it?

Were you finishing up a lease at that time? Have you been summoned to court for an eviction hearing yet? If not, why not, and why did he bother sending you the notice to quit?

You can write to me directly at [email protected] if you like; answer EACH of my questions if you do, please.

Re: Eviction notices....and tenants rights

One more question: how do you know the reason (that his

son wants to live there) for the eviction? Did his notice

give that reason? Did it give another reason?

If you went to court and "lost", or you defaulted by not

going to an eviction hearing, when was that, exactly? What's the

case number and in what court was it?