Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts

Re: Landlord changes mind for tenant

I'm surprised: you had a prospective tenant-at-will sign

a rental agreement? Wasn't that rental agreement called a lease

and didn't it have some term on it, so that it would no longer be

called a tenancy at will? (Maybe it wasn't a lease; I just want

to be sure.)

Legally you are on thin ice. You made a deal with this person, even

if they didn't get a copy of what they signed. (That, by the way, could

lead to a violation of law by you if they aren't sent a copy very soon after

they give it to you -- I forget the exact timing -- which involves a three

months' penalty. But that's not the question you are asking.)

You could try to make some excuse about how the check wasn't a tender of

available funds because it wasn't even going to be good until a couple

days after you got it back, ... but it's a losing argument.

The right thing to do is to offer some consolation and see if they'll

be satisfied with it. Offer them one month's rent as consolation.

Here's why that's good: since it was a tenancy at will, you would

most likely have had the right to terminate their tenancy within another

month. If they moved in and THEN you gave them notice ******, they'd be

able to stay the current month and one other, but if you gave proper

notice even before they moved in, they could end up with only one month's

tenancy.

[ But then it would take you another month or two to get them

out, legally, and you probably wouldn't get rent for the second or third

month, and you could even be said to have incurred an extra cost of moving

and possibly to have gotten them to give up something else good so they

could live in your place, all of which are damages you don't want to

incur. On top of that, a tricky tenant will immediately report code

violations during the first month, and then could end up staying indefinitely,

possibly without paying more rent for a few months. Yet another thing that

could happen is that a disgruntled tenant could damage your place severely,

not worth the hassle to you, and you'd have hard time tracking them down and

collecting for the damages even if you could prove that they caused them. ]

So to give them gracefully and willingly and happily one month's rent (or even

TWO!) to take their business elsewhere, and to apologize at the same time and

to even explain what you explained here, would be a good deal for you, I think.

CONTINUED!!!

Stuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.

Re: Landlord changes mind for tenant

CONTINUED FROM LAST RESPONSE!!!

Another angle to consider: I've seen tenants take better care of places and last

longer than family members, and the tenants accept rent increases better as well.

You might not be making the right decision.

**** For the deal where you offer them that money, ask a lawyer -- me! -- to draft

a release document that finalizes the deal so they don't still come after you for

more afterwards.

**** You should probably give them a notice to quit (leave) even before they move in,

after discussing it with them, just as insurance, unless you have the

release described above all signed. Now, whether you give them that notice, or

you wait until they move in and give them another notice, go see a lawyer to draw up the

notice for you and have it delivered correctly; it's not something to fool with and a

faulty notice is a bar to (prevents) eviction proceedings, and getting the notice

exactly right is very, very tricky, with many specific formalities

involved.

Good luck to you.

Stuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.