Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts

Landlord raising rent

My landlord is raising the rest by $20. more a month without a written notice. can he?

We had also have had the board of health in here to stop his ellegal evection due to his own greed. Now he is trying to get us out again with his money tactics.

he beleives that he can just walk into our personal business and try to run it for us.

He has locked us out of our washer and dryier area and has tried to push us around with scare tactics, they dont work on us and he is persistant on making our stay in his appartment a miserable one.

we have three kids and i am disabled.

What can we do to stop this increase in rent or make him put it in legal terms.

He has given us to aug first to pay the new increase.

can you help me put him in his place as landlord and not a god which he thinks he is.


Asked on 7/05/00, 3:07 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Stuart Williams

Re: Landlord raising rent

Yes, raising the rent can be done without any written notice (ASSUMING YOU HAVE NO LEASE!!) but you also have a legal right to refuse, in which case he can only terminate your tenancy (and possibly offer a new one at a higher rate of rent) by written notices with certain periods of time before they are effective. Since you wrote on 7/5 about a rent increase 8/1, I assume he really gave you the verbal request in July. If you didn't pay the higher rent on 8/1, he couldn't evict you very quickly.

However, his rent raise COULD be illegal anyway. What date did you call for an inspection? What date was the inspection by the board of health? What date did he first tell you of his desire to raise the rent by $20? (That isn't very much of a raise, by the way.) Why did he raise it when he did?

Locking you out of the washer / drier area is, similar to a rent increase, a change in the terms of your tenancy which is illegal without proper notice. (The rent increase, however, can be agreed upon and paid by you and is legal if you pay it.)

Landlord, lord, god, same thing.

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Answered on 9/07/00, 5:56 pm


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