Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts

Re: Raising the rent and eviction at the same time

If the tenant is under a lease with the old owner, the answer is no; the new owner has to respect the lease.

If there was a security deposit or a lease, there are strict notice requirements and ways to handle the security deposit. Make sure the seller gives you (assuming you're the new owner) all the security deposit money and make sure you follow the law with respect to the notice you must give to the tenant. Contact me for details or a link to read the details if you like.

If there is just a tenancy-at-will, the proper way to raise the rent is to send a notice-to-quit at the same time (called a 30-day notice but it usually needs to be more than that by a few days to meet the requirements of the law) and at the same time an offer of a new tenancy at a higher rate of rent. If you do both together, obviously you are not really asking the tenant to leave if s/he is willing to pay the new rent. If the tenant does neither, the tenancy legally continues at the old rent until you bring an action in court to evict, and for those purposes, the old rent will be assumed to be the proper rent; in other words, there's no guarantee of getting the new rent.

Another approach is to talk to the tenant and tell the tenant what the new rent will be and see right then and there if the new tenant will pay the new rent "voluntarily". If the tenant agrees and actually pays the new rent, no notice-to-quit is needed to change the rent, assuming, again, that the tenancy is at-will and not under a lease.

Phew! I think I gave you the whole answer there!

Good luck. Feel free to write to me directly at [email protected] about this issue or about your estate planning needs!