Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts

Re: tenant will not pay last month's rent and damages

He owes you for the full month, but the cost of the damage (reasonable wear and tear excluded).

Frank advice: kiss this amount of money goodbye.

Collection efforts when they are resisted are slow, tiresome, involve many many hours of traveling to court and waiting for your case to be called, and VERY OFTEN result in no collection at all, especially on a small amount. If you get someone who knows how to hide each time he moves, you'll spend even more time and money trying to track him down.

However, for about $19, you can file in Small Claims court and go to court at least one time, with pictures of the damaged property and repair bills, and if the guy doesn't show up, you will win by default. If he DOES show up, you'll be even better off, as it appears that you are going to win. (But I would drop it there. There's little you can do proactively even with a judgment to collect from a deadbeat, unless there are good assets ... get his license plate number and if his car is worth more than his loan on it, you can force collection. One other thing you can do, though, with great patience, is to have your judgment appear on his credit report and wait for him to need a loan or some credit and then he'd want to pay you off.)

See this lawguru question I got right after yours! http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs/mesg.cgi?i=330751393 That guy made an appeal, which means he went to TWO trials where the opposing party showed up and he still isn't about to collect!

If you hire a lawyer, it adds insult to injury. The lawyer can do a better job than you but it still takes hours and now you have to pay for those hours!

Good luck. You're not really out an awfully large amount of money.