Basically, our rent escrow bill (S.780) is stuck in the Housing Committee, which is co-chaired by Rep. Kevin Honan on the House side and Sen. Susan Tucker on the Senate side. Sen. Tucker signed on to our bill as a co-sponsor, so she would like to see it move forward. Rep. Honan appears to be the fly in the ointment. It is bothersome that he also happens to be a sponsor of S.1241, one of the two domestic violence bills that, if passed, would slowly bring rent control back across the state. What we can say that is good is that that domestic violence bill is also stuck in the Housing Committee, although as far as we can tell, its proponents have not been active.
Back in 2002, a rent escrow bill was reported favorably out of the Housing Committee and was voted on in both the House and the Senate. The House passed it, thinking they had passed a good bill. In the Senate, we had the votes for it, but then President Tom Birmingham "twisted arms" and called in some political favors and it was narrowly defeated. So if our escrow bill gets reported out of Committee, we feel we can today round up the needed votes to pass it.
Also factors are the House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray. If they are opposed to rent escrow, that may explain why it has not moved out of committee. We need to target our emails, phone calls and letters to all these people. When they hear mostly from our side, they will vote on our side. We have done it in the past. We can do it again.
Representative Kevin Honan
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 38
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2470
Rep.KevinHonan@hou.state.ma.us
Senator Susan Tucker
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 424
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1612
Susan.Tucker@state.ma.us
House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi
State House, Room 356
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2500
Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us
Senate President Therese Murray
State House, Room 332
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1500
Therese.Murray@state.ma.us
And you need to contact your own senator and rep. Follow this link to find out who they are:
www.wheredoivotema.com
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3 comments:
Both state and local governments in Mass. call upon private landlords to provide affordable housing for a large number of Mass. residents. Small landlords do in fact supply the majority of this rental housing. Yet, the cruel irony is that state and local governments make it almost impossible for a small landlord to provide this housing on a consistently profitable basis. There are many hurdles facing a small landlord in providing such housing. Too many to detail here. However, probably the most significant hurdle is the lack of a mandatory rent escrow statute in Mass. A majority of states have a mandatory rent escrow statute protecting small landlords and tenants. For example, Washington State and Florida have such statutes. Generally, the tenant in an eviction action in a rent escrow state is required to pay his/her rent into court escrow as a condition of asserting certain time-consuming defenses, to seek a continuance or to initiate a time-consuming wait to schedule a jury trial. These statutes all recognize what Mass. so readily ignores, namely, that every day a landlord is forced to wait to regain possession of the apartment is another day's rent lost. Look closely at the situation: The tenant alleges any defense imaginable and complicates the case thus slowing down the eventual trial. During this time, the landlord goes without rent, which he may never recover even if s/he wins the eviction in court, because losing tenants usually vacate without paying these judgments. The landlord incurs lawyers' fees to fight the tenant to regain possession, and all the while the landlord's mortgage payments are still due: a triple cost. By the simple expedient of a rent escrow law, the focus of litigation shifts from one of endless delay and loss for the landlord to one of moving the case through the court system as quickly as possible, because now the tenant actually has an interest in resolving the matter without undue delay because the tenant is still paying rent until a court tells him/her s/he no longer has to do so. The housing stock actually suffers from the lack of escrow statutes, because landlords have less ability and less incentive to make improve-ments when tenants take unfair advantage of this law. I have written a more detailed article on the subject which appears online at our website:
http://www.wardlawonline.com/content/legal_updates.htm.
Please contact your legislators and press them for passage of such a law.
G. Emil Ward, Esq.
Ward & Associates
Attorneys at Law
617-248-9765
www.wardlawonline.com
Our firm concentrates in landlord- tenant and real estate matters.
I agree with the need for a rent escrow bill, and I'm a tenant.
But let's not act like all tenants are cheating dirtbags, based on some being cheating dirtbags ... or else I can act like all small property landlords are like my new landlord: we signed the lease on the eleventh of august, moved in over the next weekend. Monday the 18th rolls around, and the landlord's son comes to tell us he is moving into the third floor apartment, and he is willing to pay 40% of the gas an electric bills.
Why would he need to do that?
Well, there are only two electric meters: first floor and second floor; two gas meters: first floor and second floor; two water heaters, one on each gas meter's line; two furnaces, one on each gas meter's line.
but three apartments.
what are my options, tell the landlord it's illegal (in a return receipt requested letter), and tell him to fix it, then report him if he doesn't within 14 days, and start withholding?
Great, then one year from now he jacks the rent by $500 dollars ... but it doesn't count as retaliation, because it's more than six months after the issue was brought up.
Or grin and take it in the ass, and hope that the next third floor tenant doesn't tell me to pack sand over the gas and electric bill, because my agreement with the son doesn't transfer to the new tenant, yet I've lost my right to complain as a sanitary code violation BECAUSE of the agreement with the son.
It is not the so much the the tenants that do the real damage to landlords it is the scum sucking lawyer who feeds off the evictions and get involved only for the money, no regard for settling other than beating up the landlord who usally is just a small time homeowner. The state laws so favor the renter at the landlords expense.It is easy for most landlords to run afowl of all the regulations, time delays, continuance's, you would think the state is just trying to house the freeloading tenants. The property owner who relies on the rent to pay thier mortage falls into foreclosure and we all lose because the state allows this to continue, we loose by falling property values, landlords can only afford to house poor people for so long before they them selves are poor people.....
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