The current and future state of COVID-19 Landlord-Tenant Restrictions
TURK & MILONE, LLP – LEGAL SEMINAR A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL? The current and future state of COVID-19 Landlord-Tenant Restrictions With the anticipated lifting of the COVID-19 State of Emergency on June 15, 2021 and the impending expiration of the CDC...
Knock Knock. Who’s there? It’s the 2020 United States Census!
We all remember 5th grade social studies, right? Well if you do, you surely recall the Constitutional mandate that a census be taken every ten (10) years in order to re-apportion the representation each state has in the United States Congress. In March, 2020, the...
It’s What We Do…
I recently had the "pleasure" of testifying on behalf of the real estate industry against the so-called "Just Cause Eviction" ordinance. As I listened to the testimony (and catcalls from the gallery), I heard terms like "slumlord" and "money-grubbers" being thrown...
It’s Time to Own Up
On May 15, 2018, the Massachusetts Supreme Court issued a ruling requiring summary process actions to be commenced only in the name of the “owner or lessor” of the property. While previous cases were permitted to be commenced in the name of the managing agent, who...
Understanding VAWA: The Final Rules
On November 16, 2016, HUD published the long-awaited “Final Rules” concerning the implementation of the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). While VAWA was originally enacted by Congress in 1994, these Final Rules were intended to clarify and effectuate the law in a...
No Harm, No Foul
A recent court decision has placed property owners on notice that, at least in the eyes of the law, the adage "no harm—no foul" does not always apply. The facts of the case were not in dispute. The property owner had a lease provision which required a tenant to pay...
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Warning: Smoking is not only dangerous to your health, but can also get you evicted from your home. So reads the new warning label which may need to be printed on cigarette packs after a recent housing court decision allowing a landlord to evict a tenant in a...
Movin’ On Up
Any landlord that has ever been involved in an eviction case knows that the ultimate goal of the case is to have the court issue the coveted “Execution for Possession”. This simple piece of paper has the magical power of authorizing a sheriff or constable to forcibly...
Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite
I have become something of an expert on bed bugs. This was by no means a career ambition; I did not grow up wanting to know everything there was to know about bed bugs and would be happily ignorant about them today. But they have become a major problem for the...
Tale of the Tricky Tenant
We have all hard the adage, "Don’t judge a book by its cover". That was certainly the case for the manager of an ultra-luxury apartment building in downtown Boston, when an attractive, well-dressed, well-spoken young woman announced that she needed to rent an...
Tilex Out, Mold Claims In
Remember the days when if a person saw a smudge on their bathroom ceiling, the response was to pull out the Tilex, apply some elbow grease, and call it a day. Nowadays, the proper response is to call in the industrial hygienist, perform extensive testing, and place a...
Deadbeats, Debtors, and the Good Old Days
In years past, a person who failed to pay their debts was locked in chains and committed into the custody of a debtors’ prison to serve their sentence until their debt was repaid. During this period, the collection of judgments and other debts was a simple matter of...
The Sex Offender Next Door
By Michael Fentress Prior to my career as a Landlord-Tenant attorney, I represented the Department of Correction in actions seeking to keep the most dangerous sex offenders, or Sexually Dangerous Persons, in prison even after they had served and completed their...
The City of Boston Registration and Re-Inspection Ordinance
Is This 1984 or 2014? In the novel "1984", George Orwell predicts an era of total government control, with a loss of all personal liberties and a complete imposition of control by the state. The government, under the guise of protecting citizens, requires full...
The Pitfalls of Pot
Arlo Guthrie famously sang that the "times, they are a changing". When he wrote that song in 1964, I am sure he never thought that the times would be changing when it came to the legality of marijuana. Not so long ago, if someone had told me that states would be...
Turk & Milone, LLP
THE LANDLORD LAW FIRM
10 Forbes Road | Suite 400W | Braintree, MA 02184 | Telephone: 781-356-4200 | Fax: 781-356-0400
This website is not intended to constitute legal advice or the provision of legal services. By posting and/or maintaining this website and its contents, Turk & Milone, LLP does not intend to solicit legal business from clients located in states or jurisdictions where the firm or its individual attorneys are not licensed or authorized to practice law.
Copyright © 2020 | Turk & Milone, LLP | Developed by BLAM-Oh! Design