Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Law Legal Assistance for Worcester. My name is Sarah Loy and I'll be the regular host of the show.
I work for Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts, which is a state funded civil legal aid provider for low income and elderly residents of Central Massachusetts.
We at Legal Assistance came up with the idea for this program because we wanted a way to reach you and other members of the community, to tell you about our organization as well as the free civil legal services we offer, and to help you understand more about your civil legal rights.
During each episode, we'll be focusing on a different aspect of civil law and explaining how it affects you and other members of the community.
Some examples of upcoming topics include housing discrimination law, getting government benefits such as social security or welfare, navigating the Medicare system, family law issues for victims of domestic violence, creating health care proxies and powers of attorney, elder abuse, employment discrimination, and much more.
Different advocates that work for Legal Assistance, as well as other guests, will appear on the show to help me discuss these topics.
At Legal Assistance, we provide free civil legal help for residents of Worcester County, whose household incomes are at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, and for residents of Worcester County who are over the age of 60.
Generally, we take cases having to do with housing, elder, benefits, and family law issues.
If you think you might qualify for our services, or if you want to learn more, you should give us a call or stop by our office.
Our toll-free phone number is 1-800-649-3718, and our offices are located at 405 Main Street, right here in downtown Worcester.
Today's episode is going to focus on the topic of tenants' rights.
As a tenant, you have certain legal rights that your landlord cannot violate.
When people know what their rights are, they can know what steps to take if and when those rights are violated.
It's also important that I explain that the information presented in this program is only intended as general information.
It is not legal advice about anyone's personal situation, nor should it be taken as legal advice.
We recommend that you seek personal legal advice from a lawyer for any legal question you may have.
With us today is Faye Racklin, managing attorney at Legal Assistance.
Faye has been a legal services lawyer for over 20 years, and she has always specialized in housing law issues.
She often appears in housing court, helping tenants with eviction cases, and she now supervises the work of the Legal Assistance Housing Unit.
Welcome, Faye.
Thank you, Sarah.
We're so glad to have you on the show.
Now, one of the first things I wanted to ask you about, lots of people call Legal Assistance because their landlord has told them that they have to move out.
People get really scared when they're told they have to move.
What can you tell them about their rights?
You're right.
People do get very scared because it's a very terrifying thing to hear that you and your family may have to get out of your home in a few weeks or a couple of months or any specific time frame.
The most important thing for people to know is that in Massachusetts, a tenant doesn't have to move out just because her landlord says he wants her to.
Tenants have the right to try to stay in their homes, to negotiate for more time, to fight any eventual eviction case that happens, and certainly to seek legal advice if a landlord wants them to leave.
Wow.
Well, are there any kinds of papers or forms?
What kind of papers does a landlord have to give a tenant for an eviction?
Well, that's a good question, and again, these papers can be scary, so I want to take a minute to walk people through the process.
As we said, just because a landlord says to move out, that doesn't mean a tenant has to move out.
In order to start an eviction case, a landlord has to give the tenant a notice, which we sometimes call a notice to quit or a notice terminating her tenancy.
This is a piece of paper that says, I'm the landlord.
I want you to leave your house in a certain amount of time.
If a landlord says that a tenant hasn't paid rent, the notice has to say, I want you to leave in 14 days.
If a landlord wants a tenant out for any other reason, the notice might say, I want you to move out at the end of next month, or I want you to move out at the end of 30 days.
It depends on leases.
It depends on what type of tenancy there is.
But generally speaking, a landlord always has to give a tenant this type of notice with a certain time frame on it.
And even then, when the time period on the notice has run out, the tenant still doesn't move out.
She has the right to stay in her home and wait for the next set of papers, which is a court paper telling her when to come to court for an eviction trial.
OK.
But what's the point of going to court if a landlord wants a tenant to move?
Doesn't she have to leave?
Not necessarily.
And that surprises a lot of people.
And I know certainly for myself, when I was renting an apartment years ago after college and I got a notice to quit saying, get out next month, my roommate and I moved out because we had no.
And we'd gotten a good education and we thought we knew what we were doing.
No one knows that the paper that says move out doesn't necessarily mean move out.
The court paper tells the tenant that in about two or three weeks, her eviction hearing is scheduled.
And again, the law allows a tenant to try to fight an eviction case either by saying to the court, my landlord made a mistake.
He didn't give me the right types of paper to terminate my tenancy.
Or he says I did something that he wants to evict me for and I really didn't do it.
He says I violated my lease, but I really didn't.
And I need to prove that I didn't violate my lease.
If a landlord has broken the law in certain ways, if the landlord hasn't made repairs or if the landlord has mishandled a security deposit or violated other landlord tenant laws,
the law allows a tenant in some situations to claim that because the landlord violated the law during her tenancy, she shouldn't be evicted.
So there are several different ways in which a tenant might try to fight an eviction,
and it is absolutely worthwhile and very essential that she go to court when she gets her court papers.
Wow. It's a lot to think about. How does a tenant get ready for court?
The tenant needs to understand the reason for the eviction action.
And again, that will be right on the notice to quit and on the court paper.
It should say I want you out because you haven't paid rent or I want you out because I think you and your family have destroyed property or disturbed neighbors.
Once the tenant understands the reason for the eviction, she wants to start thinking about how she can prove to the judge, no, that's not really what's going on here.
If she's paid all her rent, she needs to gather her rent receipts.
If the landlord says that on a certain day she created a disturbance, she needs to figure out, well, where was she that day?
Was she even home that day or can she prove that she was somewhere else and the noise in the building perhaps came from a different apartment?
She wants to figure out who might be a witness for her to come to court and say I've been in the house and I know she keeps it clean, for example,
if the landlord says he wants to evict her because of bad housekeeping.
Or a witness might come to court and say I know this tenant asked the landlord to repair the broken ceiling and I've been there and I've seen the broken ceiling and it was never repaired.
So she wants to figure out the reasons. She wants to figure out who her witnesses are.
And she wants to file what's called an answer, which is a form that she can pick up at court or in legal aid offices or other various agencies around the city
in which she tells the court in writing her side of the story.
I should say that the court paper that she gets tells her when her answer is due and she wants to keep an eye on that and make sure she files her answer.
The deadlines are firm.
The deadlines are firm, yes.
Okay, that's important to remember.
Well, I want to go to another important aspect of tenancy.
What does a landlord have to do if they receive a security deposit from a tenant?
It can get complicated and landlords and tenants both find this law quite difficult to understand and to deal with.
Generally speaking, in Massachusetts, if a landlord takes a security deposit, he has to place it in a Massachusetts bank, not across the line in Connecticut or New Hampshire,
a Massachusetts bank in an interest bearing account, and that money has to be kept separately from his own money.
And the reason for that is it's the tenant's money.
He's holding it on behalf of the tenant, and if all goes well, the tenant gets that money back when she moves out.
So the landlord cannot mix the security deposit in with his own funds.
When he takes the security deposit and deposits it properly, he also has to give the tenant written notice of what bank her security deposit is in,
what bank account number it's being held in, the address of the bank,
and he needs to give her a statement of conditions that she fills out when she moves in saying if there are any problems with the apartment.
And again, the reasoning is that when she moves out, if there are no problems that she's caused in that apartment, the landlord should give her the security deposit back.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Now, a lot of tenants also call us with questions about bad conditions in their apartment. What can you tell those people?
We tell them first and foremost, talk to your landlord.
By coming on this show and talking about tenants' rights and responsibilities and eviction cases,
I worry sometimes that we give the impression to the world that landlord-tenant relationships are always terrible and always breaking down, and they're always at each other's throats.
That's just not true.
In the vast majority of cases, we hope landlords and tenants are getting along fine, they're communicating well with each other.
And so when there's a problem in an apartment, we say to a tenant, tell your landlord, give him a call, go knock on his door, and hopefully he'll fix the problem.
If that doesn't work, if he doesn't respond quite promptly to the request for a repair, then we advise a tenant generally to write a letter.
Ask again, but this time in writing, and keep a copy for yourself of the letter.
And again, we hope that fixes the problem, and usually it does.
If, however, a landlord isn't making repairs after he's been given notice by the tenant, the tenant always has the right to call the Board of Health in whatever city or town she lives in
and ask for an inspection done by a Board of Health inspector.
The inspector will come out, walk around the apartment, jot down what's wrong, and send the landlord written notice telling the landlord what he needs to fix and how much time he has to fix it.
It seems like a tenant might be scared to call the Board of Health, though, because they might be concerned that the landlord would evict them if they do.
You know, that's a really important question, and it comes up all the time.
And you're right. So I'm going to tell you what the law says, and I'm going to tell you what in real life people think might happen.
The law says that if a landlord tries to evict a tenant after she's called the Board of Health, because she's called the Board of Health or because she's complained about bad conditions, then it shouldn't be so easy to evict her.
The law asks a judge to think about whether this is what's called a retaliatory eviction.
Is the landlord trying to get back at the tenant because he's angry that she called the Board of Health?
She had the right to call the Board of Health, and a landlord should not be able to evict her because she did something she had the right to do.
So that's what the law says, that you're protected from a retaliatory eviction, and we hope that tenants are able to stay in their homes after calling the Board of Health.
In reality, it's really scary and really hard for a tenant to summon up the courage to call the Board of Health, knowing she may be retaliated against.
And all we can say to her is, we know this is scary, here's what the law says, we hope it comes out right if a landlord tries to evict you.
Often it does, sometimes it doesn't, but the more you assert your rights and the more you try to stand up for your rights and use the law as your protection, we think the better it goes for tenants.
So what if a tenant maybe has another issue with their landlord, perhaps they owe back rent, or perhaps there is a question about the cleanliness of the apartment or some other issue, should those tenants call the Board of Health?
If repairs aren't being made, tenants should generally always call the Board of Health. If they need that help from the state, if the landlord simply isn't responding, call the Board of Health.
But it is much harder to prove a retaliation in an eviction case if a tenant owes rent or if there are other problems in the tenancy that the landlord can point to as a reason for the eviction.
So it's important to make sure that...
Rent is paid up as much as possible, certainly, that things are going well in the tenancy, and that the only issue then in dispute really is the bad condition and was it fixed and is this retaliatory because you complained about it.
That makes sense. Well, another issue of great importance to many tenants is rent, and we get a lot of calls about rent increases. What can you do if a landlord wants to raise your rent?
There are things that we suggest to tenants along the lines of trying to negotiate or compromise with a landlord who wants a rent increase.
The important thing to know is just because a landlord wants a rent increase, that doesn't mean a tenant has to pay it. It sounds like the eviction talk we had earlier. Just because a landlord says something or asks something doesn't necessarily mean a tenant has to comply, although often it's in her best interest to do so or to talk with her landlord about the situation.
If a landlord wants to raise the rent, he has to give the tenant a notice, a written notice. He can't legally ask for a rent increase and expect to get it. He has to give a written notice, generally about a month long, telling the tenant that he's offering her a new tenancy at a new rent and does she want to accept that new tenancy at a new rent.
And again, as we say, often we suggest to people, meet your landlord halfway or somewhere in the middle between what he wants and what you think you can pay. There may be a rent increase that everyone can live with.
If a tenant doesn't want to accept a rent increase, she should certainly keep paying her current rent. She should certainly not stop paying rent. But there is a risk that a landlord might start an eviction case if she hasn't accepted a rent increase and then she can ask for time or try to fight the eviction in other ways.
Okay. All right. That makes sense to me. Now, on another sort of angle of rent, are there programs that can help people, tenants, pay their rent?
It depends a lot on the money that's available out there from the government or from other private sources. Sometimes the state has money called Raft Money, R-A-F-T, and that's a fund that helps tenants either pay back rent, rent arrearages that have come up unexpectedly because of a family circumstance, a family emergency.
It can help pay back utility bills or it can help pay moving expenses. But that money runs out fast. If the legislature gives money to that fund, a few million dollars at the beginning of the year, it may run out quite quickly.
Other programs, there may be Red Cross or FEMA money, federal emergency money available, but again, it runs out fast. And the best way that we can advise tenants on how to keep rent affordable is to actually try to get on an affordable housing program where your rent is subsidized.
Right. Well, I guess that would help. I'm assuming you also mean public housing. And I guess I would hope that you could talk a little bit about what public housing is. I don't know if that's Section 8 or other things.
And we hear all these terms about affordable housing, and I'm not sure people know what all these things mean. And so I guess my basic question is, what are they and how does someone get into these programs?
Right. There are a few different types of housing that we think about when we talk about subsidized housing or housing that has government money helping a tenant to pay the rent. So the subsidy is government money that helps pay the rent.
The terms that you used, I want to explain briefly. Public housing is housing that's owned and operated by a housing authority. So most towns and cities in Massachusetts have a housing authority, and a lot of those housing authorities run different types of programs.
Public housing, as I say, is housing where the housing authority is the landlord. In Worcester, some examples of public housing are the complex at Great Brook Valley. There's a Lake Ave complex. There are a couple of buildings in Webster Square, a couple of buildings on Pleasant Street kind of scattered around the city.
And this is similar to a lot of cities and towns. So in public housing, your rent is capped at about 30% of your income, so it's affordable. And the housing authority, as I say, is your landlord. You pay rent right to the housing authority. You live in a housing authority unit.
If you have a repair problem, you call the housing authority maintenance men. If something goes wrong in your tenancy, and God forbid you're facing an eviction, the housing authority is the person, the landlord, bringing you to court to evict you.
If you leave public housing, your rent is no longer subsidized. The subsidy stays with the public housing unit. Now, you also use the term Section 8.
Right.
Let me talk briefly about that. Section 8 is a program, again, an affordable housing program. It's a subsidy program. But in this program, a tenant gets a voucher. It's literally a piece of paper from a housing authority.
And she takes the paper into the private market. She talks with landlords who have vacant apartments that they want to rent. And she shows him that with her Section 8, her rent will be paid partly by her and partly by the housing authority that gave her the voucher.
And she can take her Section 8 with her from apartment to apartment. So the great news about Section 8 and the difference between Section 8 and public housing is that if you're on the Section 8 program, as long as you're in good standing, as long as you haven't violated the Section 8 rules,
you can take your Section 8 voucher from place to place with you. And in Massachusetts, you can use it anywhere in the state during your first year on the program and then take it anywhere in the country, anywhere in the United States and the territories after your first year.
So it's what we call a mobile voucher. It travels with you. It doesn't stay with a unit.
There is another type of affordable housing program I should mention briefly. There are privately subsidized developments.
These are developments that are owned and operated by private landlords. But the subsidy, as in public housing, stays with the unit. So if you apply to a development such as Plumlee Village or Lincoln Village, in North County, Litchfield Terrace or Old English,
in South County, some Brookside Terrace Apartments, if you apply to these big complexes that have private owners and you get on the list and then you get in, your rent is subsidized.
Again, it's capped at a certain percent of your income, but if you leave the unit, you no longer have the affordable rent. So in that way, it operates like public housing, but your landlord is a private landlord, a private developer in the market.
Right. Well, how hard is it to get on these lists? I thought you mentioned a waiting list or lists.
Yes.
How does it happen and what's the reality for people out there?
The reality sadly is there's not enough of this resource, so the waiting lists are very long. If you don't have an emergency, what housing authorities call a priority or a preference, you may sadly sit on a waiting list for years, literally five, eight, ten years before your name comes up on a Section 8 list.
If you have an emergency, a homeless emergency for certain reasons or if the government has taken the house where you live to renew the area and urban renewal plan or something like that, you may move up faster on the lists.
But to apply, you simply go to a housing authority that has an open waiting list and put your name on the lists. Now for public housing, whatever housing authority has an open list and lets you into its public housing program, that's where you're living because that housing authority is your landlord.
But for Section 8, as I mentioned, because you can travel all over with it, whatever housing authority has an open waiting list and you get yourself on the list, if you get that Section 8 from any housing authority in Massachusetts, you can use it anywhere in Massachusetts.
You're not bound to stay in the town where the housing authority that gave you the voucher is located.
Now, can you apply to more than one town's list at the same time?
Yes, you can be on as many waiting lists as there are open waiting lists and then whatever one you come up on first, that's your subsidy.
So as a place to start, would you recommend that our viewers go to their local housing authority and ask?
Yes. You know, housing authorities often publish in the local newspapers when their waiting lists are open for their various programs.
So that's one way for a tenant to find out. Other means to find out is certainly contacting local housing authorities. They may check in with either the Department of Transitional Assistance, which has a housing search program, or other housing agencies in the area which keeps tabs on what waiting lists are open.
Right. Well, I guess sort of leading back to some of the earlier questions, what happens if a tenant has Section 8 and they are threatened with eviction or they actually get evicted?
That is a scary proposition because not only are you potentially facing homelessness because of the loss of your housing, if you're being evicted from an apartment and you have Section 8 and you're being evicted for something that you did wrong, then your housing authority can try to terminate you from the Section 8 program.
Because under Section 8 law, if you violate your lease in a substantial way, that may be grounds for termination of your Section 8. So we remind people, stay in good standing with your landlord, stay in good standing on the Section 8 program.
If you are facing termination from a subsidy program, you can appeal. You can have a little hearing with your housing authority. Legal services or other agencies can help with that, but certainly you want to try to fight a termination of a subsidy.
Right. So I know that we also get people who call sometimes and say that they can't find an apartment that will rent to them with their Section 8 voucher. Which landlords have to accept Section 8?
There's an interesting question. Everybody who rents apartments has to accept Section 8. Yes, it is illegal in Massachusetts, it is illegal housing discrimination to deny an apartment to someone because they are on Section 8 or because they are on other forms of public assistance such as welfare.
So when people are faced with a situation where they are looking for apartments and landlords are saying we don't want to rent to you because we don't take Section 8, that statement is illegal. And they should certainly seek legal advice and help in trying to get into that apartment and in teaching the landlord community that that's illegal discrimination.
I would think most people don't know that. I would think that's true.
Okay, well we're wrapping this section up, but I guess I'd ask with regards to tenants' rights, when should somebody call legal assistance?
Well here at Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts, we want to talk to tenants to try to help them in their eviction cases. So certainly if they've gotten the notice to quit or summary process complaint, that's the court paper to go to court for an eviction, they should call for help to get ready for their eviction case.
If they're being threatened with termination of Section 8 as we just talked about, or if they can't get on the Section 8 or public housing programs, they should call us. And certainly if they're facing housing discrimination because a landlord won't be led and they have young kids or because the landlord won't take Section 8, or for the other types of discrimination where a landlord won't accept someone as a tenant for an illegal reason, we want to hear about that as well.
Great. Well I'd like to thank Managing Attorney Faye Racklin for joining us today and shedding light on tenants' rights. It's a pretty broad issue and there's obviously a lot to discuss.
And now it's time to turn to that part of our show where we will briefly highlight a legal issue of concern to viewers. In upcoming shows, we plan to respond to viewer mail about legal topics of general interest.
Viewers can send suggestions through email and postal mail, and advocates at legal assistance will provide general information on that topic.
The explanations here, again, are not meant to substitute for the advice of an attorney, but rather they're meant to clarify some of the basics regarding civil legal rights.
We often receive questions about how people who are homeless, and particularly families who are homeless, can get into shelter.
After consulting some advocates at legal assistance who specialize in homelessness issues, I can briefly describe how a family with children can apply for shelter.
The law about getting into shelter is surprisingly complicated. In general, families with children have to apply for shelter by going to the Department of Transitional Assistance.
That's the welfare office. They will have to show why they became homeless, and not all homeless families are going to be allowed into the shelter system.
The most important thing to remember is that if the welfare office says that you are not eligible for shelter, you can always appeal that decision and have a hearing to try to get into shelter.
Faye, homelessness sounds like an incredibly complicated and important issue for many of our clients in the community. I hope that we can devote an entire episode to this topic.
I think that would be a really good idea.
Yeah. Now, if you have a basic civil legal topic that you'd like to have addressed in this segment of the show, please email it to me at law at lackem.org, or mail it to me at the address that will be listed at the end of the show.
That's about all we have time for today. Again, I'd like to thank Attorney Faye Racklin for appearing on the show.
And as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, at Legal Assistance, we provide free civil legal help for residents of Worcester County whose household incomes are at or below 125% of the federal poverty level, as well as residents of Worcester County age 60 or older.
Generally, we take cases having to do with housing, elder, benefits, and family law issues.
If you think you might qualify, or if you have more questions for us, please give us a call or stop by. Our toll-free number is 1-800-649-3718, and our offices are located right here in downtown Worcester at 405 Main Street.
Thanks for watching, and I look forward to sharing more legal information with you next time.
Remember, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
For Law, I'm Sarah Loy. See you again next time.