BOSTON HOMES BLOG

Pending sales fall in August

— By: Marilyn Jackson

Pending sales of condos and single-family homes in August fell in year-to-year comparisions, but the number of single-family homes placed under agreement between July and August increased, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
For condos, the pending sales dipped from 1,466 to 1,435 in a month-to-month comparison. In August 2009, pending sales of condos totaled 1,770.
Kevin Sears, broker-co-owner of Sears Real estate in Springfield and president of MAR, said that the rock-bottom interest rates may be starting to have an impact.

Petitions to foreclose drop, but deeds nearly double

— By: Marilyn Jackson

A record number of foreclosures were recorded across the state in July, but the number of petitions to foreclose dropped, according to the Warren Group, which publishes Banker & Tradesman.
The petitions are the first step of the foreclosure process, and many times the financial problems can be resolved before the properties are sold.
Fewer petitions may be a hint that the housing crisis is abating. The federal government has created programs to help rescue homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

— By: Linda Goodspeed

Tenant has some options regarding repairs

Q:

If my landlord won’t make repairs to my apartment, do I have the right to put my rent in escrow until he does? Can I go ahead and make the repairs myself and then deduct the cost from my rent?

A:

It depends on what the repair is. If the defect is a health or sanitary code violation, the tenant does indeed have the right to invoke the so-called “repair and deduct” statute.

This law enables a tenant to have the repair made at his own expense and then to deduct the cost from the next month’s rent.

In order to invoke the repair and deduct statute, the defect must be a code violation. The owner has to have been formally warned about the defect and given a reasonable amount of time to make the repair.

If the owner doesn’t make the repair within a reasonable time frame, the tenant can go ahead and hire someone to make the repair and then deduct the cost from the next month’s rent.

The tenant must include receipts and can deduct no more than four month’s rent for the repair. 

If the defect is not a code violation, but is something the owner committed to do as a condition of the tenancy, then you have a breach of contract situation.

For example, if the owner committed to replace the carpet when the tenant moved in and then doesn’t do it, this would be a violation of the terms of the lease agreement.

Ideally, the tenant has this commitment in writing. In that situation, I would say that the tenant has every right to place his rent in escrow until the carpet is replaced as promised.

If, however, the landlord did not agree to replace the carpet, but the tenant simply decides he doesn’t like the color after he moves in and wants a new one, too bad.  

Let’s take another situation. An owner is not obligated to provide a refrigerator in the apartment, but let’s say the owner does provide one and a week after the tenant moves in it stops working.

his is not a code violation, but a working refrigerator is part of what the tenant agreed to buy when he agreed to rent the apartment.

In that type of situation, the owner is not obligated to provide something, but if he does, the owner is responsible for keeping it in good working order (short of damage by the tenant).

If the owner doesn’t fix the refrigerator, I would say repair and deduct is an option for the tenant. The owner is responsible for making repairs to the property but only to the extent of restoring it to the condition the property was in when it was rented.

If the tenant wants the owner to make some other kind of change or repair, the owner is under no obligation to do so.

And the tenant has no right to undertake these changes on his own without getting the owner’s permission first.

There are all kinds of twists and turns when it comes to repair relations between landlords and tenants.

My advice is to try to work them out without getting confrontational.

 
 
 
 
 

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