I got an email that sparked a discussion between me and my husband. The email, from one of our tenants, asked that we hold the rent check a few days before cashing it. Just three days, she said. She had an unexpected dental bill and she needed time for her next paycheck to clear.

Our discussion went on, too. The way I was raised, you pay your rent, you buy gas for the car, and you buy your groceries; then you pay your other bills. I would never think to pay my rent late. I would pay the dentist late, if I was short that month.

My husband thought that many people run things the way I was taught, but others would never think to delay payment to a professional. It would be embarrassing. Since our tenant knew us, she was more willing to lose face with us, since we have an ongoing relationship that could sustain the incident.

My thought: We have a tenant living way to close to the edge! What’s going to happen when she has a car repair? Or a fat heating bill? My husband’s thought: She’s been here a while, she is well employed and employable. He had no worries. In any case, we held the check and her tenancy goes on.

Looking back on my renting days, I can’t recall any of my landlords ever cutting my rent or offering any incentives for me to stay.

The closest thing to a perk I ever encountered was during my waning days as a bachelor back in the late 1990s. After much pressure, I finally convinced the landlord of my Quincy apartment to replace my dorm-sized fridge with a used, full-sized model.

Anyway, with the economy still in a ditch and joblessness at 1970s levels, some landlords have decided it makes more sense to get you to stay, even at a discount, according to new survey by Reis Inc.

They are even throwing in flat-screen TVs, according to a study, detailed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

Flat screen TVs aside, if you have a job and are in the rental market, you clearly have some clout you didn’t have before.

Welcome back to Attorney Richard D. Vetstein. Today, he tells us about Scott v. Garfield. This case was about a guest who fell off a porch. The porch had a faulty rail; the guest had a few beers. Is the landlord liable for the injuries of the guest? How do you think it should have turned out? Here’s what happened in court:

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last week that a landlord was liable for breaching the implied warranty of habitability when a tenant’s guest seriously injured himself falling from a defective porch. The case is Scott v. Garfield, and can be found here.

What’s the Implied Warranty of Habitability?
The implied warranty of habitability is a legal concept that imposes a legal duty on a residential landlord, in the form of an implied agreement, to ensure that an apartment complies with the State building and sanitary codes. Under the implied warranty of habitability, a landlord can be liable for personal injuries if a tenant is injured due to the premises being in violation of code.

FULL ENTRY

My series on landlord-tenant hell lives on through the internet and gets occasional hits. I got a comment that was longer than two (maybe three) blog entries put together. It was about a lease-to-own agreement gone bad.

I published the whole comment on the entry, but I will summarize here:

Dawn writes:
She had a lease to own agreement with a landlord. Her family moved into the place this March. They lived in the whole multi-family property and she paid rent. They did improvements to accommodate her elderly mother. (They do home improvement as a business; value of the work is $15,000.)

The landlord asked to come in with an appraiser at the end of June. Landlord said he was taking a loan out on the property. He asked for rent a day or so early.
Turns out -- you guessed it -- the seller was in foreclosure. The property value was down about $80,000.

The landlord then offered a short sale deal for the appraised amount, plus a side gift of the rest of what the place was “worth.”
These lease-to-owners finally had the light bulb go on. They didn’t pay him the next month’s rent. They called a lawyer. They are now buying the place as a short sale, with some legal help.

Sam Schneiderman, Broker-owner of Greater Boston Home Team continues his Monday series. Sam has some details for renters who plan to buy, like J.

It is amazing how many tenants do not understand the terms of their lease and how to legally terminate it.

A lease is a contract that defines the terms of the business relationship between the tenant and the landlord.
Before committing to buy, a tenant should understand their lease. Failure to abide by its terms can cost thousands of dollars.

Most leases begin on the first of the month and end on the last day of the month, but it is possible to have a lease that begins on any other day of the month. For example, a “monthly” lease that begins on the fifteenth day of the month would end on the 14th day of the following month.

There are different kinds of leases. Here is brief discussion of the most common types of residential leases:

FULL ENTRY

I have been following this promotion since it started. Here’s the pitch: a fashion retailer, Daffy’s, is offering a one-year lease at $700 a month for a $7000 a month loft on Carmine Street and 7th Avenue. (That’s smack in the middle between Greenwich Village, Soho, and the West Village.) Contestants were asked to come to the apartment to do a 30-second interview explaining why Daffy’s should give them the rights to the lease. It’s like, “what will you do for a Klondike bar?”
Mostly, these are commercials for Daffy’s. They amused me. So, I’m passing them on…
This ad campaign made me wonder. Does this advertising help the folks at OneSeventh, the owners of the building? There were lots and lots of people coming through to record their interviews; I wonder if any will ever rent there at market rate? I doubt it.

J. had a second part to his question about buying off-season:

If we would be able to save a significant chunk (while still getting a quality property) by buying off-season, say 5% or more, it might be worth turning our lives upside down a bit to make it work. We are currently on the September rental cycle, and understandably, our landlord is not keen on letting us go month-to-month in late 2010. Our apartment is not cheap, and we would potentially have to eat a huge chunk of rent were we to sign a lease for 2010-2011 and then break it to move into a purchased home.

There are two parts to this answer:
The first is about the depth of the savings. Yesterday, I wrote about what I expect. It varies house to house. If a really good deal comes along, and it is a good place ---- not a yellow and pink XXL guy’s Speedo --- it could be worth the leap.
The second question is about the financial risk of breaking a lease on an expensive apartment.
I say this over and over: in the real world, percentages are a bad way to calculate savings. Real numbers work much better. J. and his girlfriend need to look at the hard numbers of what they need to save to make this purchase worth it. If the numbers don’t work, they should stay until the end of the spring market, 2010.

It is two weeks until Labor Day. For me, today marks the beginning of the annual student migration. While getting gas this morning, a middle-aged guy in a “Life is Good” t-shirt came up to me to ask directions to Lexington Center. I asked him where he was from. He said, without much prompting, ”California. We are dropping our daughter off at Harvard and taking a family vacation.” The guy couldn’t hold it in for a second that his oldest child is going to Harvard. At the next pump, a young woman said, “Great school, I went there and never left. She’ll love it.”

The Californians followed me to Route 2 and I waved goodbye to them at exit 54. I wonder if those parents are happy with the idea that their daughter may fall in love with Greater Boston and live here for the rest of her life. California is a long way from here.

H and L faced the prospect of selling their condo, but found another way. They are a lot like other young college educated adults. They are hard workers and good planners. They are 27 and 28 years old. They are willing to make compromises in order to not go backwards on their life plans.

L is still in graduate school. H is now out of full-time work and going back to school. Their combined student loans are $250 a month, so far. That is better than average. Finaid.org lists near $93,000 as average debt for H’s degree and $40,000 for the one the L is pursuing. One of the compromises that H made was to go to a less prestigious professional school. That is one of the bars to his ability to get another high-paying job now. Compromises have consequences.

OK…back to how they kept the wolves from the door of their condo:
They are renting it and moving to a cheaper place. Kudos to those who guessed right last week.

One of my clients wrote me yesterday:

Hi Rona,

Various foreclosure stories about renters being evicted because their landlords fell behind on the mortgage made me wonder why in my renting life I never asked to see proof that the landlord was current on their mortgage, had a credit check run, or even for that matter proof that they really owned it. Does anyone check these things? Was I just lazy and lucky? If this had been common practice, would it have helped any? Do rental agencies have any liability if the tenant gets evicted? This seems like the real waste and injustice of the foreclosure mess.

I answered:

I covered this topic over a year ago. It is worth mentioning again, since we are at peak rental season. Thanks!

Next weekend, expect bumper-to-bumper U-Hauls throughout rental areas around Boston. The flood continues through September 1st. Most of those who are driving in already have a lease in hand.
Those with poor planning skills are still looking for a place to unload that truck. This entry is for them:

Think of a landlord-tenant interview like you should think of a job interview. You may think you want that job, but you should also be interviewing the boss to make sure you really want it. Some jobs are worse than no job. The same is true of apartments.

Problems run rampant for tenants who rent from landlords who are failing financially. When they are foreclosed upon, your deposits are put in line with all the other creditors. Right, you are not at the top of the list. Community Action Agencies (Federal anti-poverty programs) like Community Action Agency of Somerville are flooded with tenants who have lost their apartments and their deposits due to their landlord’s foreclosure.

If you thought home sellers had it bad, take a look at what landlords are dealing with.

The Herald takes a look at some pretty interesting stats that point to a glut of available apartments in Boston, including in some tony neighborhoods.

The story highlights a Beacon Hill landlord with four of his five units vacant.

The number of available rentals listed on MLS has roughly doubled in the last year, to 535. Back Bay’s stock of empty apartments has nearly tripled to 149.

Ironically, Boston’s push to get more students out of the neighborhoods and into rentals may be making a tough market even tougher, the story notes.

Thanks City Hall.

Attention landlords and tenants, Attorney Richard D. Vetstein. is back to tell you what is really required by law. Today he reviews the laws around security deposits.

Last month’s rent and security deposits are one of the most heavily regulated aspects of Massachusetts landlord-tenant law and are fraught with pitfalls and penalties for the unwary, careless landlord. Any misstep, however innocent, under the complex security deposit law can subject a landlord to far greater liability than the deposit, including penalties up to triple the amount of the deposit and payment of the tenant’s attorneys’ fees.
This is why I advise landlords not to require security deposits. If a deposit is necessary, take a last month’s deposit, the requirements of which are less strict than security deposits. If landlords insist on taking a security deposit, they must follow the law to the letter.

Security Deposit Requirements
The following steps must be followed when a landlord holds a security deposit:
1. When the deposit is tendered, the landlord must give the tenant a written receipt which provides:
o the amount of the deposit
o the name of the landlord/agent
o the date of receipt
o the property address.
2. Within 30 days of the money being deposited, the landlord must provide the tenant with a receipt identifying the bank where the deposit is held, the amount and account number.
Within 10 days after the tenancy begins, the landlord must provide the tenant with a written "statement of condition" of the premises detailing its condition and any damage with a required disclosure statement;
3. The tenant has an opportunity to note any other damage to the premises, and the landlord must agree or disagree with the final statement of condition and provide it to the tenant.
4. The security deposit must be held in a separate interest bearing account in a Massachusetts financial institution protected from the landlord’s creditors.
5. The landlord must pay the tenant interest on the security deposit annually if held for more than one year.
6. The security deposit may only be used to reimburse the landlord for unpaid rent, reasonable damage to the unit or unpaid tax increases if part of the lease. Security deposits cannot be used for general eviction costs or attorneys’ fees. Within 30 days of the tenant’s leaving, the landlord must return the deposit plus any unpaid interest or provide a sworn, itemized list of deductions for damage with estimates for the work. Only then can the landlord retain the security deposit.

It is peak rental season in eastern Massachusetts. I am pleased to welcome back Attorney Richard D. Vetstein to remind landlords what they can and cannot do when interviewing potential tenants this summer.

Screening Prospective Tenants:

Landlords can legally ask about a tenant’s income, current employment, prior landlord references, credit history, and criminal history. Your rental application should include a full release of all credit history and CORI (Criminal Offender Registry Information.) Use CORI information with a great deal of caution, however, and offer the tenant an opportunity to explain any issues. Landlords should also check the Sex Offender Registry as they can be held liable for renting to a known offender. Use the rental application and other forms from the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

Under Massachusetts discrimination laws, a landlord cannot inquire about a tenant’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, religion, military/veteran status, disability, receipt of public assistance, and children.

In the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) database, I can restrict a client’s search in regards to pets. It is easy to rule-out “yes” or “no” in the “Pets Allowed” field. One of the reasons that my clients give for not wanting to live in a condo is pets. Some don’t want them; some don’t want restrictions on them.

For my die-hard pet lovers, the “with restriction” field is the same as “no.” Why? Because the legal language of the restriction usually looks something like this: "common household pets such as cats and dogs may be kept on premises but not in such kind or number to be noisome or offensive to occupants of the units." In close quarters, loud barking or howling, threatening behavior, poor waste hygiene, or biting or scratching are not acceptable dog or cat behaviors. Anyone who has lived near animals in apartments or condos has come upon a dog or cat that is truly noisome or offensive. The problem with humans is that their definition of “noisome or offensive” is way too hard to define.

People are unhappy on both sides of the dilemma:

In physics, the state of entropy is when everything settles down. Brownian motion resists entropy. It is the movement caused when particles knock into one another and cause more movement. I think of this every summer as I see tenants moving around. Some are leaving town, some arriving. Some are trying to get a nicer place, some a cheaper one, some a nicer one at the same price or cheaper. Some want bigger, some want smaller. So, lots of people are in motion right now, bumping into one another on the stairway as the move in or out of an apartment.

Landlord-tenant relations are a lot like employer-employee ones. A good job interview goes both ways: the employee is checking out the job as much as the employer is checking out the job applicant. In the same way, landlords should be checking their tenants and tenants should be checking their landlords.

The New York Times had an article about our triple-deckers this month. Besides quoting what Dennis Lehane thinks of them, Abby Goodnough quoted these statistics about foreclosure in this kind of housing:

In Boston, three-family homes represent 14 percent of the housing stock, but made up 21 percent of foreclosed property in 2008, according to the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development… Ms. [Evelyn] Friedman, [chief and director of the Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development] believes the foreclosure rate on triple-deckers is even higher than the data indicate, because many were converted into condominiums in recent years. These are counted in a separate category that made up 48 percent of the city’s foreclosed properties last year.

I am a huge fan of owner-occupied multi-family housing. The Times’ reporter reiterates what I think:

Best of all, three-deckers put homeownership within reach of the working class. Buyers could live in one unit and rent out the others, assuring they could afford payments and upkeep for years to come.

I have been looking for good information about landlord-tenant issues for readers on this blog. Rich Rosa is an attorney and a buyer’s agent practicing north of Boston. He did some legal research for a reader:

The question:

...Could you talk about security deposits during the tenancy? e.g.during the tenancy, can the LL deduct from the security deposit costs
repairs (for damages caused by the tenant) and then require the tenant to pay that amount into the SD account so the SD stays at the original agreed to amount? E.g. tenant gave a $600 SD. Tenant drives over lawn chair (yes, it happened). LL takes $50 out of the SD to cover
the lawn chair so SD is now only $550. Can LL require tenant to pay $50 into the SD so it goes back up to $600.? How can this be enforced? Or is it better require the tenant to immediately pay the $50 and not touch the SD? In this case then, how to enforce the tenant paying the
$50? Some LLs say the lease can say that any monies owed will be deducted from any monies received. So if the tenant does not pay the $50, the LL can deduct $50 from the next months rent. Thus the rent is short and if the tenant still doesn't pay the $50, then the tenant can be evicted for nonpayment. Would the courts evict for nonpayment in such a case? Thanks, JPLL

With regards to deducting from the security deposit, the statute does not specifically provide for making deductions during the term of the tenancy; therefore, a landlord should request that a tenant pay for damage themselves to property outside the dwelling when it occurs, but should not make a deduction from the security deposit.

The legal requirements imposed on landlords who accept security deposits from tenants are numerous and quite specific. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 186 covers landlord and tenant relationships in general, and Chapter 186, Section 15B outlines a landlord's responsibilities relating specifically to security deposits.

The Massachusetts Attorney General's office publishes a guide about landlord and tenant rights. It provides basic answers to many commonly asked questions.

I have been holding Wednesdays to talk about landlord-tenant issues. Is my audience still there? What do you want talk about or learn about? Let me know.

Today’s topic: normal seasonal maintenance. What needs to be done and who does it?

My tenants had to wait until mid-April before we got to clear the front yard. (We keep it covered in mulch over the winter. It looks normal in the winter, but begins to look shabby when the flowers come up.) Our poor spring bulb plants struggled through it and so did the tenants. We take care of all the common space at our rental. Is that what your landlord does?

Living well seems to have a lot to do with figuring out what is a good school. How do find out about the schools when you don’t live there yet?

First, check out the town.
By going to places where children and their parents go, you can find out what the children are like, and their parents, too. Do what you normally do: Go grocery shopping, go to a playground, go to a movie, walk through town, and/or go out to dinner. If parks are important to you, then go to the parks, same for libraries, and little league games. If you do not like being there, you are in the wrong place. Watch the behavior of the children and their parents in town; that is the culture you children could grow up in.

The crux of the issue between landlords and their tenants is defining normal wear and tear, normal maintenance, and improvement. Today, let’s talk about plumbing. Should landlords expect tenants to flush only the most flushable things? Should tenants be responsible for clogs they make through normal usage? What about hair clogs in the tub? Food clogs in the disposer or dishwasher?

PC asked the un-PC question that plagues many a landlord:

… how do you tactfully tell women they can't flush tampons/pads down the toilet?

I found the answer to that one pretty easy. We have a clause in our lease about care of the plumbing. It includes a statement that nothing may be flushed down the toilet except human waste and toilet paper. No tissues, face-wipes, “flushable” cleaning and hygiene items.

The epithet thrown around on this blog about deadbeats has consistently involved references to living in one’s parents’ basement. The basement has the rooms designed to keep an adult child safe enough, but not comfortable enough to stick around for too long. Given the overall decline in fortunes for adults, young and old, many are finding themselves in basement or attic “in-law” or “au pare” apartments. So, today, I want to talk a bit about these little nests.

Zoning in most towns consider them separate apartments if they have a kitchen stove. If there’s a stove, you need to be sure that your municipality allows this. Many don’t. Why? Because most municipalities do not want people to turn single-family housing into two-family housing. Most towns also have fire codes that require good egress and big enough windows for ventilation and/or egress.

In October, I published on the problems of having a house for sale that is rented. As is common with blog entries, they live on through search engines and comments come in months later. One such entry came in much later. Here is what Kris wrote about tenant’s rights while a property is up for sale:

This is how I see it: When a landlord signs a lease, the house essentially belongs to the tenants for the duration of the lease. The tenant can use the property in whatever manner they see fit as long as it doesn't conflict with law or the lease. Showing the house to prospective buyers is not the tenants' responsibility. Whether the tenant is messy or not, the tenant should be able to live how they see fit. The tenant should not have to adjust their lifestyle in order to make the property more marketable to prospective buyers. If a landlord has "hostile tenants", then the landlord should wait until the lease is over before attempting to sell the property. The truth is that you cannot "have your cake and eat it too"; landlords who believe this are taking advantage of their tenants.

One of my clients wrote me this email:

Dear Rona,

There might be a remote chance that we will move from this house, either to go to another state (California maybe) or to upgrade to a bigger place if we stay in the Boston area. In either case, I am thinking to keep this house as an investment and rent it. I know that there is lead paint in this house… Do you know if the house needs to be deleaded to be rented (or can the landlord have the tenant sign a release form in which the tenant acknowledges the presence of lead and relieves the landlord of any legal responsibility)?

First to answer the direct question:
Can the landlord have the tenant sign a release form in which the tenant acknowledges the presence of lead and relieves the landlord of any legal responsibility?
NO.
The owner of a property is responsible to anyone living there to provide a lead-safe environment for any children under the age of six. If a child is lead poisoned in the property, the owner is responsible.

Landlords seem to be under the impression that tenants will use as much heat, electricity, and water as they possibly can. Why? Because tenants think it is “free.” Or maybe tenants do it just to tick landlords off.

I live in the greater Cambridge metropolitan area. I rented there for nine years. I’m an environmentalist. I put the storm windows down. I turn down the thermostat at night and when I was going to be out all day. I took short showers. I wash my dishes efficiently. I turn off lights when I leave the room. I didn’t distinguish between resources I paid directly and those that I paid as part of my rent.

Am I the only one?

I thought of this when I was writing about two-family homes last week. My husband and I once lived in a two-family home, which was not owner-occupied. The guy upstairs was from another country. He liked to keep his apartment cool. If his apartment was 60 degrees, our apartment was 55 degrees. We shared a thermostat. It was in his apartment.

November that year we froze our toes off. December, it got worse. The landlord switched the thermostat to our unit. His heating bill doubled. We had the thermostat on 68 degrees and the guy upstairs had all his windows open. My landlord started referring to my neighbor as “the fresh-air freak.” In April he moved the thermostat back upstairs. In July we moved out for unrelated reasons.

Last week while substituting for a fellow agent, I found myself in the apartment of a client. It was a standard two-family house. As is typical, I only saw the living room and the dining room. It looked OK to me. As the discussion went on, the complaints about the apartment grew in number and detail. Finally, this client made a statement that caused a paradigm shift for me:

“Don’t ever live in a two-family house where the landlord lives upstairs. It is like being a serf on a feudal plantation.”

Renters, take note, you may be in the right place for our economic future.

In The Atlantic, economist Richard Florida takes a long view of the world economy. He says that long depressions are opportunities for the economy to reset itself. During these hard times, large numbers of people change their economic lives, taking the country into a new economic era.

In the so-called “Long Depression” of 1873 to 1896, America changed from a strongly agricultural economy to one where many made their livings in large industrial cities. In America and elsewhere, there was huge growth in manufacture when the recovery took hold.

The “Great Depression” of 1929-1941 saw the growth of the American suburb in the recovery.

I have been focusing on renters on Wednesdays, so send me an email if you have renter's topics you want me to cover.
The renters that are most noticeable to me are the student-aged and young adult renters who seem to swarm into metro Boston late every summer. I know there are many more renters here other than the transient young hordes. However, I was surprised by the census data information quoted in Newsgeography that says that 74.7 percent of American-born people who live in Massachusetts were born in Massachusetts. I thought our Commonwealth’s residents more transient.

I wonder how many of the renters who are reading this blog were born in Massachusetts. For that matter, how many were born in the United States?
If only about a quarter of American-born Massachusetts residents have come from other states, are they all right here near Boston?

Did you “grow where you were planted,” or did you come her from somewhere else? I am a native of the northeast, but not of Massachusetts. My husband is a native of the rust belt. We have both spent the vast majority of our adult life in Massachusetts. Neither of us went to college in greater Boston.

One of the common ways that people go from being homeowners to being renters is by being divorced. Someone on this blog asked how many home are sold as a result of divorce. I don’t know. It is a lot, but I have been unable to find good statistics on that. Anyone know? Divorce one of the reasons that I prefer to be a buyer’s agent. I’d rather represent the couple buying than the one splitting up and selling.

I have represented newly single home buyers. I recommend that they rent an interim place so that they can get more settled before buying. Sometimes it takes time to get the financial part of the divorce settled; sometimes it takes time to get the emotional part of the divorce settled; sometimes both; rarely neither.

Do you agree that renting is a good decision just after divorce? Did you rent? Did you buy immediately, and then regret it? Did you buy immediately and land happily in your new single life?

The other twist to renting after divorce is also true for parents who were never married. How much space do you rent when you are a part-time, non-custodial parent? I have seen some typical patterns:

I had buyers close on a two-family home last week. They had a long and hard search because there were so few nice options. I am glad to have them join the dwindling ranks of two-family homes owners.

The mass conversion of two-family homes into two-condo associations has reduced the supply. The steep increase in sale prices without a proportionate rental increase made the economic benefit of owning a two-family less appealing.

For me, buying a two-family house was the best decision I ever made. (Actually, the second best – you haven’t met my husband!) When we bought in 1996, two-family ownership was still a stepping-stone into home ownership for working class people. Collecting rent made the mortgage manageable. The house size is flexible, which is good for growing and shrinking families. Some owners stayed for a lifetime, some saved money then moved on to single family homes. In either case, it was good for real estate business and good for the community.

Now, there are large numbers of condos where two-family homes used to be. Condos are great housing for people at the beginning and end of their adult life. They are not the ideal place for young families with children. Because of this, cities like Somerville are experiencing a decline in school-aged children. In addition, there are fewer options for people trying to buy their first home. Both of these things are bad for real estate business and bad for the community.