Buying a lakeside home may be a dream for many people, but there are potential issues and problems to be aware of when buying such property . For example, a lakeside home may be in a flood zone, in which case, the mortgage lender will require flood insurance which may be costly. There may be dock rights or beach rights which may be involved and should be reviewed by an experienced real estate attorney. As with the purchase of any property, you need to do your due diligence. Here are some questions to ask:

Just Add Water. How to Simplify Buying a Lakefront Home. (original source)

MANSFIELD, MA — Plunging real estate prices and Baby Boomers looking to downsize and simplify their lives are two trends that have led a number of prospective buyers toward purchasing a lakefront home. While the dream of living on a lake has become more tangible for many, so too are the potential for problems if you do not know what to look for and what to ask. [Read more...]

A “Professional Tenant” is a tenant who “knows how to work the system” by taking advantage of select protections in the law to live rent free.  Being able to spot and avoid a “Professional Tenant” is one key to  being a successful and profitable landlord.  This “Professional Tenant” usually follows certain behavior patterns that should raise a red flag for the Landlord.  A common scenario we encounter with clients follows a sequence like this:  First, the prospective tenant  has a story to explain why he/she can only pay first month’s rent and will promise to pay the last month’s rent or security deposit once he or she moves in the apartment.  Second, he or she will start complaining about living conditions within a few months of moving in to your property.  Third, the tenant will then complain to the Board of Health and request an inspection, which inevitably leads to the issuance of a violation/citation by the City or Town to the landlord requiring that the landlord make repairs within a short period of time.  Fourth, the tenant, knowing the landlord only has a certain period of time to make repairs, will refuse to allow the landlord access to the apartment in order to make the required repairs.   Fifth, the tenant will then withhold rent because the repairs were not timely made.  The landlord, now needing to evict the tenant, ends up losing several months of rent until the eviction is complete.  The professional tenant has successfully lived rent free for several months and at the same time caused substantial  loss of income and emotional grief to the landlord.   How do you avoid the Professional Tenant? The landlord’s only protection is to do a thorough screening of a prospective tenant upfront by checking credit reports, speaking to prior landlords, etc.  Here is an excellent article from a colleague:

Attorney Richard D. Vetstein | Avoid The Professional Tenant

Using best practices to screen and select good tenants is the most important thing a Massachusetts landlord can do to avoid costly non-payment and eviction problems down the road. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I have come across a sub-set of tenants which are extremely dangerous to Massachusetts landlords. They should be avoided like the Plague. I like to call them Professional Tenants. [Read more...]

If you have a tenant who is obligated to pay their rent on a monthly basis on the first of the month but fails to do so, as a landlord you are entitled to commence an eviction on the second day of that very month.

The first step is to serve a fourteen day notice to quit for non-payment of rent. The fourteen days runs from the time that the notice is served upon the tenant. After fourteen days have passed (expiration date), the next step is to serve a summary process summons and complaint upon the tenant by the first Monday after the 14 day Notice to Quit expires. Thereafter, the complaint with proof of service must be filed with the court no later than the second Monday after the expiration of the 14 day Notice to Quit. The tenant has until the following Monday (being the third Monday after the expiration of the 14 day Notice to Quit) to file an Answer with the court. If the tenant fails to file an Answer, the hearing will most often times be the third Thursday after the expiration of the Notice to Quit. If the tenant files an answer, the hearing is postponed by two weeks. In total it takes a minimum of five weeks to get into court after the tenants fails to pay their rent.

If you are evicting a tenant for no cause, such as in cases were the tenant is month to month, it takes longer to get into Court. The tenant is entitled to a thirty day notice to quit, which must be served before the next rental period. So for example if you want to serve a tenant on April 1 to vacate by May 1 the tenant must be served no later than March 31. Thereafter it is similar to the time line above and takes about an additional three weeks to get into court. In total in no fault types of eviction it takes a minimum of about seven weeks to get into court or more, depending on when the Notice to Quit is served.

Choosing the proper Notice to Quit and strict adherence to the Court filing procedure is critical to having your case heard in a timely manner.  Any error could cause you to restart the process and double time necessary to evict your tenant.   For assistance with your Landlord/Tenant matter, please contact us for a free consultation.