A Very Surprising Way to Avoid Eviction

Sometimes tenants allow unauthorized residents into your apartment. In this case, you can serve the unauthorized resident a notice to quit and evict them as a tenant at sufferance.

Richard Vetstein of MassRealEstateLawBlog.com, shown above, recently published a surprising loophole. In his case, the unauthorized resident was creating an immediate problem (marijuana smoke and loud parties). When the normal housing court procedure was stalled by savvy tenant advocates, he served the unauthorized resident a trespass notice and filed for a restraining order in Superior Court.

The restraining order was granted! The unauthorized resident was removed and the nuisance curtailed without an eviction.

Will this work in all cases? Something tells us "no." But it's worth storing this in the back of your mind for some future rainy day. "Trespass with extreme nuisance might warrant a restraining order.