Letter from the Executive Director for November 2025: Monthly Dues

In October, we released our monthly dues feature. We also moved toward some new rental forms, started our annual elections process and had a relationship reset with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

At long last, monthly dues is live! We released the new feature on Wednesday, Oct. 8. We’ve since signed up our first member on an annual commitment with monthly payments. Our first week of data (at time of writing) indicates that the site continues to enroll new members at or above the historic conversion rate.

The release was not without its glitches. We did incorrectly send approximately 30 members an incorrect notice of a failed rebill. We identified the error and deployed a fix for it.

Any member paying “price per unit” who prefers to pay dues monthly, for cash flow purposes, can update their payment plan at the business management page. The new feature set includes updating your credit card on file and adding business members. (Grandfathered members note: the business page will not yet work.)

Elections were still running as of time of writing. We will report on results in the December edition.

We’ve been working toward some important rental form updates. First, this edition includes our new parking and storage agreements. These will help members who want to diversify away from residential. Please read the warnings in those articles carefully. Storage law is very different from landlord-tenant law.

Second, I completed an invasives plant management course at the Native Plant Trust. This has resulted in some valuable connections; we anticipate releasing a new rental form as a result. Stay tuned.

Third, please note that we will be retiring our self-extending lease. The new junk fees regulation shines a spotlight on what was already best practice: let a tenancy roll over into month-to-month, otherwise sign an entirely new agreement.

Politics-wise, we had a nice relationship reset with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. This was the first time I had been invited to talk with staff since we filed suit against them in December 2021. The motivation for that litigation remains valid today: the ongoing issue is that subsidy administrator case workers know too little about fair housing law and may issue arbitrary denials or timeouts on the basis of protected class status (their own “gut feel”). We’ll see if we have anything to work on together going forward.

A rent control fight is looming, as discussed in this issue. Please join as a member, encourage others to join, become a property rights supporter or increase your level of support.

Sincerely,

Doug

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.