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By Peter Vickery, Legislative Affairs Counsel In August, Ben Carson, Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), announced two measures of interest to landlords: first, a new Landlord Task Force to address concerns about the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8; and second, a…
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It’s something we hope you never need to know, but if you do, this article will help you recover after your house or building has a partial fire loss or burns down entirely. This article is inspired by the educational event on May 9, 2018 in which Bay State Restoration…
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Nominations are now open for the 2018 annual elections to the Board of Directors. Under our form of term limits, a director must rotate off every year and a new member volunteer to take their seat. Here are five reasons why you should nominate yourself or someone you know right…
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued notice of a proposed amendment to its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulations (see “HUD Wants to Hear from You”). One of the questions HUD is asking is this: “What changes to the regulations could help further the policies of…
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By Peter Vickery, Legislative Affairs Counsel The case of Lindquist v. Stella started in June 2016 as a no-cause eviction in the Central Division of the Housing Court in Worcester. The tenant (represented by Community Legal Aid) promptly counterclaimed for violation of the warranty of habitability, discrimination, retaliation, illegal utility…
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This month’s update covers the Directory Revamp, the benefits of membership, and our year-end elections. In mid-September the Directory Revamp beta test was started with MassLandlords staff. At time of writing, we were one week delayed in the planned release to member beta testers. We hadn’t set a specific date…
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By Peter Vickery, Legislative Affairs Counsel Hoarding is a behavior disorder that affects many people across the United States. Its accumulated impact creates urgent health and safety problems for those afflicted, and for their neighbors and landlords. Because hoarding is a disability, landlords of hoarders have a duty to provide…
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Nominations are now open for the 2018 annual elections. Each year in December we elect a member to the Board of Directors, and we also recognize a non-member with the MassLandlords Good Neighbor Award. Submit nominations now so we can communicate with everyone to appear on the ballot. Board of…
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Peter Vickery, Legislative Affairs Counsel Boston is banning short-term residential rentals by some (but not all) property owners. By way of a measure titled – ironically, some might say – “an ordinance allowing short-term residential rentals” the city council and mayor are hoping to stamp out one particular form of…
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In Massachusetts, a deep energy retrofit is a renovation that improves a building’s thermal efficiency so much as to make heating and cooling free or very low cost. This case study comes to us from Charles Bado of Omnibus Design, residential designer, former building inspector, and veteran of deep energy…
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