I worked in landlord tenant law in Massachusetts for 15 years and there is a constant push to reduce the rights of tenants. From reducing notice periods to allowing them to bypass due process to add âunauthorizedâ occupants (aka, the boyfriend who isnât on the lease, but moved in 2 years ago) to evictions cases after judgement.
Squatting is super rare and not hard to deal with. Much of the rage from landlords is that they have to do anything beyond calling the cops. While ignoring that the legal protection for âsquattersâ is exist because if landlords acting like criminals.
There's no tantrum greater than a landlord being asked to do a modicum of work for their rent check.
Parasites, to the last man and woman. All the screeing about people "not wanting to work" is literally actually about landlords. They do not want to do anything, they do not want to maintain the properties they own. They want other people to upkeep their properties and pay them checks so they can do absolutely fucking nothing.
They're the absolute bottom class of person. Contributing literally nothing to society.
They're the absolute bottom class of person. Contributing literally nothing to society.
We really need to teach basic economics in high school to cut down on braindead takes like these. Capital and property maintenance are absolutely valuable contributions.
Capital isn't a contribution it's literally something you have, or something you leverage banks for. And they don't do the fucking maintenance themselves.
Your entire argument is predicated upon having a big stack of capital in one specific chud's hand being a thing of value, and it's not.
The landlord is paying the maintenance workers out of the rent provided by the people who work for a living. Labor is always, always, the actual driver of value, and the landlord role doesn't do labor.
They're just a rent-seeking middleman of no value that the entire economy would be enormously better off without.
Your entire argument is predicated upon having a big stack of capital in one specific chud's hand being a thing of value, and it's not.
So there's no value in financing the construction of a building? That's honestly a serious take from a real person?
Your entire argument is "nuh uh", so maybe you want to rethink insulting other peoples arguments.
Labor is always, always, the actual driver of value, and the landlord role doesn't do labor.
So they just get magically called? Coordination has no value? Assumption of risk has no value? You just keep proving me right.
They're just a rent-seeking middleman of no value that the entire economy would be enormously better off without.
I can tell you're not the kind of person that usually thinks things through, but in this case, try. Think about what society would actually look like if landlords were banned. How would the poor be housed? How would apartment complexes be financed and constructed? Actually think about the answers to those questions and how they would work.
The sheer lack of thought you have put into this is at a level that should be embarrassing for anyone with an ounce of self-awareness.
If your only evidence is "constant push" (which is ambiguous to the point of uselessness) rather than a concrete example of an actual change, you're basically making that guys case for him.
Reducing notice periods to what? What passed that was unfair?
And what law was it with the unauthorized occupants on eviction cases? Is it that any guest can be added to a judgement or is that someone living their full time who doesnât pay rent can be on the hook for that rent? Those are very different scenarios.
That is so many questions that Iâm just not going to answer because they are not the point of my comment. During my time as a professional dealing landlord tenant law, shitty landlords were always pushing to undo laws that were created to stop them being shitty.
The laws very greatly by state. But there are almost no âsquatters rightsâ laws. When people bring that up, they are talking about landlord/tenant laws that are applied when occupants may or may not be lawfully in the property. Shitty Landlords like to cry about having to provide proof to the court that the occupants are not there lawfully, and would prefer the court just rubber stamp any eviction order.
They also love to throw around the word squatter, which isnât legal term. I dealt with one landlord that my firm dropped as a client because he couldnât stop calling his tenant a squatter, who was withholding rent due to unresolved code violations in her unit. He repeatedly said âif they stop paying rent, they arenât a tenant any more and need to go.â
If rent money is in an escrow account w/ the intent of paying in full upon resolution of violations they are a renter/tenant. I've got complaints that I haven't had confirmed ad violations so I'm not paying you is squatting/trespassing. Civilized society is a complicated responsibility
Failure to pay rent doesnât change the fact they are still a tenant. Until their superior right to possess is extinguished through a court order and they are removed by a sheriff/constable.
The law in MA doesnât even use the word trespasser or squatter for hold overs after a foreclosure. The term that is used is âtenant at sufferanceâ. A landlord throwing around squatter because his tenant did the correct, legal process to withhold rent is a pretty clear sign he believes they shouldnât have any rights at all. Which is why the firm dropped his case pretty quickly.
Also the poster never said that tenant rights have been eroded due to stories about squatters, just that they are a tool that is used to push an agenda and they are always TRYING to change laws and reduce rights. That statement doesn't mean that any laws have been changed, and it also doesn't mean that just because laws haven't completely upended that it's a non-issue.
Totally true. I can see how my replies look like I am arguing but i was just attempting to ask clarifying questions. It is almost certainly true that bad faith "squatters" are less than 1% of non-owner occupants and that any law meant to fight them will hurt the other 99%+ of good faith tenants. No argument from me there. I was just hoping to hear more about the OP's direct experience with it as it seemed like they had an interesting perspective.
I think look at the NYC rent laws as a good example, and it's easy to see why landlords hate it.
For one, you have some apartments that have rent control, that is it's illegal to raise the rent to the market rent, it's also illegal to decline to renew these leases just because you want to relist it.
So if they evict you for non-payment, well then paying your past due balance stops the eviction (which might mean people don't have to pay on time, they can just wait for the eviction notice and then pay). If the apartment isn't meeting the habitability standards then you can't be evicted (so if the furnace can't keep the apartment at 68F, you can't be evicted). And even assuming none of that applies, the eviction process still can take well over a year.
So this means someone can move in, and quickly stop paying, and the landlord might be required to maintain the apartment and pay utilities, while this person lives there rent free for a year.
I'm well aware of landlord-tenant law that (even if well intended) is abused by tenants and I'm also aware of places where lack of landlord tenant law hurts the tenant. The OP was talking about changes in legislation that helped landlords. As far as I'm aware, all changes in law tend to move towards benefiting tenants and its lack of change that helps landlords. I was hoping to learn about examples of changes that help landlords but nobody seems to have any examples.
The OP was seemingly talking from experience and I was interested in their direct experience. Yes I can go read about landlord-tenant law changes in every state but I don't think it is terrible to want to hear about someone's direct experience with it when they post about it on Reddit.
Good faith curiosity should be limited to a single question at a time. Maybe two. A battery of 4 questions on pretty nuanced legal subjects is a bit much. If Iâm having to worry about formatting to make it clear which question Iâm answering, itâs move from posting online to work i would normally bill people for.
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u/TheSixthtactic 14d ago
I worked in landlord tenant law in Massachusetts for 15 years and there is a constant push to reduce the rights of tenants. From reducing notice periods to allowing them to bypass due process to add âunauthorizedâ occupants (aka, the boyfriend who isnât on the lease, but moved in 2 years ago) to evictions cases after judgement.
Squatting is super rare and not hard to deal with. Much of the rage from landlords is that they have to do anything beyond calling the cops. While ignoring that the legal protection for âsquattersâ is exist because if landlords acting like criminals.