Boston Real Estate
Mom and pop landlords. Its tough collecting rents
On Aug. 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing the delta variant of the coronavirus, announced it would extend the federal eviction moratorium through Oct. 3, a move that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer estimated would cover 90 percent of renters.
“This is a tremendous relief for millions of people who were on the cusp of losing their homes and, with them, their ability to stay safe during the pandemic,” Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement.
For some, the dream of property ownership has quickly become a nightmare. With housing courts facing unprecedented backlogs, the prospect of navigating the legal system to recover several months of lost income — often a act of last resort even in normal times — represents an expensive, lengthy and daunting challenge. It’s a far less visible crisis than the one faced by millions of housing insecure tenants, but one that could transform the nation’s housing landscape here in the downtown Boston real estate market
Boston Real Estate
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Mom and pop landlords. Its tough collecting rents
Boston, Massachusetts is known for being a tenant-friendly state, and now the eviction moratoriums make it feel like it’s Free Rent For All! It is particularly hard on the mom-and-pop landlords who live on their rental income and who are conflict-adverse, which puts them in a position are required to detail in writing why they can’t pay the rent, but is that all you can do?
From the AAOA:
While the recent CDC moratorium on evictions requires that tenants sign a declaration under penalty of perjury, detailing why they can’t keep up with rent payments and their efforts to seek assistance, the reality is that many tenants will still falsify their declarations. Even without tenant declarations, or with lawful reasons under the CDC mandate, many courts are refusing to enforce evictions across the board. What is a landlord to do?
Tenants in apartments who are taking advantage of CDC’s COVID mandate simply should not get a free pass. With credit reporting their account, they won’t. There is no moratorium on accurately reporting the state of a tenant’s account.
By credit-reporting tenant accounts, renters can’t put off the consequences of non-payment.
Where a tenant is truly impacted by COVID, and the landlord wants to work with that tenant, then the tenant can be reported positively. Where the tenant is taking advantage of the CDC mandate, the power is back in the hands of the landlord to let the Credit Bureaus know that the account holder is not living up to their financial obligation.
There are companies that will help landlords with reporting to credit bureaus:
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