Welcome Attorney Coakley and DVD Expands to Maine!
Please join us in welcoming Attorney Molly J. Coakley to the DVD Team! Attorney Coakley is a recent graduate from New England Law Boston.
Molly J. Coakley
Attorney
Before joining DVD, she worked at a firm that specialized in complex product liability litigation, including asbestos defense. Attorney Coakley is looking forward to meeting all our amazing clients and assisting you with your needs going forward.
With the addition of Attorney Coakley, Downing Van Dyke will now be expanding our practice to Maine. This means we can now serve you in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island (soon to be Connecticut as well). Please contact us about any needs for your properties in Maine!
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Many of you have heard Attorney Downing preaching this rule for years. A recent Massachusetts Appeals Court decision, Fort Point Investments, LLC vs. Hope Kirunge-Smith & another, reaffirms this axiom.
By way of background, an Execution (the paper we use to move someone from their apartment in Massachusetts) must:
- be issued three months following the Judgment (issuance period).
- be levied upon (used to move out) within three months following the issuance date (levy period).
In this case the Appeals Court found that a landlord cannot attempt to re-issue an execution if the levy period passes.
What does this mean for you?
You really don’t have to worry about (A) above because our process is to request the Execution immediately when we are allowed to do so. We have your back here!
The problem is with (B). Many of our clients try to “do the nice thing” with tenants after we receive the Execution from the court. This may be because you are giving the tenant a chance to try and catch up or see if they move out on their own. In any event, you run the risk of having the Execution expire while you try to work things out.
This new case reaffirms that you should be serving these Executions for levy even if you are trying to work with the tenants. Otherwise, we run the risk of having to start a case over from scratch!
RAFT Update, Finally Some Good News
The same case above, Fort Point Investments, LLC vs. Hope Kirunge-Smith & another, also dealt with the issue of partial RAFT payments which do not cure (zero) a balance. Many of you are familiar with the RAFT contract language which says that a landlord after receiving RAFT will,
“not to pursue eviction based on rent amounts reimbursed by these funds and… [agrees to] to dismiss any pending eviction case that is based on or seeks to recover the reimbursed arrears.”
The tenants in this case were arguing that even if a landlord accepts partial payments that the above language requires dismissal of the entire case. The Appeals Court rejected this and affirmed that acceptance of partial payments does not require a landlord to dismiss their entire case if arrears remain. In other words, you can accept RAFT payments which do not cure a balance and continue to pursue eviction of the arrears not covered by RAFT.
The takeaway here is that you should continue to participate in the RAFT process as much as possible and unless the RAFT payment cures the balance to zero you will not be forced to dismiss your eviction action and start over from scratch.
DVD can help
Please contact us with any questions or concerns about all these changes. We’re here to help you navigate the ever-changing property management landscape!
