What to Do Before Requesting a Receiver

Consider All Possible Options

Asking a court for a receiver is a remedy of last resort. In most cases, tenants ask for a receiver because they have tried other strategies without success. Read Chapter 8: Getting Repairs Made to satisfy yourself that you have considered other more effective or less time‑consuming strategies.

What to Do in Case of Foreclosure

If your landlord has stopped paying her mortgage loan, you may want to contact the lender and ask what they plan to do with the property. In many cases, a lender will be a bank or a mortgage company.³If the landlord has stopped making loan payments to the bank or mortgage company, the bank or mortgage company may schedule an auction to sell the building. This is called a foreclosure.

Tenants have successfully organized during the foreclosure process to save their apartments. For example, in Salem, when tenants who shared the same landlord learned that a bank was planning to foreclose on almost 100 apartments in their neighborhood, they feared that rents would go up and that many people would be forced out. When the bank refused to sell the buildings to a local nonprofit organization, tenants organized a protest at the foreclosure sale. As a result of their two‑day demonstration, only two of the 14 buildings were sold to new landlords and the bank bought back the other 12. Over the course of the next year, the local community development corporation, working with the tenants, developed a plan and purchased approximately 70 apartments. These apartments are now owned by the local nonprofit community development corporation and will stay affordable.⁴Recently, the City of Worcester has used the receivership law in an attempt to obtain repairs in occupied apartments in foreclosed upon buildings.⁵For more information about foreclosures, see Chapter 21: Tenants Facing Foreclosure.

How to Track Down Your Landlord's Lender

To find out who lent your landlord money to buy your building, go to the Registry of Deeds in your county.⁶The Registry is the place where documents relating to the sale and ownership of property must be filed. You will need to find a mortgage document for your building on which the name of the lender is listed. A mortgage is an agreement between a purchaser of property (in this case, your landlord) and a lender that if the borrower (landlord) does not repay the loan, the lender can get the money back by foreclosing or selling the property.

When you go to the Registry of Deeds, ask a person who works there for help. In most situations, someone will be able to assist you.

Basically, you need to look up your landlord's name or the name of the entity that owns your building (for example, a realty trust or company) in the "grantor index."⁷You may have to look through several years before you find an entry. When you find an entry, check the address to make sure it's your building and look for the word "mortgage" or the abbreviation "Mtg." This will give you the book and page number in another book where you can find the mortgage document on which the lender's name will appear.⁸

Some property, called registered land, is indexed in a slightly different manner at the Registry of Deeds. Ask for help at the Registry if the property is registered land.⁹

Note

If you request that the court appoint a receiver, the landlord must file a written response which must provide you with the names and addresses of all lenders.¹⁰

Get an Inspection

Before you go to court and ask a judge to appoint a receiver, you should get a report from the Board of Health that documents the condition of your building. In Boston, Cambridge, and Worcester, the health code enforcement agency is known as the Inspectional Services Department, not the Board of Health. Call your local Board of Health and ask them to inspect your apartment, along with, if possible, all other apartments and common areas in your building. After the Board of Health inspects your building, an inspector must give you a report listing all the conditions that violate the state Sanitary Code. A detailed and accurate report from the Board of Health is important documentation if you plan to ask a court for a receiver. For more information about how to prepare for an inspection and get an accurate report, see the section called Getting an Inspection in Chapter 8: Getting Repairs Made.

Take Photographs

A picture may be worth a thousand words. Depending on the type of code violations, you should take photographs of the bad conditions in your apartment and in the building's common areas and later show these to the judge. Write the address and the date the photo was taken on the back of each photograph.

Talk to Other Tenants

In most cases, when tenants go to court to ask a judge for a receiver, they do so as a group of people who share the same building or have the same landlord. When considering receivership as a strategy, tenants need to talk to one another about what problems each has faced in getting repairs made and what repairs people want made. This is important information that a judge will need to hear.

If you are the person who is raising the idea of a receivership, share with other tenants the information in this chapter. Read Chapter 10: Getting Organized for ideas about developing a strong tenant group and strategies you can use to achieve your goals.

If all the tenants in your building want a receiver to take over the building and you are willing to organize your efforts as a group, your chances of improving the conditions of your building will be much greater.