Landlord's Right to Enter Your Home
Notas finales
Many landlords think that they can let themselves into your apartment any time they want. This is not true.
Your landlord must have your permission to enter. If you do not give your landlord permission to enter, the landlord can enter if there are terms of your lease or written tenancy agreement which are legal and give the landlord permission to enter or your landlord has a court order.
Under the law19, a lease may allow the landlord to enter your apartment so that the landlord can:
- Inspect the apartment,
- Make repairs20, or
- Show the apartment to prospective tenants, purchasers, or mortgagees.
In addition, regardless of the lease or tenancy agreement provisions, a landlord may also enter your apartment:
- If your apartment appears to have been abandoned, or
- To inspect it during the last 30 days of your tenancy to determine if there are damages that would lead to a reduction in the return of your security deposit, or
- In accordance with a court order.21
If you have a lease and it states other reasons that your landlord can enter your apartment, that part of your lease is illegal.22
If you do not have a lease or a written tenancy agreement, then arguably the landlord cannot enter your apartment unless they must make repairs or have a court order.23
Whether you have a lease or not, you are still required to allow your landlord reasonable access (by appointment if possible) for the purpose of making repairs to Sanitary Code violations.24
Absent an emergency, the landlord must give you at least 48 hours’ notice of when they are entering for repairs.25 The law also does not require you to give a landlord a key to your apartment.26
However, given that you will want the repairs made as soon as possible, it is always best to be cooperative in allowing access for making repairs.
19. G.L. c. 186, §15B(1)(a). Although the statute refers to a “lease”, this probably also applies to any written tenancy agreement.
20. A tenant must give the landlord reasonable access, upon reasonable notice and if possible, by appointment, to make repairs required by the state sanitary code. 105 C.M.R. §410.003(E).
21. G.L. c. 186, §15B(1)(a); 940 C.M.R. §3.17(6)(e).
22. G.L. c. 186, §15B(1)(a); 940 C.M.R. §3.17(6)(e).
23. See Strycharski v. Spillane, 320 Mass. 382, 385 (1946) (in the absence of an agreement that the landlord might enter to inspect, the landlord has no such right); Young v. Garwacki, 380 Mass. 162, 170 (1980). See also Milton Hospital and Convalescent Home v. Board of Assessors of Milton, 360 Mass. 63, 68 (1971).
24. See endnote 20.
25. 105 C.M.R. 410.003 (E).
26. No statute or regulation gives the landlord a right to a key. Under case law, the tenant has exclusive right to possession. Strycharski v. Spillane, 320 Mass. 382, 385 (1946); Young v. Garwacki, 380 Mass. 162, 170 (1980). See also Milton Hospital and Convalescent Home v. Board of Assessors of Milton, 360 Mass. 63, 68 (1971)