Your Responsibilities When You Leave
You can either mail a copy of the notice to your landlord or give it to her directly. Make sure that if you mail the notice, you leave enough time for her to get the notice before the deadline. If you want to leave by April 1, mail your notice at least a week before February 28th so that she receives it on or before February 28th. Be sure to save a copy for yourself.
Endnotes
1 . The law requires that surrender of a rental unit be in writing. G.L. c. 183, §3: "no estate or interest in land shall be . . . surrendered unless by such writing or by operation of law." However, "any acts which are equivalent to an agreement on the part of a tenant to abandon and on the part of the landlord to resume possession of demised premises, amount to a surrender by operation of law." Talbot v. Whipple, 96 Mass. 177, 180 (1867); see also Guaranty Bank & Trust Co. v. Mid-State Ins. Agency, Inc., 383 Mass. 319 (1981) (where tenant gave her only set of keys to the landlord at the landlord's request in order to show the premises to a potential tenant, there was a valid termination by surrender); Net Realty Holding Trust v. Giannini, 13 Mass. App. Ct. 273 (tenant must show that landlord intended to relieve her of the lease obligation), rev. denied, 386 Mass. 1102 (1982).
2 . Security Sys. Co. v. S. S. Pierce Co., 258 Mass. 4, 5 (1926).
3 . Boston Hous. Auth. v. Hemingway, 363 Mass. 184, 199-200 (1973), which established the implied warranty of habitability in Massachusetts and, at the same time, abolished the judicial fiction of constructive eviction for tenants who want to stop paying rent due to bad conditions. In doing so, the court notes that a tenant has contractual rights arising out of the landlord's breach of warranty, including the right to rescind the lease from the time when the warranty of habitability was first breached.
4 . G.L. c. 111, §127L, often referred to as the Repair and Deduct Statute, also provides for the tenant to void the lease as an alternative to making the repairs and deducting the cost from the rent. The following conditions must be met:
1) Inspection by the Board of Health;
2) Existence of conditions that endanger or materially impair the health, safety or well-being of the tenants; and
3) Failure of landlord to begin making the repairs or to arrange in writing to have them made within five days or failure to substantially complete all necessary repairs within 14 days of the notice.
5 . G.L. c. 111, §127L (the landlord must "begin all necessary repairs or … contract in writing with a third party for such repairs within five days after such notice, and … substantially complete all necessary repairs within fourteen days after such notice, unless a board of health, local code enforcement agency or court has ordered that said violations be corrected within a shorter period, in which case said period shall govern ….")
7 . For various statements of the landlord's requirement to mitigate damages, see Edmands v. Rust & Richardson Drug Co., 191 Mass. 123, 128 (1906). The Massachusetts Supreme Court found that the "[landlord] owed to the [tenant] the duty to use reasonable diligence and to make the loss or damage to the [tenant] as light as [the landlord] reasonably could." Woodbury v. Sparrell Print, 198 Mass. 1, 8 (1908). See also Loitherstein v. International Business Mach. Corp., 11 Mass. App. Ct. 91, 95 and n. 3 (1980), rev. denied 441 N.E.2d 1042 (1981); Cantor v. Van Noorden Co., 4 Mass. App. Ct. 819 (1976). But see Fifty Assocs. v. Berger Dry Goods Co. Inc., 275 Mass. 509, 514 (1931). Note that the Boston Housing Court has at least twice found a clear obligation to mitigate. Bridges v. Palmer, Boston Housing Court, 07326 (May 24, 1979); Grumman v. Barres, Boston Housing Court, 06334 (March 1, 1979). See also Gagne v. Kreinest, Hampden Housing Court, 91SC1569 (December 6, 1991), where the judge found that a landlord who did not advertise a vacant unit in the newspaper had not mitigated her damages.
8 . Your lease might have a clause saying that you are responsible for all of the rent for the lease term even after you leave. However, if you do leave after the landlord gives you a notice to quit, your risk is limited for a few reasons. First, your landlord has a duty to mitigate, or limit, her damages (see endnote 5, above), and therefore must find another tenant after you leave. Second, most judges in housing courts will not hold a tenant responsible for the rent after the landlord has terminated the tenancy by giving her a notice to quit. Third, in order to try to collect the rent, the landlord must sue you, and she may not want to take the time and energy to do so. Finally, even if the landlord does win a judgment for the rent, if the tenant is on welfare or Social Security, the landlord cannot collect the judgment from these payments.
9 . Williams v. Seder, 306 Mass. 134, 137 (1940).
10 . G.L. c. 186, §12. Note that the landlord can terminate the tenancy with such a notice, as well.
11 . May v. Rice, 108 Mass. 150, 152 (1871); George Warshaw, Massachusetts Landlord-Tenant Law, §3.3 (1987). Ryan v. Sylvester, 358 Mass. 18 (1970), readily advises the sufficiency of service.
12 . See Ryan v. Sylvester, 358 Mass. 18 (1970); Gerson Realty Inc. v. Casaly, 2 Mass. App. Ct. 875 (1974).
14 . Taken from E. George Daher and Harvey Chopp, 33A Massachusetts Practice: Landlord and Tenant Law, §15:47, Notice to terminate tenancy at will—Tenant—Form (2001).
15 . Farson v. Goodale, 90 Mass. 202, 203 (1864), which held that a tenancy at will may be terminated at any time and in any manner which may be mutually agreed upon by the parties. A landlord may waive the notice to which he is entitled.
16 . Farson v. Goodale, endnote 15.
17 . Talbot v. Whipple, 96 Mass. 177, 180 (1867) ("any acts which are equivalent to an agreement on the part of the tenant to abandon and on the part of the landlord to resume possession of the demised premises amounts to surrender"); see also Guaranty Bank & Trust Co. v. Mid-State Ins. Agency, Inc., 383 Mass. 319, 319 (1981); and Means v. Cotton, 225 Mass. 313, 318-19 (1916). Even given some promising case law, this will not ensure a finding of "surrender by operation of law." Taylan Realty Co. v. Student Book Exch., 354 Mass. 777, 777 (1968); compare Taylor v. Tuson, 172 Mass. 145 (1898).
18 . This is generally called an abandonment by the tenant. Taylor v. Tuson, 172 Mass. 145 (1898); Commonwealth v. Lanigan, 12 Mass. App. Ct. 913, 914 (1981), cert. denied sub nom. Maloney v. Lanigan, 488 U.S. 1007 (1989).