New Rules Aimed At Reducing Pandemic Era Case Backlogs and Delays
Are the old days of packed Thursday morning summary process sessions coming back? They just may be. With the expiration of a pandemic era law called Chapter 257 and the end of the Covid-19 emergency, the Massachusetts Housing Court just released an important new Standing Order 1-23 which will speed up cases and move to more in-person hearings and less virtual appearances. The new Standing Order should be welcome news to housing providers whose cases have been delayed due to Chapter 257 and the backlog of post-moratorium pandemic era cases.
Expiration of Chapter 257
With the expiration on March 31 of Chapter 257 of the Acts of 2020, there is no longer an automatic hold on cases where there is a pending rental assistance application filed by the tenant. However, while a case with a pending RAFT application will continue to move forward, that is not to say that a judge would evict a tenant who expects to receive rental assistance covering an arrearage. The problem has always been that since the RAFT limit decreased to $10,000, many landlords are owed more than that, so those landlords will not be penalized by the Chapter 257 delay any longer.
More In-Person Events
Second, all “Tier I” mediations, evidentiary hearings, and trials will be held in-person going forward, unless there are extraordinary circumstances for a virtual appearance. Virtual/Zoom will continue for all case management, pretrial and status conferences, emergency motions on short notice, and certain non-evidentiary hearings. I have mixed feelings about this. Having virtual Tier I mediation events saves legal fees for represented parties and is much better for a busy lawyer’s scheduling. Now a landlord will be charged 3+ hours of lawyer time as opposed to 30 minutes if we are forced to drive to Boston, Worcester or Lawrence for mediation dates. Evictions are already a lose-lose financial abyss for landlords,…