How to Vacate Newly Purchased Home

Question

Hey all, I'm about to close on a three family owner occupied dwelling on 01/31/20. My lender has given me 60 days to move into one of the units.

I currently have three tenants each paying about 60% of market value. I'd like to have the entire home vacated for closing allowing me to renovate all three units, move into one, and rent the other two at market value. The tenants are all TAW, and were issued a Notice to Vacate by 01/31/20 in November 2019.

My attorney has said that I can have the Notice to Vacate assigned to me at closing (since it was issued by the owner who is selling me the home) so that it acts as though I issued this notice. Does that mean that I can start the eviction process (assuming I don't accept any February rent) legally 7 days later? (February 7th, 2020)

How can I get them out as quickly as possible since they are TAW? I understand that leases run with the land, do Notice to Vacates as well?

This is all in Massachusetts btws

Thank you all!!  Hope someone is a bit brighter than myself in the legal side of this

David Edwards · Answer

Architect here @Monish Lillaney, generally speaking you will be hard pressed to find an architect that will stamp someone else's work if they didn't have a hand in producing it. That said, check your state codes to see if you will actually need a professional stamp for the work you are doing. If its not structural you may not even need to go through the effort of finding someones stamp.

David Edwards · Answer

@Monish Lillaney that makes sense, many jurisdictions have squarefoot limitations on what can be done without a professional overseeing the design. This is largely so that they can ensure life safety measures are being satisfied in these larger buildings.

The cubic foot limit is an interesting one as you could have a pretty dramatic effect on that quantity by manipulating floor to floor heights and roof pitches, seems as though it would encourage more cramped spaces to get the building in under the limit.

Shoot me a PM if you'd like to discuss any details about your project.

Monish Lillaney · Answer

@david edwards

it seems like my town being close to the city requires it, its not structural, but they want the plans to be overseen by an architect on buildings over 35,000 cubic feet in volume

Monish Lillaney · Answer

Hey all, so i had the notice to quit assigned to me after beating the sellers attorney over the head with talk to the effect of litigating for a clean sale. All tenants were served 3 days after closing. One took cash for keys, and left the day after they were served. The other two I went through the eviction process, and they've moved out about 60 days after closing. My attorney was absolutely fantastic, calm, collected, and charged me 1,600 total for appearing in court 2x for mediation. Going forward i have no problem evicting your ass haha glad i got my first experience in hindsight - thanks all for your support.

Now that i have them out, i am looking to renovate, i have my construction supervisory license, and need a professional engineer to stamp my drawings, or an architect (pretty sure they have to make their own drawings) Anyone have a contact they can share?

Next up i will take the exam to become a professional engineer (FE and then PE exam) so i can stamp my own drawings (i'm an engineer via academics, just not certified as a "professional engineer")

DJ Richmond · Answer

Hi @Monish Lillaney, congrats on the soon to be new investment property. I'm not an attorney, so I don't have any legal advise per se, but it sounds like you've done what you can to get them to vacate. You've got an attorney representing you on the closing side who should be well versed in this area, your best bet would be to lean on him/her for guidance.

My question is, why are you choosing to close on 1/31 and not 2/3? If you inherit tenants and they choose not to vacate once you own the property, getting them out falls back on you. As you likely know, evictions in Massachusetts can be costly and time consuming for the landlord. This could range in the $5k-$10k range, per unit. The other option to avoid the eviction route, would be to offer cash for keys, which is still a costly route but can be done relatively quickly.

My recommendation at this point would be to push close date to the next week and do your final walkthrough the morning of closing, that way you'll know with certainty if these tenants are still there or they've vacated.

Good luck!

Monish Lillaney · Answer

Thank you all for the wonderful advise, let me share some more details and perhaps that’ll help further. The notice to vacate was drafted by an attorney the seller used and this will be assigned to me at closing. The plan as of now is to continue the closing on January 31st, which allows the notice to vacate (again this has been drafted by the sellers attorney and sent to the tenants back in November) to me. I will then refuse rent for February 1st which will prevents me from nullifying the notice to vacate by “implied tenancy” If I were to accept February rent . The security depositS for all three tenants will be returned at closing to the perspective tenant (on their last day of tenancy of January 31st)From there I should be legally allowed to vacate the tenants by eviction if any of them are there February 1st .

i do not want to postpone after January 31st closing because this will prevent me from sending a notice to vacate if for any reason the legally drafted one DOES have issues which I don’t expect. If anything I’d close a few days early if an issue with the notice does have issues, such that 30 days will end on February 28th by closing on January 28th and submitting notice after closing and presuming ownership. This way I could get them out via eviction after February 28th.

My first step is to confirm the notice to vacate drafted and sent to them is legally correct, followed by confirming the security deposit returned to tenants is appropriate at closing on their last day of tenancy (again as long as I don’t accept February rent)thank you all for your wonderful advice, now that there is more info , hopefully what I’m mentioning makes more sense.

I plan to talk to my closing RE attorney to follow up with these questions. Any thoughts beyond what’s been mentioned are welcome!

Lien Vuong · Answer

Your attorney is correct, the notice needs to be transferred to you at time of closing. In my experience of all of this it’s best to have the same attorney finish the eviction process and not interfere with the timeline of the eviction. Due to the fact that MA courts are very tenant friendly you need to adhere to all of these guidelines to make sure they leave on time. Are you able to get that transfer and continue the relationship with the eviction attorney?

Rory Gill · Answer

Hi Monish,

In theory, you could start the eviction process as soon as the tenants have overstayed the notice to quit.  However, there are a bunch of concerns for this:

- You are relying on the old landlord's notice to quit.  If there are any errors at all, you would have to start over.  That means serving them a notice to quit for March 31.  (Yes, March 31 would be the earliest possible).

- You may be liable for any of the prior landlord's errors.  For example, if the security deposit wasn't handled perfectly, the eviction may get dismissed, and you could end up owing the tenant money.

- Even in the best case, the process is not fast.  If you jumped into action immediately, the earliest court date you could get is February 20 (based on summary process and housing court rules).  That means removing tenants in early March.

- The "best case" timing rarely happens.  There are all sorts of procedural tactics that a tenant can use to delay the court hearing.  Sometimes, that means extra months.

- The eviction process is costly.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't proceed, but you should understand the risks that you're taking by committing yourself to evictions.  A close look at the seller's management of the tenancies can mitigate some of the risks, but Massachusetts is notoriously tenant-friendly in its courts.

How to Vacate Newly Purchased Home

Most Popular Reply