The Fight for Property Rights: Progress, Challenges, and Looking Toward 2025
by Amir Shahsavari
The Small Property Owners Association (SPOA) thanks its members and supporters for successfully defending property rights, while promoting reasonable and balanced housing policy, in 2024.
Please see the brief holiday message from SPOA Vice President, Amir Shahsavari, who recaps the major events of the year, while highlighting the need for your continued feedback and support in 2025. The issues covered include:
Rent Control
Tenant Right of First Refusal (also known as Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, TOPA)
Tenant Credit Check Restrictions
Making Owners Pay All Broker Fees
Transfer Taxes
Mayor Wu's Tax Shift Plan on Commercial Property
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
Eviction Sealing
To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, nothing worth fighting for comes easy, but if we stick together, we can continue and expand on our success, as we strive to protect our tenants, our properties, and our property rights. This year, we proved that determination, backed by logic, can change minds. Let's continue the good fight for property rights and fair housing policy in 2025!
by Amir Shahsavari
Thank You SPOA Members: A Big Win for Common Sense in the Boston Tax Shift Battle
by Allison Drescher and Amir Shahsavari
Since our last update, the serious statewide implications of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's tax shift plan led to its demise. Thanks to your help and our advocacy, the state senators saw that the legislature normalizing the use of the home rule petition to work around the public process of a tax override would have set a bad precedent for all municipalities in Massachusetts. While refusing to trim her bloated budget, the faulty calculations used by Mayor Wu to justify this tax hike on the already troubled commercial sector, as well as Boston residents, further sealed its fate.
This is a big win for SPOA and those who believe in fiscal sanity. We would like to thank the following elected officials who resisted political pressure to vote against this dangerous bill in their respective chambers.
Massachusetts Senate
Sen. Nick Collins (D)
Sen. William Brownsberger (D)
Sen. Susan Moran (D)
Sen. Peter Durant (R)
Massachusetts House
Boston City Council
Also, we have included an updated menu of media appearances where SPOA continued its advocacy against this bill in different news outlets. You can read more below:
MassLive. "State senator blocks Boston tax shift vote for third time Monday." December 9, 2024.
State House News Service. "New Valuations Shift Calculus On Boston Tax Bill." December 5, 2024.
Dorchester Reporter. "House approves Boston tax bill, sends on to Senate." November 26, 2024.
7News Boston WHDH. "House vote sends Boston tax bill to Senate." November 26, 2024.
NBC10 Boston. "Boston property tax bill moves to state Senate." November 25, 2024.
NBC10 Boston. "Mayor Wu's Boston tax plan blocked by Republican lawmaker." November 22, 2024.
WBUR News. "Republican lawmaker delays vote on Boston property tax shift plan." November 22, 2024.
WBZ NewsRadio. "Boston Tax Bill Hits Snag In Massachusetts House." November 21, 2024.
MSN. "Wu commercial tax increase opposed by Small Property Owners Association." November 6, 2024.
Banker & Tradesman. "City Council Backs Boston Property Tax Deal." October 30, 2024.
Thank you all again for helping us achieve this significant victory for common sense and sound fiscal policy.
by Allison Drescher and Amir Shahsavari
Legislative Update from Preti Strategies for January 2025
by Jim Eisenberg
Typically, the end of the two-year legislative session is a relative non-event, where mostly non-controversial local bills and small changes in policy are adopted without debate and without most people noticing.
This year’s session, however, has been anything but typical. The 2023-2024 Legislative Session (or 193rd General Court, as it is properly called), will end on December 31, 2024 at midnight, but really it should have for the most part ended on July 31. That’s the date when by joint House and Senate rules, all controversial bills should have been addressed, with no more roll call votes to be taken for the remainder of the year. The joint rule was put in place to prevent pre-election controversy and lame-duck votes on important matters.
This year, however, because the Economic Development Bill (and many others) had not been completed, the House and Senate agreed to come back into a formal session in the fall, so they could take roll call votes on conference committee reports and send big bills to the governor’s desk. It also means that some controversial items—including the Boston Tax Bill—have been taken up in informal session as well. Fortunately, that bill was not passed by the Senate, but where we used to say that if we made it to the end of July, we were safe—now we have to remain vigilant all the way up to the final seconds of the session. (As an aside, the end of session is set by the Massachusetts Constitution, so it can’t be suspended or changed by the legislature).
What that means for SPOA is that bills we have been tracking, and have presumably seen die for the session, are still technically a threat. We’re working with our allies in the House and Senate to make sure they don’t surface, but unfortunately the Holiday Season doesn’t mean we can let our guard down.
We are also hard at work on planning out our legislative priorities for next session. While it will take a couple months to ramp up, we will face the same challenges, and some new ones, in the coming two years, and will be doing so with some new faces in both the House and Senate.
Speaking of legislative priorities: In addition to continuing to oppose bills that hurt landlords and rental housing production, we are also hard at work on several pieces of legislation we hope to file in the new year that will proactively address many of the problems that continue to plague rental housing providers. Included in this list of proposals are:
The Good Landlord Bill: This bill would create a grant program to provide tenants with down payment assistance funded through a voluntary, tax-deductible contribution by landlords either for their own tenants, or into a general rental assistance fund that could be restricted by zip-code. Additionally, the bill will address high property tax rates for landlords and create an interest free loan program for landlords who improve and/or repair rental units in exchange for setting rent at HUD rates or limiting increases to inflation for a certain number of years.
Grants to Municipalities to Fund Voluntary Right-of-First-Refusal Programs: A voluntary program that would allow municipalities to pay property owners for future rights to advance notice of any sale of their property.
Anti-Squatter Legislation: This bill addresses an issue that is becoming more prevalent nationwide and protects the rights of property owners in maintaining possession of their properties from bad actors.
Eviction Procedural Reform: This legislation would correct many of the so-called “temporary” changes, including but not limited to changes in eviction sealing laws, to Massachusetts eviction law that were put in place during the COVID era.
RAFT Reform: One of the biggest issues faced by rental property owners is that they rely on their tenants to apply and advocate for rental assistance payments. This bill would allow landlords to apply directly to the Commonwealth on their tenants’ behalf.
Rent Escrow Legislation: This is a re-file of a bill that SPOA has championed in past sessions which would require rent payments be held in escrow in the case of disputes before the courts.
Landlord Right to Counsel: This bill would provide equal rights to landlords and tenants in cases where taxpayer funded legal counsel is provided to tenants.
by Jim Eisenberg
Looking Back at 2024 in Video
by Amir Shahsavari
In 2024, we continued SPOA Housing Policy Series for its second year, releasing eight additional episodes. Overall, these episodes covered:
Small property owners struggling with the eviction process and the need for eviction reform
Professional tenants exposed by a team of NBC 10 News reporters after cheating numerous property owners for over 20 years
How competition and low taxes fuel housing affordability
Innovative approaches to real estate ownership using tax-advantaged strategies
An interview with a small business owner running for state representative
Advice on renting vacant apartments after the September 1st market
Our 2024 holiday message is also included.
You will find all these videos in commemoration of 2024 below.
SPOA Housing Policy Series
Brief Video Messages
by Amir Shahsavari
More Advocacy Against Forcing Property Owners to Pay All Broker Fees
by Demetrios Salpoglou
It was my pleasure to represent SPOA and Boston Pads last month when I spoke to Sharman Sacchetti from WCVB ABC Channel 5 News about a wide range of key real estate issues, including but not limited to: the current real time vacancy rate, the high demand for housing in Boston, low supply, and how 30 percent of rental housing providers currently cover some or all of the broker fees. After the New York City Council recently mandated that owners pay all broker fees, the debate has returned to Boston.
As mentioned in the December 2024 edition of Small Property Owners News, which covered my interview with NBC 10 News Boston about this issue, the root cause of the broker fee dilemma will not be addressed by shifting the financial burden to property owners. Small rental property owners, in particular, will be harmed by this and they will be forced to raise their rents to cover this additional expense, among other high expenses that come with property ownership.
We should instead look to alleviate pressures on both renters and owners by offering flexible and gradual payment options for broker fees, rather than demanding full payment upfront, while promoting zoning reform to incentivize the creation of additional supply, which is what's needed to bring costs down in the long-term.
WCVB Channel 5 ABC Boston- Demetrios Salpoglou talks Broker´s Fees
by Demetrios Salpoglou