Maintenance & Repairs Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what Massachusetts law says, what's specific to Boston - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L gives an owner five days after written notice to begin all necessary repairs or contract in writing for them.
- The same section gives fourteen days after that notice to substantially complete the work.
- Those counts run only once a board of health, local code enforcement agency or court certifies the violation - in Boston, the commissioner of housing inspection.
- Where a board of health, code enforcement agency or court orders correction in a shorter period, § 127L makes the shorter period govern.
- After the deadline passes, the tenant may repair and deduct, capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period.
Understanding the Maintenance & Repairs Clause
Your maintenance and repairs clause decides who fixes the dead boiler and how long they get. Massachusetts answers the second half with real numbers - five days to begin the work and fourteen days to substantially complete it - and then attaches a condition most renters do not expect.
Those counts sit in M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L, and they do not start when you complain. They start when a code official certifies that your unit carries a sanitary code violation that may endanger or materially impair your health, safety or well-being, and the owner has been notified in writing.
Not high. The statutory wording we read came from a republisher of the General Laws rather than the Commonwealth's own publication, so confirm the current text of M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L and 105 CMR 410.640 before you rely on a number in a dispute.
What renters assume
That the Massachusetts repair clock behaves like Florida's or Texas's - you send a written complaint, the days start counting, and on day fifteen you have a remedy.
What is actually true
Written notice is only half of it. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L runs its five and fourteen day counts off a violation certified by a board of health, a code enforcement agency, a court, or Boston's commissioner of housing inspection.
Massachusetts shows on this chart as 14 days, level with Chicago and Nashville and quicker than Portland and Los Angeles at 30. Read that number carefully, because it is not the same shape as the others.
Austin and Miami count 7 days and Seattle and Phoenix 10 from the tenant's written notice. In Massachusetts the fourteen days in M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L attach to a violation that a board of health, a local code enforcement agency, a court, or Boston's commissioner of housing inspection has certified - so an uninspected unit has no clock running at all, however many letters you have sent.
New York City, Denver, Atlanta and Philadelphia have no fixed deadline in the record. Massachusetts is closer to them than the chart suggests until an inspector has been through your apartment.
Plain English Version
Massachusetts does put your landlord on a clock, but an inspector holds the stopwatch. Get the violation certified, make sure the owner has written notice, and then it is five days to start and fourteen days to substantially finish.
Repairs Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Boston, MA
The sample clause below is real lease language - a court quoted it word for word, and then ruled on it. What the judge decided is at the bottom of this block.
Find the equivalent paragraph in your own lease and read the two side by side. The wording will differ; the moving parts rarely do.
Tenants agree to pay for all damages to the apartment windows, screens, and doors, including exterior unit doors (including random acts of vandalism).
Quoted from the published opinion in De Stefano v. Apts. Downtown, Inc., 879 N.W.2d 155 (Iowa 2016). Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright; the lease language is reproduced in limited part for commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
“Tenants agree to pay for”
An agreement is the first thing a landlord points at when the bill arrives. In Massachusetts it is not what starts the repair clock. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L runs off a certified violation: a board of health, a code enforcement agency or a court of law must certify that the breach may endanger or materially impair your health, safety or well-being. Only then, with the owner notified in writing, do the five days to begin all necessary repairs, or contract in writing for them, start.
“all damages”
Nothing here sorts wear from breakage, or a tenant's mistake from a stranger's. Categorical is the Iowa Supreme Court's word for that: a landlord does not discharge a statutory duty to put and keep the premises fit and habitable by making the repair and billing it under a provision written into the form lease. Massachusetts puts that duty on the owner through the State Sanitary Code.
“apartment windows, screens, and doors”
An itemised list settles what the clause covers and nothing about who answers for the item. In Boston that second question is decided by an inspector, and the statute names the city in its own text: certification of a qualifying violation runs through the commissioner of housing inspection in Boston, Worcester and Cambridge rather than a board of health.
“(including random acts of vandalism)”
The parenthesis reaches damage nobody on the lease caused, and that is what the Iowa tenants won on: $598.46 for an exterior door a burglar wrecked, with the decision against them on liability for that repair reversed. Massachusetts answers a stalled repair with money. Once the deadlines pass the tenant may repair and deduct, capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period.
The tenants won the door. The Iowa Supreme Court held the landlord could not use this clause to bill them $598.46 for an exterior door wrecked by a burglar, and reversed the district court's decision against the tenant on liability for the door repair. Two reasons, and the second is the wider one. Iowa Code § 562A.15(2) lets a landlord and tenant agree only that the tenant will perform specified repairs; it does not let the landlord perform the repair and shift the cost. And the landlord's statutory duty to “make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition” is not satisfied “by merely making repairs and shifting the costs to the tenant pursuant to categorical provisions in the original lease agreement.” Note the word categorical: what failed was a blanket allocation written into a form lease before anyone knew who would break what. Why a renter should care: the damage here came from a stranger's crime, and the clause charged it to the household anyway. This is Iowa law, from the opinion as amended July 26, 2016, and a differently worded statute can produce the opposite answer - Texas's did in 2001.
One court, one lease, one state. That answer is not automatically yours, and your lease may be worded to land differently. Use this to know what to look for and what to ask - your state's tenant hotline or a local tenant attorney can answer it for your document.
Massachusetts Law on Maintenance & Repairs Clause
- M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L gives the owner five days after written notice to begin all necessary repairs or to contract in writing with a third party for them, and fourteen days after that notice to substantially complete them.
- The clock runs only once the violation is certified by the board of health or local code enforcement agency, in Boston, Worcester and Cambridge by the commissioner of housing inspection, or by a court of law.
- Where a board of health, local code enforcement agency or court has ordered the violations corrected within a shorter period, § 127L makes that shorter period govern instead.
- Under the State Sanitary Code, 105 CMR 410.640 requires the board of health to order correction within 24 hours of service for the conditions 105 CMR 410.630(A) deems to endanger or materially impair health or safety, and within 30 calendar days of service for other violations; no order may exceed 30 calendar days without a hearing.
M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L; 105 CMR 410.640 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
Massachusetts runs its repair regime through the State Sanitary Code and the inspection that enforces it. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L applies where violations of that code may endanger or materially impair a tenant's health, safety or well-being, where those violations have been certified as such, and where the owner has been notified in writing.
Once both of those things are true, the section sets two counts. The owner has five days to begin all necessary repairs, or to contract in writing with a third party to make them, and fourteen days after the notice to substantially complete them.
Certification is the step that starts everything. Under § 127L it comes from the board of health or the local code enforcement agency, from a court of law, or - in the cities of Boston, Worcester and Cambridge - from the commissioner of housing inspection.
The statutory counts are ceilings rather than entitlements. Where a board of health, local code enforcement agency or court has ordered the violations corrected within a shorter period, § 127L makes that shorter period govern instead, so the order in your hand can beat the fourteen days in the statute.
The State Sanitary Code sets those shorter periods directly. 105 CMR 410.640 requires the board of health to order correction within 24 hours of service for the conditions 105 CMR 410.630(A) deems to endanger or materially impair health or safety, and within 30 calendar days of service for other violations, and no order may exceed 30 calendar days without a hearing.
The remedy at the end is the part worth planning around. Once the deadline has passed, § 127L lets the tenant repair and deduct the cost from rent, capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period - a far larger allowance than the small repair-and-deduct ceilings other states set.
Treat every one of these figures as something to verify rather than quote cold. Read M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L and 105 CMR 410.640 in the Commonwealth's own current publication before you withhold or deduct a dollar.
Massachusetts Tenant Protections
Massachusetts gives you dated remedies once a sanitary code violation is certified and the owner has written notice. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L then allows five days to begin all necessary repairs or contract in writing for them, and fourteen days after the notice to substantially complete them, with a shorter period governing where a board of health, local code enforcement agency or court has ordered one.
Certification comes from the board of health, the local code enforcement agency, a court, or the commissioner of housing inspection in Boston, Worcester and Cambridge. Under the State Sanitary Code, 105 CMR 410.640 requires correction ordered within 24 hours of service for conditions 105 CMR 410.630(A) deems to endanger or materially impair health or safety, and within 30 calendar days for other violations, with no order exceeding 30 calendar days without a hearing.
After the deadline passes, § 127L lets you repair and deduct the cost from rent, capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period.
What's Specific to Boston
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Boston is named in the statute itself, which is unusual and it changes your first move. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L routes certification of a qualifying violation through the commissioner of housing inspection in the cities of Boston, Worcester and Cambridge, rather than through a board of health.
That office sits inside Boston's Inspectional Services Department, which enforces the State Sanitary Code locally. So the practical first step for a Boston renter is not a letter to the landlord and a wait - it is getting an inspector into the unit, because the inspection is what turns a complaint into a certified violation and a certified violation is what starts the five and fourteen day counts.
Inspectional Services carries other duties that show up in real disputes. Every rental property must be registered each year by July 1, with a penalty of $300 per month for failing to register, and rental properties are inspected at least once every five years.
Two Boston timelines are worth knowing by name. A property owner must file written extermination reports within 14 days of receiving a bed bug violation, and a landlord has 24 hours after a storm ends to clear common areas and walkways of snow and ice.
Put together, that is a different playbook from the states where a written notice starts a clock on its own. Document the defect, call Inspectional Services, get the violation certified, make sure the owner has written notice, and only then are you counting days toward the four months' rent repair-and-deduct ceiling in § 127L.
Good - M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L needs the owner notified in writing before its five and fourteen day counts can run.
You need a real address for written notice. The statutory counts in § 127L depend on the owner having been notified, so a named recipient protects your dates.
Question it hard. In Boston, certification by the commissioner of housing inspection is what starts the § 127L clock in the first place.
Question it. M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L gives tenants repair-and-deduct capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period, and a lease clause is not the statute.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L; 105 CMR 410.640, read on law.justia.com. Massachusetts publishes the official text at malegislature.gov.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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Repairs on the landlord's own timetable
Open-ended wording invites indefinite waiting. Once a violation is certified and notice given, § 127L allows five days to begin and fourteen days to substantially complete.
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Notice by phone call only
M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L turns on the owner being notified in writing. A clause steering you to a call leaves you with no dated record to point at.
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Repair-and-deduct signed away
A clause promising you will never deduct is aimed straight at § 127L, which caps that remedy at four months' rent in any twelve-month period. Raise it before you sign.
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Inspections framed as a lease breach
Boston's clock depends on the commissioner of housing inspection certifying the violation. Wording that treats a call to Inspectional Services as your fault should be questioned in writing.
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Snow and pest duties pushed onto you
In Boston a landlord has 24 hours after a storm ends to clear common areas and walkways, and must file extermination reports within 14 days of a bed bug violation.
Your Rights as a Boston Tenant
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Five days to begin the work
After certification and written notice, M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L gives the owner five days to begin all necessary repairs or contract in writing for them.
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Fourteen days to substantially finish
The same section requires the repairs to be substantially completed within fourteen days of that written notice.
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A shorter order beats the statute
Where a board of health, code enforcement agency or court orders correction in a shorter period, § 127L makes that shorter period govern instead.
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Repair-and-deduct up to four months' rent
Once the deadline passes, § 127L lets you repair and deduct from rent, capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period.
What To Do - Step by Step
Photograph it the same day
Date-stamped photos and a short video fix when the defect started. Everything in M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L is measured in days, so the timeline is the case.
Call Inspectional Services first
In Boston the commissioner of housing inspection certifies the violation under § 127L, and that certification is what lets the statutory counts run at all.
Put the notice in writing too
§ 127L also requires the owner to have been notified in writing. Email the person named in the lease, describe the unit and the exact defect, and keep the sent copy.
Read the order you are given
105 CMR 410.640 has the board order correction within 24 hours of service for conditions 105 CMR 410.630(A) deems dangerous, and within 30 calendar days otherwise.
Verify the statute text
Read M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L and 105 CMR 410.640 in the Commonwealth's own current publication before you act on a number.
Get advice before you deduct
Repair-and-deduct under § 127L is capped at four months' rent in any twelve-month period. Have Massachusetts legal aid or a tenant help line check your dates and receipts first.