Information for Tenants or Homeowners Facing Eviction or Foreclosure
Are you fighting foreclosure (past or present)? Don’t know what to do to keep or regain your home? Join our next MAAPL Info Call to learn how to fight your foreclosure and understand how recent laws and court decisions impact your legal rights!
Info Calls take place every Sunday at 5:00 pm. Email maaplinfo@yahoo for call instructions.
If your housing is being threatened by foreclosure, we STRONGLY recommend that you get information about your rights and seek assistance right away. Do not wait to challenge your foreclosure or eviction! If you are still in your home and facing foreclosure, together we can work to save it. Please fill out our Get Help from MAAPL form to receive our help with your foreclosure or to volunteer to help others save their homes.
Filling out the Get Help from MAAPL form is only one step in the fight to keep your home. This page lists other resources and people who can assist you, perhaps sooner than MAAPL can. PLEASE use this information and begin to fight for your rights NOW!
IMPORTANT: You do not have to move out at foreclosure! In Massachusetts, you may lose ownership of your home at the foreclosure auction BUT you do not lose your right to be in your home! The new owner must evict you through court, and many of our local groups are stopping those evictions. And former tenants can keep renting while the bank owns the house.
You may still be able to fight the banks legally and get financing to repurchase your home whether you have moved out or not!
New! Foreclosures and the Courts: What You Need to Know (video series)
This series of short video lectures delivered by Grace Ross, MAAPL Coordinator, provides important and fundamental information about fighting foreclosures in the court system in Massachusetts.
MAAPL’s Homeowner Foreclosure Defense Project
MAAPL has launched a project to provide homeowners facing foreclosure or eviction with information they can use to help them fight their foreclosure/eviction in court. Massachusetts homeowners can sign up online to access an online document describing the foreclosure process and how to legally challenge their foreclosure or eviction; receive information about recent legal decisions that relate to foreclosure and eviction; to be informed of upcoming legal clinics, workshops, and webinars in their area; and to be notified of upcoming rallies, protests, speakers, and other ways to get involved in the fight against unnecessary and illegal foreclosures and evictions.
Go here to access this information.
Other Helpful Resources
Local Advocacy and Organizing Meetings
Boston area – Bank Tenant’s Association, City Life/Vida Urbana
Tuesdays: 6:30pm – 284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
Worcester area – Worcester Anti-Foreclosure Team
1st and 3rd Wednesdays: 6-8pm at Pleasant St. Neighborhood Network Center,
301 Pleasant St., Worcester, MA
Spanish-English interpreting provided.
Call 508-614-9238 or email WorcesterAntiForeclosureTeam@gmail.com
Lynn – Lynn United for Change http://www.LynnUnitedforChange.com
Chelsea – Chelsea Collaborative 2nd Wednesday every month: 6-8pm at 318 Broadway, Chelsea
Pizza and Spanish-English interpreting provided.
Call Eliza at 617-889-6080 x. 112, or write to elizap@chelseacollab.org for details or questions.
East Boston & North Shore – North Side Bank Tenant Association
Every Wednesday: 6-8pm at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 28 Paris St., E. Boston
Call (857) 203-2393 for info. Spanish interpreting available.
Springfield: Springfield Bank Tenant Association, No One Leaves Coalition
Tuesdays: 6-8 PM at 322 Main Street, Springfield (HAP Housing Building).
See www.springfieldnooneleaves.org for more information
Agencies
Legal Advocacy and Resource Center – especially for tenants and former homeowners post-foreclosure. Tell them you are calling as a resident in a foreclosed building.
Web site is at http://www.larcma.org/
Hotline (for brief advice and referrals): 617-603-1700 or 1-800-342-LAWS
Hours of operation are Mon., Tue., Thurs, Fri from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.
On Tuesdays, the hotline is open from 5:00 p.m.to 7:30 p.m.
On Wednesday, phone lines are open from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
City of Boston Home Center: 617-635-HOME (4663)
HOPE Line 24/7: 888-995-HOPE (4673)
HUD Counseling (for locations outside of Boston): 800-569-4287
Documents
Note: PDF files require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. DOC files require Microsoft Word or a Word-compatible program. PPT files require Microsoft PowerPoint or a PowerPoint-compatible program.
We hope to make more of these resources available in Spanish, and to add French translations as demand for this information in French-speaking communities increases. If you can help us translate our documents, please get in touch with us through the Contact MAAPL page.
Vacant Spaces: The External Costs of Foreclosure-Related Vacancies in Boston by Sam Simon ( PDF )
Foreclosures: Denying Massachusetts an Economic Recovery by Grace Ross ( PDF )
The foreclosure process in Massachusetts ( PDF | DOC )
Testimony by Nadine Cohen to Congress: Opposing mega merger of Capital One and ING ( PDF )
MAAPL’s response to Fannie Mae’s Request For Information on proposed disposition of post-foreclosure properties ( PDF | DOC )
PowerPoint presentation on Tenants rights during foreclosure ( PPT )
Web Sites
Explanation of the eviction process & your rights, and legal forms: http://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing/foreclosures
For former home-owners: http://test8.mlri.org/housing/rights-of-former-homeowners
For tenants: http://test8.mlri.org/housing/tenants-facing-foreclosure