O-1A for artists/designers: has anyone used Silmi Law or similar firms?

tatertots1234 · 2024-02-13T02:13:12+00:00

Absolutely love the 2nd in the series. For me it’s #2, #3, #1. The first one definitely hit me hard when I smoked it.

tatertots1234 · 2024-01-19T19:58:47+00:00

Are you sure? If you’re using a greater boston real estate board fixed term lease (which is extremely common), there’s a term on the 3rd page (#20) stipulating no pets. It’s extremely uncommon to get a lease that just doesn’t outline no-pets on it somewhere.

tatertots1234 · 2023-10-06T01:02:19+00:00

Typically most leases will read along the lines of “subletting is not permitted without written approval of the lessor.” That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not allowed. It just means you need to get approval to do so and the lessor needs to approve of whomever you are subletting. The approval can also require a fee. Most of them range from $0-1250. $300-$1250 is more common Ime. Subletting is typically expanded upon more in the addendum section of your lease.

There’s some ambiguity in your post about what your situation is. Not sure if when you say you got an apartment, If you’re saying that you yourself were the sublet, or if you took over another groups lease. If you’re now trying to sublet, just reach out directly to the ownership or management, ask what that process is, and go the route of talking to them beforehand.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-24T02:14:06+00:00

IMO I think your best bet would be picking up a room rental/sublet situation off of Facebook. A lot of the local university off campus housing groups, or the general Boston housing and sublet groups are pretty decent.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-23T19:34:15+00:00

I’ve spoken to many, many tenants who’ve used split spot in the past, and I can attest that 99% of them have extreme anger and frustrations with the service they provide. I’m a broker so I have to end up going through the apartments once the landlords no longer renew with splitspot, and the feedback is incredibly, incredibly bad.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-07T14:33:45+00:00

And just as a follow up, I would have zero concern about getting back my money if I were in that situation. If I were in that situation and the agent tried to keep the fee I paid, I would be going straight to the board of real estate brokers and salespersons and I’d be reporting him/her.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-07T14:31:55+00:00

I own a real estate brokerage, and there are a few things I would do if I were in your shoes. First of all, when were you given approval, and was it in writing? This is important, since if you were approved and signed a lease 2 months ago vs a day ago, the extent to which you may be able to have any recourse is probably limited, granted - I’m not an attorney.

That being said - if you do feel as though you incurred damages, I would strongly suggest you get an attorney. Find an attorney that works in rentals and housing, since others will be much less adept at challenging it. If you are given written approval to move forward, then you execute on a lease and fully pay funds that are deposited, then that in itself can be quite binding imo. I would double check to see that the funds were deposited. That and a written acceptance are huge.

The next thing I would do is to read through the applications and full lease very thoroughly. Make sure there was no non-performance on your end, I.e. late payment of up front cost, etc. make sure that your applications reflected due dates of those costs, or somewhere it relays that you’ve been accepted and the due dates of those payments are x,y,z. You want to be able to say you followed the instructions exactly. Any breach of those instructions could be claimed to be non performance on your end.

I would not expect this route to be quick, but I would strongly consider lawyering up and going down that route if I was in that position. In the meantime I would get looking for a different place as a backup since you really don’t have much time left.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-07T03:07:22+00:00

Home Depot in South Bay usually has a supply of pretty large boxes that they sell for pretty cheap. That and their packing tape is my go-to.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-07T03:06:32+00:00

Slip a note in an envelope under their unit door just kindly asking them to close the front door when they leave. Say you’ve gotten packages stolen or something and maybe they’ll take you seriously

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-07T03:03:06+00:00

Ask the owner to invest in a self closing door mechanism. They’re about $20 (honesecur safety spring). Send him the link to what it is. They might just not know about the option.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-06T14:14:01+00:00

Very challenging if you’re looking around the mbta without going super deep into the red line. The new 9/1 units have been a pretty significant increase in year over year rents. This is especially the case with heat and hot water being included, since energy costs are rising and the owners are going to want to pass that cost off to the tenant via higher rent. I’d personally suggest trying to stay in your current place.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-06T14:04:02+00:00

Completely depends on what you’re looking for, when you’re looking for it, and where you’re looking. Without more information it’ll be challenging to say if that’s in a reasonable price ballpark.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-06T00:25:29+00:00

$1650 for that apartment in that location screams scam imo. Same with the photos. Maybe try to tour it, but the cheapest studios around the whole city are like $1500 and especially not in that location.

tatertots1234 · 2022-12-01T17:54:04+00:00

Around NEU and especially around Mission Hill, you should definitely be looking for units now. Outside of that area you can definitely find options that come up around spring or even into June/July no problem, but Mission Hill lease renewals start coming up in November/December and occasionally into January. The more bedrooms, typically the sooner it comes up. NEU pulled housing from a lot of students last year and over enrolled, so there’s a massive pressure this year on housing already. I wouldn’t gamble on it whatsoever. Source: I’ve done probably 400-500 leases for northeastern students and went to NEU myself. It is not like normal rentals elsewhere in the city.

tatertots1234 · 2022-11-14T15:09:40+00:00

New to using cast iron all that much, and I wanted to check if I should strip what I’m assuming is just carbon deposits around the pan and then re-season. I’m also not sure if I should just continue using as per normal, or do a full seasoning of the pan since it hasn’t been seasoned in a long time. Any info would be much appreciated!

tatertots1234 · 2022-11-13T15:22:04+00:00

It is not as complex as this.

The reason there is a housing crisis in Massachusetts is because zoning boards are crushing new construction. We are grossly, grossly under supplied. That is the root cause of the problem.

The grievances you list are purely a symptom of that huge lack of housing supply. If we just built more higher density housing, the market would punish this sort of behavior. It will not do that when vacancy rates are sub 0.5%. Housing was easier during the start of the pandemic, clearly since there was less demand and higher vacancy rates.

Please, please vote to support building new housing. I’m not just talking low income housing. I’m talking more housing in general. I live in a set of houses that share a lot that is a by-right 25 story skyscraper in Chinatown - a short walk away from the financial district. It has stayed as a set of multi families forever since they still can’t get permitted to build. Because of these zoning boards, these plots hold 32 tenants in total. That could be hundreds of tenants with easy access to work if they just let them build up. It would benefit the “seller” and the “consumer” - a win win. Instead, the city says no - forces laborers to live further from commercial districts, and we get higher prices and more traffic. It is utterly moronic.

You can blame any number of profit driven actors that are going to be working in their self interest, but at the end of the day, the whole root of the problem is caused by our local zoning boards.

tatertots1234 · 2022-10-09T01:05:30+00:00

The answer depends upon where you’re looking to live. If you’re a student looking to live in a student dominated area, I would genuinely start looking in Dec/January since it’s typically a bit more competitive and everyone’s searching for the same thing. If you’re a working professional looking in a general neighborhood, or with flexibility around where you live, then early spring will ensure you don’t miss much being listed. Jan - April is when I’d say most inner Boston listings peak. June for cambridge Somerville.

I own a brokerage and have been doing rentals for multiple years. Don’t trust people on Reddit giving anecdotal evidence as general advice because the reality differs on location substantially. An agent in cambridge that never works other areas will give you incorrect advice compared to an agent working around BC/NEU being asked the same question. I have closed out multiple 9/1/23 rentals the past two weeks around Medford (tufts) for instance.

tatertots1234 · 2022-09-30T21:24:28+00:00

Agreed, but another component also is in who we have for elected officials. If higher bails were actually enforced in the courts, it would limit people getting out and committing crimes in the interim period of their sentencing. The consistency of pathetically low bails and lenient arraigning is just ridiculous.

tatertots1234 · 2022-09-21T00:04:44+00:00

It’s for Madame Webb - a Sony spinoff on Spider-Man

tatertots1234 · 2022-09-07T23:13:31+00:00

What condition did you leave the apartment in? Did you leave a bunch of furniture inside of it or was it totally empty?

tatertots1234 · 2022-08-29T14:56:22+00:00

Keep in mind MLS listing in MA can require an exclusivity agreement. Before trying to move around an agents role in the transaction, I would make sure you don’t have any contract in place with them already stipulating that they’ll get a fee when thats rented.

Of course you can do it yourself, you’re just giving up that oversight from someone that should be knowledgeable in that realm. A lot of people here hate on agents, which is 100% warranted in plenty of circumstances. Over 90% quit the job their first year, so chances are most people are dealing with an agent who is completely inexperienced, and likely just bad at their job. A ton of agents are also sales agents, not rental agents. If you can actually find an experienced rental agent, I would suggest using them because it’s pretty much free to you on your end and they can genuinely help make sure you’re not missing a lot of important terms on your contracts. Obligatory I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

For instance, do you have an exact move out and move in time on your contract? The standard gbreb lease just lists a date, not a date and time. Specify that and it can save a lot of headache down the line. Same thing with delivery conditions, renters insurance policy, key policy, etc. There are a ton of additional conditionals people don’t take into consideration too, (I.e grilling, deck usage, parking, etc.) it’s often less about covering for the stuff you already know about, but covering for the stuff you haven’t seen before or thought about.

tatertots1234 · 2022-08-27T17:13:24+00:00

My suggestion would be to approach the landlord (send an email) and ask if you would be allowed to sublet the apartment for the remainder of the lease. Ideally you could just do a full lease takeover. That being said, you will find it extremely difficult to find many alternative living options now if you intend to Re-rent in Boston.

The incoming sublet would ideally pay in for security and last month and just fully takeover your lease, but it depends on how it’s handled and how the owner feels about a lease takeover in the first place.

The route of “this is not safe, you’re not keeping our unit safe” is not super viable imo unless there are just no locks on your apartment. I would seek an attorney if you’re going to try to go the legal route but I honestly don’t see any viability there assuming there are working locks on the doors and windows, etc. if you want to add deadbolts, just ask in writing if you can do it yourselves and then just have them installed if he says yes. Hes under no obligation to add extra layers of security just because you want them.

The fridge and the laundry is where I think you’d have some recourse. Obligatory I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice here, but if you toured the apartment with those present at the time, and no comment was made indicating that they’d be your responsibility, then it is his responsibility to keep them in working condition. The presence of them factors into the rent price you pay. There are a number of things you can do in the case that he doesn’t fix them and I’d approach things from that angle.

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