"Our reading of this bill is that if a tenant does not pay every cent the landlord claims is owed, then he won't get before a judge," said Annette Duke of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, arguing against the bill Monday.
"This bill removes the judges' ability to hear both sides," she said. "What they're doing with SB 541 is taking away the power to hear."
Bradley also says the bill puts the tenants at the mercy of the landlords.
"We will have to escrow not the contracted rent, but what the landlord wants," he says.
A Case in Point?
Guild, a Boston artist, says she believes her right to trial--without an escrow fund to back her up--is the only reason she still has an apartment.
For several years prior to 1995, Guild and her partner were residents of The Piano Factory, a South End artists' commune which landlord Simeon Breuner had built from an abandoned piano factory.
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