On Tuesday, August 6th, Governor Healey signed into law House Bill 4977, “An Act relative to the Affordable Homes Act.” The 181-page Bill provides for $5.1 billion in capital funding to support housing production and preservation in the Commonwealth which is almost triple the amount in prior authorizations. In addition to providing significant increases in funding for many existing affordable housing programs such as the Affordable Housing Trust ($800 million), the Housing Innovations Fund ($200 million) and the Housing Stabilization Fund ($425 million), the Act allocates over $150 million to programs that support and encourage mixed and middle-income housing development and innovation, and $275 million for climate related sustainability or “Green Housing” initiatives. The Act also creates new tax credit programs and increases funding for several existing credit programs. The lack of affordable housing at all income levels has been identified as a major factor affecting economic growth in the Commonwealth. A coalition of business leaders and housing advocates posits that 200,000 new housing units need to come online by 2030 to keep up with demand.[1] The new law represents a major step toward meeting this challenge.
The new law also includes several important legislative initiatives that are not necessarily only about affordable housing. These include changes to the administration of registered land in the Commonwealth, changes to eviction processes and amendments to zoning and homestead laws.
One important aspect of the legislation involves new procedures for withdrawing real estate from the operation of the Massachusetts Land Registration Act. Massachusetts has two separate land title systems— (1) unregistered land, whereby deeds, mortgages and other instruments affecting real estate title are recorded and indexed in a county registry of deeds, similar to the recording systems in most other states, and (2) registered land under the Massachusetts Land Registration Act, whereby the Land Court certifies ownership of the real estate on a “certificate of title.” Although land registration carries with it certain benefits for the owners of registered land, unregistered land can often be more desirable to avoid cumbersome and time-consuming administrative processes that are involved in transferring title or otherwise dealing with registered land. And, although neighboring parcels of real estate can be a mix of registered and unregistered land, it can often be beneficial (or even necessary) for development and/or re-subdivision for the adjacent parcels to either be all registered or all unregistered.
Under the old system, moving property from the land registration system into the unregistered system was only permitted under certain limited circumstances and often took many months, or even years, to accomplish. The new Act, however, provides for a streamlined process to de-register land without the need to satisfy one of the old statute’s limited conditions. Under the new system, the owner of registered real estate would simply file a Complaint and a Notice of Voluntary Withdrawal with the Land Court. The landowner would also either need to include a written assent from any mortgage lender and certain other parties with record interests in the property. Alternatively, the landowner could serve a copy of the Notice of Withdrawal on those parties, who would then have 30 days to object. Unless the Court receives an objection that is grounded in “good cause” or determines that it is necessary to appoint a title examiner to look into the property’s title in more detail, the Court must approve the de-registration within 30 days after it receives all necessary information (unless the Court determines “for good cause” that more time is needed).
The Act also makes a change to existing law to allow the state’s chief title examiner (or one of her deputies) to authorize corrections of clerical errors on certificates of title. Such corrections previously required filing a Complaint with the Land Court and obtaining a Court order.
The Act also provides for a number of other changes to Massachusetts law that may be of interest to owners of real estate, including:
- An amendment to zoning law allowing owners of property zoned for single-family homes to construct an “accessory dwelling unit” (i.e., a separate apartment) on the property provided it is 900 square feet or less and satisfies certain other requirements;
- An amendment to the Homestead Act allowing homeowners in most circumstances to increase their “declared homestead exemption” from $500,000 to $1,000,000; and
- A new provision in landlord-tenant law, allowing evicted tenants to seal their eviction records, either immediately (in the case of what the Act calls a “no-fault eviction”) or after waiting 4 or 7 years after the eviction proceeding, depending on the circumstances.
The Act was passed with an emergency preamble, meaning it took effect as soon as the Governor signed. However, many sections of the Act do not go into effect right away, and we expect that many aspects of the law may take some time to implement, particularly those requiring changes in Land Court forms and procedures.
[1] See, e.g., Future of Work Commission, Final Report, March 2022, page 26 (“Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development Secretary Michael Kennealy testified that there will be an estimated shortage of 125,000-200,000 housing units by 2030”).
