Boston Bad Landlords List Heads to a November Hearing

When I ask for a rental property’s operating history, I mean the records that explain what happened after a problem was reported. The notice, the work performed, the inspector’s follow-up and any remaining obligation belong together. A contractor’s invoice is useful. It does not, by itself, tell a buyer that the City considers a violation corrected.

That distinction deserves the same attention as the rent roll. Boston’s proposed Bad Landlords List gives owners a timely reason to organize those records before a sale, a refinancing or a project that needs zoning relief.

As of November 9, 2026, Docket 1958 remains a proposal. The public list and new restrictions described below have not been enacted. The City has scheduled a November 16 hearing at 10 a.m. This article separates the filed proposal from requirements already in place.

Allston and Brighton put the operating record in focus

Before the filing, Councilor Liz Breadon’s September outreach invited renters in Allston and Brighton to describe their experiences with landlords. Allstonia’s reporting described a request for anecdotal accounts. Boston.com separately reported on the neighborhood survey and citywide outreach.

Those accounts explain the local accountability discussion. They do not establish how many owners would qualify for a list, and a survey response is not an adjudicated code violation. I would not use the survey to rank buildings or attach a risk percentage to an Allston or Brighton purchase.

The practical issue is how an owner responds when something goes wrong. If a water problem keeps returning, a buyer needs the repair scope and the follow-up record. If a notice went unanswered and the City brought an enforcement case, the court documents matter. Reducing either situation to a complaint count loses the information needed to evaluate it.

Breadon and Councilor Brian Worrell’s Docket 1958 was referred on October 21 to Government Operations. Its filed text would connect specified enforcement failures to an owner designation and restrictions on city business. That makes the identity of the owner relevant alongside the condition of the building. It still does not make every address associated with an owner equally problematic.

Boston already requires registration and inspections

Owners should start with today’s obligations. Boston’s rental registration guide requires annual registration by July 1. The published fees are $25 per unit for initial registration and $15 per unit for renewal. The City’s rental FAQ says qualifying small owner-occupied properties still register, although they do not pay registration fees.

The standard rental inspection program selects properties on a five-year cycle. City inspections cost $50 per unit in buildings with one to three units, and $75 per unit in larger buildings or for condominium units. An authorized inspector’s accepted report is a separate route with a $15 per-unit filing fee. Owners should follow the actual selection notice and requirements for their chosen route.

The City also offers an alternative five-year inspection plan for qualifying properties. It requires an application and compliance review. Do not confuse that approval with simply being on the ordinary five-year inspection cycle.

Owner-occupied exemptions need careful reading. City summaries describe buildings with six or fewer units, while some current ordinance and FAQ wording uses rental units. For a building at that counting boundary, confirm eligibility with ISD. An owner-occupied three-family is below either count, but an exemption from periodic inspection is not evidence that the premises satisfy habitability requirements.

The current ordinance already contains chronic-offender points, hearings and penalties, with three-year ISD inspections for that category. Designated problem properties have a separate annual inspection requirement. Docket 1958 would replace the chronic-offender subsection; it would not create Boston’s first enforcement system.

The proposed score measures specified failures

The filed proposal would assess points twice annually for events within the preceding twelve months. Its triggers include inclusion on the Problem Properties List, noncompliance with notices that leads to City enforcement, specified emergency-violation failures, registration or inspection failures, and unpaid municipal fines.

Here are the proposed point values. These describe the draft’s scoring components, not a calculation for an actual owner. The registration and inspection provision describes the assessed unit as an unregistered unit; it does not clearly provide a separate formula for a registered unit missing an inspection.

The court-related language deserves attention. The proposal defines enforcement proceedings broadly enough to include pending and closed City-plaintiff code cases, including cases ending in judgment, dismissal or agreement. A court record therefore needs to be read for its actual outcome. It is inaccurate to describe every potentially scored event as a proven violation after a final judgment.

It is equally inaccurate to say an ordinary complaint automatically earns these court-related points. The described triggers require additional events, such as failure to comply with an ISD notice leading to City enforcement. Complaints, inspector findings and court decisions are different records.

For owners, I would reconcile the original notice with the case disposition and correction record before trying to estimate a score. For buyers, that same exercise identifies whether an issue is still open. The draft leaves questions about overlapping categories and dismissed proceedings that deserve clarification at the hearing. Adding points from a search-results page would produce more certainty than the records support.

Portfolio size and exemptions change the analysis

The proposed designation threshold varies with the number of rental units owned. An owner in the smallest band would reach the designation threshold at six points in a twelve-month period. Larger portfolios have higher thresholds.

There is a drafting inconsistency worth flagging. The designation paragraph says a score equal to or greater than the threshold qualifies, while the publication paragraph refers to points above the threshold. Owners should not rely on that difference as a settled exclusion. It is a question for the committee and any final text.

The proposal excludes rental units and properties in a dwelling with six or fewer total units when one unit is owner-occupied. That is not a blanket exemption for a small investor’s rental building. An absentee-owned three-family would not qualify for this particular exclusion merely because it is small.

Other exclusions cover government-owned units or properties, and buildings that received public financing for an affordable-housing rehabilitation project within the preceding five years. The latter is narrower than an exemption for all affordable housing. These are exclusions in the proposed designation calculation, not permission to ignore existing code duties.

The proposed open dataset would appear February 1 and August 1 and include owner names, all their rental property addresses, and violation and fine information. Consequently, an address appearing under an owner would not by itself establish a violation at that address. The proposal also seeks expanded ownership-interest information, but it does not spell out a complete method for consolidating related LLCs. Match actual entities and records instead of assuming that similar names establish common liability.

Zoning relief could become an owner-level constraint

The proposed definition of city business goes beyond contracts. It includes City grants, loans and other financial assistance, along with accepting and processing applications involving City property acquisition, leases, property-tax reclassification, Article 80 development projects or plans, zoning-map amendments and other zoning relief.

That wording matters to an investor considering a project that depends on a variance or another discretionary approval. The proposed restriction concerns acceptance and processing of an application, not just a possible denial at the end. If enacted as written, it could affect a listed owner’s project beyond the property that generated the underlying points.

I would treat that as a reason to review the applicant’s operating record early. A development budget that assumes timely zoning relief needs a realistic application path. The proposal supplies no basis for promising that a particular project will be rejected, delayed for a fixed period or worth a particular amount less.

There are exceptions. The draft would preserve eligibility for City financial assistance used to rehabilitate rental property and remedy outstanding code violations. It also allows a narrowly justified exception for a particular contract based on procurement needs or public health, safety and welfare.

Read the operative Boston language rather than importing every feature of another city’s program. The proposal’s background discusses Chicago restrictions on licenses and building permits. Boston’s operative definition does not reproduce a blanket ban on all business licenses or all building permits.

The practical distinction for an acquisition is the seller, the property and the future applicant. The filed text does not expressly say that an unrelated buyer automatically inherits the seller’s designation. That does not establish that a sale extinguishes a property’s unresolved conditions, orders or financial obligations. Those require their own review.

Notice, appeal and removal would take separate steps

Under the filed text, ISD would mail notice of each point and of an owner designation, with return receipt requested. The owner would have fourteen calendar days to request a hearing appealing the designation. Keeping a current mailing address and a dated record of receipt would be part of managing that process.

The appeal provision leaves material details unstated. It does not specify whether an appeal pauses publication or the city-business restriction, nor does it fully describe the hearing schedule and evidentiary procedure. I would not tell an owner that filing an appeal automatically preserves access to zoning review.

Removal has its own conditions. A listed owner would have to request annual ISD inspections of each rental unit. To be removed, the owner would need fewer than two points over the rolling twelve-month period and reach the specified publication anniversary at least twelve months after first appearing. The draft illustrates an August 1 listing becoming eligible the following August 1, and a February 1 listing the following February 1.

That makes documented correction necessary without making it an immediate deletion guarantee. The proposal also provides a $2,000 fine, or the maximum allowed, for each subsequent point received in the rolling period. It is not described as a flat charge merely for first appearing on the list.

Existing repair documentation already matters. The State Sanitary Code, 105 CMR 410.660(C), requires the reinspection record to identify corrected and uncorrected violations. That is the kind of record I want in the operating file: a dated response to the actual cited condition, with remaining requirements visible.

A hypothetical Dorchester purchase starts with the file

Consider a clearly hypothetical purchase of a Dorchester three-family. The seller supplies a rent roll, a past water-intrusion notice and a contractor’s invoice. No actual building, owner, transaction or designation is being described here.

I would request the registration confirmations, inspection selection notices, inspection results and any accepted alternative-plan approval. If the seller claims an owner-occupied exemption, I would ask for its basis and separately determine whether the buyer’s intended ownership and occupancy would qualify.

Next, I would match the water notice to the unit or common area, the correction deadline, the contractor’s scope and the reinspection result. A roof invoice does not necessarily answer a notice about damage inside a unit. Photos may help establish the work performed, while the inspector’s written record explains what remained unresolved. Required permit finals are another record to check.

For court involvement, ask for docket numbers and the actual orders, agreements and dispositions. The Massachusetts court-search guide explains searches by party or case information. The Housing Court cautions that online entries may not include the newest filings. Counsel should verify a disputed status with the relevant clerk and determine any continuing obligations. A case marked closed does not explain the disposition by itself.

Unpaid balances need separate evidence. Request relevant fine and fee statements, payment receipts and counsel’s review of municipal charges or liens. Boston’s Code Enforcement lookup can help locate Public Works violations, but it is not a complete ISD housing-code file or an all-agency certificate of unpaid balances. Use the City’s current public-records process for missing records.

Finally, verify the legal occupancy against the advertised three units. A rent roll establishes what the seller reports collecting; it does not establish the approved unit count. If the purchase plan includes an addition requiring zoning relief, examine the future applicant and applicable rules separately.

Only then would I put supported repair costs, contractor timing and any demonstrated operating interruption into the acquisition budget. An unresolved fact belongs on the diligence list. It should not quietly become a made-up repair allowance or a percentage discount attributed to Docket 1958.

Sellers can resolve uncertainty before buyers price it

A seller with a completed repair should make the evidence easy to follow. Organize each matter by address, unit, notice number and date. Include the correction scope, permits where required, invoices, reinspection outcome, payment receipts and any court disposition. If an obligation remains, identify it plainly rather than describing the file as clean.

This is useful even if the proposal changes or never passes. It gives a buyer’s inspector, attorney and lender a common set of records. It also lets the parties distinguish a completed correction from work still needed, a disputed fine from a paid balance, and an owner-level issue from a condition at the building being sold.

Closing is not the end of the compliance calendar. Under current Boston Code 9-1.3(P), transfers must be reported and the new owner must register within thirty days of closing, with a maintenance plan addressing significant deficiencies. If the property is acquired in its inspection year without the required inspections completed, the new owner has ninety days to complete them or apply for an alternative plan.

Those are existing new-owner requirements. They are separate from the question of whether a future owner designation would apply. Neither a seller’s prior exemption nor the absence of an express successor provision in Docket 1958 substitutes for reviewing the buyer’s obligations.

For a sale already under agreement, I would have counsel address unresolved records and any proposed allocation of correction work in the transaction documents. A general assurance that everything will be handled after closing leaves too much undefined.

What to watch at the November 16 hearing

The Government Operations hearing is scheduled for November 16, 2026, at 10 a.m. in the Iannella Chamber on City Hall’s fifth floor, with in-person and virtual testimony. Check the notice for participation instructions and any scheduling changes. A separate November 23 virtual working session is posted for 10 a.m. and has no public-comment period.

Docket 0864 shares the November 16 hearing. Its separate filed text concerns tenant protection during rental inspection code violations and proposed changes to the inspection framework. Its fee, data-sharing and exemption provisions should not be treated as current law or folded into Docket 1958.

For 1958, I will be watching the threshold wording, treatment of court dispositions, attribution across related ownership entities, appeal timing and any process for correcting the public record between publication dates. Those details determine how reliably an owner or buyer could use the list.

My position is straightforward: review the operating history with the same care as income and expenses, and require documented resolution of repairs. The pending hearing adds urgency to that work. It does not supply a new valuation formula.

Our investment-property articles cover the broader acquisition process. Once the records support the assumptions, use the investment calculator to evaluate the building’s actual costs and income. If you’re preparing a Boston rental building for sale or reviewing one to buy, we can help organize the property questions for your inspector and attorney.

Questions owners and buyers are asking

Is Boston’s Bad Landlords List already law?

No. As of November 9, 2026, Docket 1958 remains referred to committee. A hearing is scheduled for November 16. The proposed public list and new city-business restrictions are not enacted requirements.

Would an owner-occupied three-family be exempt?

Docket 1958 would exclude rental units and properties in dwellings with six or fewer total units when one unit is owner-occupied from the designation calculation. That proposed exclusion does not eliminate existing registration or habitability duties.

Would listed owners be restricted from seeking zoning relief?

The filed proposal would restrict listed owners’ city business, including acceptance and processing of applications for zoning relief. It remains a proposal, and its final text and implementation could change.

Would fixing violations immediately remove an owner from the list?

Not under the filed removal provision. It requires fewer than two points in a rolling twelve-month period and the specified publication anniversary at least twelve months after the initial listing. Listed owners would also have annual ISD inspection obligations.

Would a buyer automatically inherit the seller’s designation?

The filed text does not expressly provide automatic designation transfer to an unrelated buyer. That is separate from the property’s unresolved conditions, orders, charges and the buyer’s existing compliance duties, which require individual review.

What should a rental-property buyer request first?

Request registration and inspection records, notices and reinspection results, related court documents, fine and fee balances, payment receipts, legal occupancy and permit records. Match repairs to the original notice and its documented disposition.

Sources and reporting notes

Sources checked November 9, 2026. Proposed provisions refer to the filed version of Docket 1958. The Dorchester example is hypothetical. No individual owner or property was scored, and no transaction discount was estimated.

• Boston City Council: November 16 hearing notice
• Docket 1958 legislative record
• Docket 1958: complete filed ordinance
• Current Boston rental ordinance, Code 9-1.3
• Boston rental registration guide
• Boston rental inspection guide
• Boston rental registration and inspection FAQ
• Boston alternative five-year inspection plan
• Massachusetts State Sanitary Code, 105 CMR 410
• Allstonia: September Allston-Brighton survey reporting
• Boston.com: Breadon renter outreach
• Boston Public Records request process
• Boston Public Works Code Enforcement guide
• Massachusetts court-docket search guide
• Housing Court frequently asked questions
• Boston legal-occupancy records
• November 23 working-session notice
• Docket 0864: separate filed ordinance