Mission Hill landlord-tenant relations highlight changes in Boston real estate

Clinical instructor Maureen McDonagh was quoted in  The Huntington News’s article by Ava Sasani about the rising costs and maintenance issues that have caused frustrations among residents in Mission Hill. The excerpt reads:

Maureen McDonagh, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, works with law students at the Harvard Legal Services Center’s Housing Law Clinic to advise tenants facing eviction cases. McDonagh said it is difficult to gauge the frequency of landlord retaliation cases because of the inherently subjective nature of retaliation allegations.

“It’s difficult to determine because it’s not like people say, ‘I’m going to evict you because you complained!’ The jury or judge has to look into the landlord’s head and try to figure out why they did what they did,” McDonagh said. “We do see retaliation cases fairly regularly, or allegations of retaliation.”

Read the full article here.