Landlord offer revocation in Massachusetts

By Alyx Tinker

I have been living in my Massachusetts apartment and paying $800 per month for rent under the initial lease signed in June 2009. After the several years of living here, when my lease renewal came due, despite my requests for a new lease each month included in the rent check, my landlord failed to address or acknowledge my request for a new lease. On Saturday Feb. 2, 8 months after requesting every month for a new lease, my landlord put an offer in my mailbox requesting the new rent be $850 per month, and if I wanted parking that I could pay an additional $25 per month (for a parking space that was given to me by a verbal contract with the landlord). The initial letter continued to say that if we wanted to remain tenants at will we could still pay $900 per month, which has not been the case because we were under the assumption that we were not tenants at will and we were not required to pay $900 per month. He also stated that we could receive our $400 security deposit back whether we signed a new lease that he offered for 24 months. Because the wording of this offer was unclear and at points inaccurate, I refused to sign this letter and circle the amount of time we wanted a new lease for. Instead, I submitted a letter in response requesting clarification of the points that were unclear, asking if it were possible for the parking cost to be negotiable while stating that if I begin paying for this space it is only for my use, and asking him to please make this new increase effective on April 1st due to it being less than 30 days notice of the increase after 8 months of attempting to receive a new lease. After this, my landlord gave a letter back stating that we used the yard on our side of the apartment (which was included in the apartment we were renting), that I needed to notify him prior to purchasing a vehicle (even though the space was included in the initial agreement on a verbal basis), and that we brought another dog into the house without asking (when he also verbally consented to this in August of 2011). He then stated that he was revoking his original offer, and he would like us to stay for $850 per month with no parking. This letter was given two days after the initial offer and it was one day after our request for clarification. Aside from this, most repairs for the home have taken repeated calls to him with no resolution for atleast 3 weeks to a month in most cases (unless it is something we could legally leave for such as heat), for the entire 3.5 years we have remained in this apartment. I was wondering what my rights are in Massachusetts in this situation. 

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Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(