I recently closed on my first multi family property in Worcester MA. I purchased it with an owner occupied loan, and the property was sold to me fully rented. My second floor tenant is a TAW, I closed on November 30th 2020, and that day issued him a notice to quit that I would not be renewing his month to month agreement. Being close to the holidays and with covid going on I also offered him $2000 and not to pay rent so he'd have extra money to find a new apartment. Per my loan agreement I need to be living on the property within 60 days, here where are a the end of January and he know has changed his mind and decided not to leave the property and also not to pay rent. His job has not been affected by covid and paying rent is not an issue for him. Is there any legal action I can take to get him out of the property? None of our agreements where in writing it was all verbal, a definite mistake on my part.

Hopefully you didn't give him any money.  I'd contact an eviction attorney.  Hopefully somewhere you have it in writing that he was moving.

I did not give him any money, the only money I am out is the rent for December and January. It does seem that his plans are to continue not paying though. 

Contact an eviction attorney on next steps. They can get you rent $ through mitigation st the courts but they won’t enforce a notice to vacate at this point and time in MA. I have a great eviction attorney that does all of our evictions in Worcester county if your interested I can pass along a referral. 
from a loan standpoint you did your part in trying to occupy the property, the bank won’t take the property back.

@Jonathan Bombaci

Thank you! And I would be interested in your attorneys contact info.

When was his lease over?  When I've been a tenant and landlords didn't want to renew my lease, they always sent a letter via mail, and handed me a copy when I turned in my rent.

Get it in writing. Even if it's a text message.  That is still documented communication.  Maybe you can start a text conversation where you reference the verbal agreement, how he was going to move and how his staying is problematic for the next tenant that was going to move into the apt.

Alex Verdugo

He was a month to month tenant, and I closed on the property on November 30th, and gave him a notice to quit that same day. In MA you need to give a TAW a full rental period notice that you are not renewing their agreement, which I did, but with COVID things become more complicated. 

Originally posted by @Sam Waitkevich :

@Jonathan Bombaci

Thank you! And I would be interested in your attorneys contact info.

 Sent through private message good luck! You can mention me if you want, we have 100+ units under management through our PM firm Simplified Management and contracted with her and her team to do all of our evictions. 

My understanding is that you can't evict someone just for nonpayment of rent. But you can evict people if there are other circumstances.  If their job hasn't been affected, no one living in the apt is unemployed, or if they've been given plenty of time to make arrangements.   I'm not sure what those would be in MA but it might be worth looking into.

perhaps you should let them know that you're starting the eviction process anyway.  Let them know that once the moratorium for evictions is over, they will be evicted, that eviction will stay with them and will follow them for several years.  At this point, what do you have to lose?  Since you served him with a notice to vacate, isn't he essentially squatting in the apartment?  That may be another way to get him out.

one last thing. My understanding of the moratorium is that you can't evict people, through no fault of their own, for nonpayment.  They will eventually have to pay that lost rent back.  Your guy still has his job so his nonpayment is completely his CHOICE not to pay.  There may be a loop hole there.  

Good luck