GREENFIELD — Aided by grant funding, the nonprofit law organization providing free services to low-income and elderly residents of central and western Massachusetts is helping people seal their eviction cases.
Community Legal Aid has received $75,000 from the state Attorney General’s Office to launch the Central & Western Mass. Eviction Sealing Project. As part of this effort, Community Legal Aid plans to hold at least 12 clinics throughout Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Berkshire and Worcester counties over the course of a year.
“The impediments of having an eviction on your record are huge,” said Jennifer Dieringer, managing attorney of Community Legal Aid’s Northampton and Greenfield offices. The Franklin County clinic’s date and location have not yet been determined.
In addition to holding the clinics, staff in Community Legal Aid’s Housing Unit will assist tenants by filing sealing petitions on their behalf, representing them at eviction sealing hearings, and conducting outreach and “Know-Your-Rights” trainings for tenants and community partners. The Central & Western Mass. Eviction Sealing Project will also collaborate with Community Legal Aid’s CORI/Reentry Unit, which focuses on helping people with criminal records overcome barriers to housing, employment and other opportunities, to host joint sealing clinics.
“Eviction records have presented almost insurmountable barriers for tenants seeking housing, even years after their eviction cases have been resolved,” Jonathan Mannina, Community Legal Aid’s executive director, said in a statement. “Cases that were wrongly brought, cases in which the tenants prevailed, and cases that the landlord agreed to dismiss all show up on tenants’ records and create obstacles far into the future. We are very grateful that this grant will enable CLA to dedicate staff to helping tenants seal their eviction records and, in so doing, open up the housing market to them and their families.”
A state law went into effect on May 5, 2025, allowing tenants in Massachusetts to seal their eviction record. According to the state’s website, sealing an eviction record means it will not be available to the public and that tenants may answer “no record” if they have sealed all prior eviction records and are asked about evictions on a housing or credit application.
“It’s very easy for landlords to look up online what people’s eviction records are, and it sometimes can be complicated to read, and so it might be that the person didn’t actually get evicted, that the case was dismissed, maybe the tenant won the case,” Dieringer said. “But I also think that some landlords may just see any kind of a record in Housing Court, and that acts as a deterrent to them accepting the tenant into a new unit.
“It can also have implications for employment and for people’s credit, for credit scores,” she continued. “So the ability, now, to seal an eviction record is huge.”
When asked if this law could harm landlords by inhibiting their ability to identify potentially unreliable tenants, Dieringer said that is unlikely because there is an enormous rental housing crisis across the state and there are far more tenants looking to rent than there are units available. She also said the law has embedded safeguards.
“The way the law is written, there are different rights and opportunities, depending on what kind of an eviction it was,” she explained. “If a case was dismissed, it’s over — you get to seal, fairly automatically. If the tenant wins, same thing. If it’s a no-fault eviction, which means there’s no allegation that the tenant’s done anything wrong, the landlord gets notice that the tenant wants to seal and has an opportunity to come [to court] and state their case.
“If it’s a non-payment case, you can only move to seal the record if you fully paid the debt,” she added, “or it’s been four or more years since the eviction — you can prove that there was some kind of financial hardship that led you not to be able to pay, and also that you’ve had no other evictions since then.”
Dieringer also said evictions caused by a tenant’s wrongdoing can be sealed after seven years and only if there have been no further eviction cases since then.
“So I think the law really tried to adjust the rights and responsibilities according to the type of eviction,” she said. “I think it sort of balances tenants’ rights and landlord opportunities pretty well.”
