Almeida v. AvalonBay Communities, Inc. et al.
Civil Action No. 25-12884-FDS
United States District Court, District of Massachusetts
Order on Motion to Dismiss – August 5, 2026
This is a case alleging unfair practices by a residential landlord.
Lisa Almeida is a tenant at the Avalon at Assembly Row, an apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts, owned by AvalonBay Assembly Row, Inc., a subsidiary of AvalonBay Communities, Inc. The standard form lease into which she entered includes a clause providing that if she defaults under the lease, she agrees to pay all costs and fees, including attorney’s fees, litigation and collection costs that the owner incurs in enforcing their rights under the lease.
Almeida challenges the landlord’s practice of assessing attorneys’ fees and court costs prior to a judgment of eviction by a court. The complaint, which is filed on her own behalf and on behalf of a putative class, asserts claims for breach of contract and violation of Massachusetts law.
Factual Background
The complaint alleges that AvalonBay adds the fees to tenants’ ledgers as immediately due and owing, whether or not a tenant exercises their right to cure or has valid legal defenses.
In May 2014, Almeida entered into a lease agreement with AvalonBay Communities to rent an apartment. The lease contained AvalonBay’s standard clause concerning eviction fees.
Almeida periodically failed to pay her rent on time. The complaint alleges that on at least 12 occasions between 2019 and 2021, AvalonBay added legal costs and eviction fees to her ledger. The fees were co-mingled with rent and other charges and were not itemized.
The complaint further alleges that AvalonBay unilaterally allocated her payments to all past due charges, including both rent and eviction fees, rather than just to rent when she made rent payments. As a result, she contends that she had to pay all past due charges, including eviction fees, to be considered current on her rent. AvalonBay allegedly added the eviction fees before any court determination of reasonable costs and fees. Almeida contends this is unlawful.
Two counts were agreed upon by the parties to be dismissed, leaving one count remaining: County 4, regarding Chapter 93A.
To survive a motion to dismiss, the plausibility standard asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. A court must take the complaint’s well-pleaded facts as true and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. Dismissal is appropriate if the complaint fails to set forth factual allegations.
Chapter 93A declares that “unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are . . . unlawful.”
The landlord argues that the lease provides that the tenant agrees to pay costs permitted under applicable law. The tenant contends that the landlord was not permitted, under law, to charge the relevant eviction fees where they had not been assessed by a court.
Under Chapter 93A, an act or practice is deceptive if it possesses a tendency to deceive and could reasonably be found to have caused a person to act differently from the way he or she otherwise would have acted.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has held that requiring a tenant to pay “constable fees” (the cost of having a notice to quit served on a tenant who fails to pay rent on time) before a judgment of eviction has been entered is an unfair and deceptive practice under Chapter 93A.
Another session of this court found that, under some circumstances, assessing legal fees against a tenant prior to a court judgment falls within the concept of unfairness.
The practices alleged by the complaint here fit within that framework.
The complaint alleges that the landlord’s practice was to simply add certain fees to tenants’ rent ledgers as “Legal Costs-Evictions” without further specificity. Because these charges were included among other rent and non-rent charges, the tenant believed she would be evicted if she did not pay these fees. The complaint further alleges that the tenant understood the landlord to have a policy of allocating payments to all outstanding charges, including the “Legal Costs-Evictions,” rather than first allocating such payments to past-due rent.
The Ruling
The unfairness arose from when the costs and fees were assessed, not what fees were sought: after all, a landlord would never be able to obtain a court judgment for fees and costs it could not legally collect. Therefore, the court will find that the complaint alleges unfair or deceptive practices that violate Chapter 93A.
Accordingly, the complaint states a claim upon which relief can be granted for violation of Chapter 93A, and the motion to dismiss Count 4 will be denied.
For the foregoing reasons, defendants’ motion to dismiss is denied.
Bryson attorney: Scott Harris