You find out the building is for sale, and then, as one Boston renter put it, "people keep showing up with the real estate agent."
The short answer is yes, a landlord selling a building can generally show an occupied apartment to buyers, and that permission is written into Massachusetts law. The longer answer is more interesting, because the rule almost everyone repeats about how much warning you're owed is not in the statute at all, and if you don't have a written lease, you're in a meaningfully different position than the search results assume.
What the law actually says
The provision everyone reaches for is Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, section 15B. Here it is, in full, because the exact wording matters more than usual.
"No lease relating to residential real property shall contain a provision that a lessor may, except to inspect the premises, to make repairs thereto or to show the same to a prospective tenant, purchaser, mortgagee or its agents, enter the premises before the termination date of such lease."
Three things follow from that sentence, and all three get missed:
1. It is a restriction on what a lease may contain, not a grant of entry rights to landlords.
2. Showing the unit to a prospective purchaser or mortgagee, or their agents, is one of the named exceptions.
3. It specifies no notice period. None. Not 24 hours, not any number.
That first point does the most work, and it's the single most misread thing about this section. Section 15B(1)(a) is not a law telling landlords when they may come in. It's a law telling landlords what they're not allowed to write into a lease. The default is that your apartment is yours during your tenancy; the statute permits a lease to carve out a few narrow exceptions to that, and showing the place to a buyer is one of them.
So the mechanism is: your lease may contain an entry-for-showings clause, and if it does, that clause is lawful. Read your lease before you read anything else. A guide to what's actually in a Boston apartment lease is the first place to look, and your own lease is where the entry clause will be.
Four things you'll read that aren't right
Search this question and you'll hit a wall of confident, national, mostly-wrong content. These four claims come up constantly.
| What you'll read | What's actually true |
|---|---|
| "Massachusetts requires 24 hours' notice before a showing." | Not in the statute. Section 15B(1)(a) names no notice period. The 24-hour figure traces to Attorney General guidance and Housing Court practice, not to legislation. |
| "There's a 48-hour rule." | The 48-hour rule is real, but it's the State Sanitary Code, and it governs access to make code-compliance repairs, not showings to buyers. Different rule, different situation. |
| "Once the building is for sale, the landlord can enter whenever they like." | Section 15B(1)(a) governs what a lease may permit. No lease, no such term, and even with one, the clause is what defines the permission, not the sale. |
| "You have to leave the apartment during a showing." | No statutory basis for this. Nothing in Massachusetts law requires a tenant to vacate for a showing. |
None of that is written to attack the other pages. Most of them are national templates covering fifty states in one article, and Massachusetts is genuinely unusual here, which matters if you're deciding what to do this week.
How much notice you're actually owed
The statute names no notice period. There is no Massachusetts statute that says "a landlord must give a tenant X hours' notice before showing the apartment to a buyer." That's a gap in the law, and it's why an honest answer here is less satisfying than a confident one.
What exists instead is a widely shared understanding that notice should be reasonable, and 24 hours is the figure the Attorney General's guidance and everyday Housing Court practice treat as reasonable. Most landlords and most brokers work to it. If you're negotiating with your landlord, asking for 24 hours is asking for something completely normal, and you'll usually get it.
But there's a real difference between "this is what's customary and what a court will likely think reasonable" and "this is what the law requires," and it's worth holding onto that difference. If a showing happens with twelve hours' warning, you haven't necessarily been the victim of a statutory violation. And if your lease itself specifies a notice period, which many do, that's the number that governs your tenancy, because your lease is the instrument that granted the entry right in the first place.
If you don't have a written lease
Section 15B(1)(a) operates entirely on lease terms. If you're a tenant at will, meaning no written lease, month to month, or a September 1 lease that lapsed and was never replaced, there is no lease clause granting entry, because there's no lease. Reread the statute: "No lease… shall contain a provision that a lessor may… enter the premises." It's a distinction almost nobody draws, and it changes the answer for a large share of Boston renters.
A tenant at will in Massachusetts has, as MassLegalHelp puts it, lawful and exclusive possession of the apartment. The practical position is that the landlord arranges access in advance to inspect, repair, or show the unit to prospective tenants, buyers, or their agents. That's a weaker position for a landlord than a lease clause.
What it does not mean is that a landlord can never enter. Read that carefully, because the temptation to over-read it is strong. A tenant at will still has a landlord with ownership interests, repair obligations, and legitimate reasons to need access. The realistic difference is that arrangements get made rather than asserted, and a landlord who insists they have an automatic right of entry because the building is for sale is describing a lease clause you don't have.
This matters in Boston specifically. A lot of renters here are at will without quite realizing it, because the September 1 lease ran out, everyone kept going, and nobody signed anything new. If that's you, you're in this category.
Can you refuse a showing?
This article can't answer that for your specific situation.
The shape of it is this. Refusing a specific showing for a specific reason is a request for reasonable accommodation, and it's the kind of thing that gets worked out between reasonable people all the time. Maybe you're working from home that afternoon, or you're sick, or the notice was two hours. A blanket refusal to permit any showing at all is a different act with different consequences, particularly if your lease contains an entry clause.
Where you land depends on your lease, your tenancy type, and the pattern of conduct so far. Those are facts about your situation, and getting them wrong has real consequences, so this is a point to get advice rather than to decide from an article. There's a list of who to call at the end.
This article isn't telling you to refuse entry, and it isn't going to hand you a template letter, because refusal has legal consequences and a script written for someone else's situation won't fit yours.
When showings become harassment
There's a point at which a pattern of entries stops being a landlord marketing a building and starts being something else, like showings scheduled to be maximally disruptive, repeated visits with no warning, entries during unreasonable hours, or pressure to leave.
The rule that addresses this is quiet enjoyment, at M.G.L. c. 186, § 14, which is the route through which a tenant whose use of their home has been seriously interfered with pursues damages. The Attorney General's landlord-tenant regulations at 940 CMR 3.17(6)(e) work alongside it by limiting what an owner may enter for, and showing the unit to a prospective purchaser is one of the permitted purposes, so the regulation governs the reason for a visit rather than how often it happens. Where the conduct is tied to a protected characteristic, the Attorney General's 2018 advisory on harassment and intimidation in housing sets out the anti-discrimination rules that apply.
One correction worth making explicitly, because it's repeated widely and it's wrong: the anti-harassment language is not in section 15B. Section 15B(1)(a) is one sentence about what a lease may contain. If you see a page attributing "may not abuse the right of access or harass the tenant" to section 15B, that page hasn't read the section. The limits on entry are real, but they come from 940 CMR 3.17(6)(e) and from quiet enjoyment at § 14, not from section 15B.
Whether a particular pattern crosses into harassment or a quiet-enjoyment breach, and what it's worth, is fact-specific and is not something to self-diagnose. If you think you're there, who to call about a landlord problem in Boston covers where the complaint actually goes.
What happens to your tenancy when it sells
The sale doesn't end your tenancy. A buyer purchases the building with you in it, and your lease, or your at-will tenancy, carries over to the new owner. You don't have to move because the building changed hands, and a new owner who wants you out has to go through the same process any landlord would.
The money side is its own subject, and it has more moving parts than people expect: where your security deposit goes, who's holding it, what the new owner is obligated to do with it, and what happens if the paperwork doesn't follow. That's covered in full in what happens to your security deposit when your building changes owners, and it's worth reading the two together, because this article is about living through the sale and that one is about what happens after it closes.
One thing a sale doesn't automatically do is change your rent. A new owner isn't free to raise it on a whim mid-lease; the rules on rent increases in Massachusetts apply to them exactly as they applied to the last owner. And if your lease contains a clause that seems to say otherwise, it's worth knowing that not every lease clause in Massachusetts is enforceable.
If the sale has you thinking about moving rather than sitting through it, it's worth starting early. Spot Easy lists Boston apartments with no broker fee on partner units and no admin fees in the fine print, so the move-in number you're quoted is the one you actually pay.
Where this stops being general advice
Some questions turn on facts only you have, and those are the ones where an article is the wrong source.
Whether you can refuse a specific showing. This depends on your lease's entry clause, whether you're a tenant at will, and what's happened so far. It's the highest-consequence question here and the one most worth asking a person about.
Whether a pattern of showings amounts to harassment or a breach of quiet enjoyment, and what a claim would be worth. Fact-specific, and the standards are not intuitive.
What counts as reasonable notice in your circumstances. Since the statute names no number, reasonableness is assessed against your situation.
What happens to a tenancy at will when the building sells, beyond the general position that the sale doesn't end it.
For any of those: MassLegalHelp is a good free starting point, Greater Boston Legal Services handles housing matters for income-eligible tenants, the Attorney General's consumer line takes complaints about landlord conduct, and a tenant-rights attorney can advise on your specific tenancy.
Frequently asked questions
Can my landlord show my apartment to buyers while I'm still living there? Generally yes. M.G.L. c. 186, § 15B(1)(a) names showing the unit to a prospective purchaser, mortgagee, or their agents as one of the permitted exceptions a lease may contain. The permission comes from your lease clause, which the statute allows.
How much notice does a Massachusetts landlord have to give before a showing? The statute names no notice period. Twenty-four hours is what the Attorney General's guidance and Housing Court practice treat as reasonable, and it's what most landlords follow, but it isn't a statutory requirement. If your lease specifies a period, that's the one that governs your tenancy.
Is the 24-hour notice rule actually Massachusetts law? No. It's widely repeated as law and it isn't in the statute. It reflects guidance and practice on what's reasonable, which is a different thing and a weaker basis than most pages suggest.
What's the 48-hour rule I keep reading about? That one is real, but it's from the State Sanitary Code and it concerns access to make code-compliance repairs. It doesn't govern showings to prospective buyers.
Do I have to leave the apartment during a showing? There's no Massachusetts statute requiring a tenant to vacate for a showing.
What if I don't have a written lease? Section 15B(1)(a) operates on lease terms, so with no lease there's no entry clause. A tenant at will has lawful and exclusive possession, and access is arranged in advance rather than asserted. That's a weaker landlord position, not a rule that a landlord may never enter.
Can I refuse a showing? It depends on your lease, your tenancy type, and what's happened so far, which is why this is a question for advice rather than an article. Declining one specific showing for a specific reason is a different act from refusing all showings.
Does my tenancy end when the building is sold? No. Your lease or at-will tenancy carries over to the new owner. What happens to your security deposit is a separate question with its own rules.
When do showings become harassment? Quiet enjoyment under M.G.L. c. 186, § 14 is the damages route, and 940 CMR 3.17(6)(e) limits what an owner may enter for. If the conduct is tied to a protected characteristic, the Attorney General's 2018 advisory on harassment and intimidation in housing applies. Whether a specific pattern qualifies is fact-specific.
Sources, and when this was current
- M.G.L. c. 186, § 15B. Security deposits and lease entry provisions.
- M.G.L. c. 186, § 14. Quiet enjoyment.
- 940 CMR 3.17. Attorney General's landlord-tenant regulations.
- Attorney General's 2018 advisory on harassment and intimidation in housing
- MassLegalHelp. Tenant at will rights.
Current as of September 2026.
This article is informational and isn't legal advice. Whether you can refuse a particular showing, and whether a pattern of entries crosses into harassment, depend on your lease and your specific tenancy, so confirm with MassLegalHelp, Greater Boston Legal Services, or a tenant-rights attorney.