A tenant is hurt on a broken common stairway, a poorly lit hallway, or a walkway the landlord let fall into disrepair, and when they raise it, the landlord points to the lease: it says right here we are not responsible for injuries. Faced with their own signature on a document full of fine print, many tenants assume the landlord is right and that they signed away their rights. In Massachusetts, that assumption is simply wrong. The Legislature has declared that this kind of lease clause, a landlord liability waiver that tries to exonerate a landlord from responsibility for its own negligence, is void. It does not matter that the tenant signed it. The law refuses to enforce it as a matter of public policy.
This is one of the clearest protections tenants have, and one of the least known. Landlords routinely put exculpatory and hold-harmless language into leases precisely because it discourages injured tenants from pursuing valid claims, and it works, not because the clause is enforceable, but because tenants do not realize it is void. Understanding that a landlord cannot contract its way out of responsibility for its own carelessness is what separates a claim a tenant wrongly abandons from one that holds the landlord accountable. This is how the landlord liability waiver really works in Massachusetts.
The stakes are significant because injuries from neglected rental property, falls on broken stairs, harm from unsafe conditions the landlord ignored, can be serious, and because the lease clause is designed to make tenants give up before they start. Knowing that the clause is unenforceable is what keeps a valid claim alive.
What the your lease says we are not liable defense claims
To see why the defense fails, it helps to understand the clause the landlord is relying on and why landlords use it.
The exculpatory clause
Landlords frequently insert an exculpatory or hold-harmless clause into a lease, language stating, in one form or another, that the landlord is not liable for injuries on the property, that the tenant releases the landlord from claims, or that the tenant will hold the landlord harmless for any harm. The point of such a clause is to shift the risk of the landlord’s own carelessness onto the tenant in advance. When a tenant is later injured and complains, the landlord waves this language as though it settles the matter. But whether that clause actually does anything is a question of Massachusetts law, not of the landlord’s say-so, and the answer is that, as applied to the landlord’s own negligence, it does nothing at all.
Why landlords include it anyway
If the clause is void, why is it in so many leases? Because it works as a deterrent even when it is unenforceable. A tenant who reads that the landlord is not responsible, and who signed the lease, is likely to assume the claim is hopeless and never pursue it. The clause costs the landlord nothing to include and discourages exactly the claims the landlord would rather not face. That is its real function, not to win in court, where it would fail, but to prevent the tenant from ever getting there. Recognizing the clause as the deterrent it is, rather than the bar it pretends to be, is the first step to seeing past it.
Massachusetts makes landlord exculpatory lease clauses void
The decisive point is statutory and unambiguous: Massachusetts law voids these clauses.
The statute that voids the clause
Under MGL c. 186, § 15, any provision of a lease or rental agreement by which a tenant agrees, in any words whatsoever, to indemnify or hold the landlord harmless, or to exonerate or relieve the landlord from liability, for any injury, loss, damage, or liability arising from the landlord’s own omission, fault, negligence, or other misconduct, is deemed to be against public policy and void. The statute could hardly be clearer. It reaches any wording that tries to accomplish this result, so a landlord cannot escape it by clever drafting, and it applies regardless of the tenant’s signature, because the clause is void, not merely voidable. When a landlord points to a lease clause to avoid responsibility for its own negligence, it is relying on precisely the kind of provision the Legislature declared unenforceable.
What the statute covers
The statute is broad in its reach. It expressly covers injuries arising from the landlord’s negligence on the leased premises and, importantly, on the elevators, stairways, hallways, and other appurtenances used in connection with the property, exactly the common areas where so many rental injuries happen. And it protects not only the tenant but any other person injured as a result of the landlord’s negligence, so a tenant’s family member or guest hurt by a neglected condition is covered as well. Because the clause is void as against public policy, the landlord cannot rely on it against any of these people. The statute effectively removes the exculpatory clause from the case, leaving the landlord to answer for its negligence as if the clause were not there.
As-is and disclaimer language does not waive a negligence claim
Landlords sometimes fall back on softer language, arguing that the tenant took the property as-is or that the lease disclaimed the property’s condition. That argument fails too.
Renting as-is is not a liability shield
An as-is clause addresses the condition of the property at the time of renting; it is not a license for the landlord to be negligent afterward. Even where a tenant accepts a unit in its existing condition, the landlord retains ongoing duties, to maintain the common areas, to keep the premises reasonably safe, to comply with the building and sanitary codes, and to address dangerous conditions it knows or should know about. An as-is clause does not, and legally cannot, convert those ongoing duties into a blanket waiver of the landlord’s future negligence. When a landlord tries to stretch as-is language into an exculpatory clause, it runs into the same statutory bar, because the effect it seeks, relieving itself of liability for its own negligence, is exactly what the law voids.
The landlord’s ongoing duty of care
The reason disclaimer language cannot shield a landlord is that the landlord’s duties are not simply a matter of private contract; they are imposed by law for the protection of tenants and the public. A landlord must keep the areas under its control reasonably safe and comply with the codes that govern habitability and safety, and those obligations continue throughout the tenancy regardless of what the lease says. Our discussions of apartment common-area slip and falls and of unsafe and toxic rental conditions reflect how these duties operate in practice, and how a landlord’s attempt to disclaim them gives way to the reality that certain responsibilities cannot be signed or disclaimed away.
The landlord duty in common areas overrides lease terms
The area where these clauses are invoked most, and defeated most clearly, is the common area, because that is where the landlord’s control and duty are strongest.
Control of common areas means responsibility
A landlord retains control over the shared parts of a rental property, the stairways, hallways, entries, walkways, elevators, and grounds, and with that control comes a duty to keep those areas reasonably safe for the tenants and visitors who must use them. That duty exists independent of the lease, and the statute specifically names these appurtenances as areas where an exculpatory clause is void. So when a tenant is hurt on a broken common stairway or in a dark hallway the landlord failed to maintain, the landlord cannot point to the lease to escape responsibility; its duty over the common areas overrides any lease term that tries to disclaim it. The very places where injuries are most common are the places where the landlord’s attempt to waive liability is most clearly ineffective.
Known hazards, stairs, lighting, and snow and ice
The recurring common-area hazards, broken or defective stairs and railings, inadequate lighting, deteriorated walkways, and, in Massachusetts winters, unremoved snow and ice, are all conditions the landlord has a duty to address. Massachusetts holds landlords to the ordinary duty of reasonable care to keep their property safe from snow and ice, and the same duty governs stairs, lighting, and structural conditions in the areas the landlord controls. A lease clause purporting to waive liability for these hazards is void, and the analysis returns to the real question: did the landlord fail to keep a common area reasonably safe, and did that failure cause the injury. Where the answer is yes, the exculpatory clause changes nothing.
How the defense plays out, and how a Boston injury lawyer helps
In practice, the landlord liability waiver defense usually appears early, in a letter or conversation pointing to the lease, and it is meant to end the discussion. An experienced lawyer answers it directly: the exculpatory clause is void under Massachusetts law, it does not bar the claim regardless of the tenant’s signature, and any as-is or disclaimer language cannot accomplish the same result. With the clause removed from the picture, the case proceeds as an ordinary premises claim, focused on whether the landlord failed to keep the property, especially the common areas, reasonably safe, and whether that failure caused the injury. The lawyer develops the evidence of the hazard and the landlord’s knowledge of it, prior complaints, how long the condition existed, code violations, and builds the claim the clause was designed to discourage.
That work turns a defense that a landlord hopes will end the matter into a non-issue, and refocuses the case on the landlord’s actual conduct. Because so many tenants give up after reading the lease, the value of knowing the clause is void, and having someone establish it, is high. Our Boston personal injury attorneys handle rental-injury and premises cases across the Commonwealth, and the full scope of our work appears across our practice areas. Because many of these injuries are the stairway and staircase falls and premises cases we regularly handle, these issues connect across our practice. We help injured tenants in nearby communities including Cambridge, Somerville, and Quincy. These cases are handled on contingency, so there is no fee unless there is a recovery.
What to do if your landlord points to the lease
If a landlord tells you a lease clause bars your injury claim, do not accept it as the final word. A few steps protect your position.
First, do not concede that the clause ended your rights or that you gave them up by signing. The clause is void under Massachusetts law, and agreeing otherwise concedes something the law does not require. Stay polite but do not accept the landlord’s characterization.
Second, preserve a copy of the lease and, importantly, document the hazard and the injury, the broken stair, the dark hallway, the deteriorated walkway, the snow and ice, with photographs, and note how long the condition existed and whether it had been reported. The strength of the underlying premises claim, not the void clause, is what matters, and that evidence fades quickly.
Third, preserve evidence that the landlord knew or should have known about the condition, prior complaints, repair requests, code-enforcement records, and the accounts of other tenants and witnesses. A landlord’s knowledge of a hazard it failed to fix is often the heart of the case.
Finally, get the claim evaluated promptly. Massachusetts injury claims are subject to strict deadlines, and the evidence of the hazard and the landlord’s knowledge disappears with time, repairs are made, conditions change, memories fade. A lawyer can confirm that the exculpatory clause is void, preserve the evidence, and build the premises claim. A first consultation costs nothing, and understanding that the lease clause does not bar your claim can change everything about how you proceed.
Why the law voids these clauses
Understanding why Massachusetts refuses to enforce a landlord liability waiver helps an injured tenant see the defense for what it is, because the reason is a deliberate policy choice, not a technicality.
Housing is a necessity, and tenants rarely have equal bargaining power with landlords. A lease is typically a take-it-or-leave-it document; a prospective tenant who needs a place to live is in no position to negotiate away boilerplate the landlord insists on. If exculpatory clauses were enforceable, every landlord would include one, and tenants would routinely surrender, as a condition of having somewhere to live, their right to be compensated when a landlord’s carelessness injures them. The Legislature recognized that allowing this would let landlords buy immunity from their own negligence at no real cost, using the imbalance of bargaining power to shift the consequences of their neglect onto the people least able to bear them.
Voiding the clause also serves a safety purpose. If a landlord could disclaim liability for its own negligence, it would have far less incentive to maintain safe stairways, adequate lighting, and sound common areas, because the financial consequences of neglect would fall on tenants rather than on the landlord. By keeping landlords answerable for their negligence regardless of lease language, the law preserves the incentive to keep rental housing reasonably safe. In other words, the rule is not just about compensating an injured tenant after the fact; it is about ensuring landlords have a reason to prevent the injury in the first place. That combination of fairness and safety is why the clause is void as against public policy rather than merely disfavored.
The landlord duties that a lease cannot waive
Because the exculpatory clause is void, the case returns to the landlord’s actual duties, and it is worth understanding what those are, since they are the substance of the claim the clause was meant to suppress.
A landlord’s core obligations include maintaining the common areas under its control in a reasonably safe condition, keeping the property in compliance with the state building and sanitary codes, addressing dangerous conditions it knows or should know about, and, in Massachusetts, meeting the ordinary duty of reasonable care with respect to snow and ice. These duties are imposed by law for the protection of tenants and the public, and they exist independently of, and cannot be overridden by, the lease. A clause purporting to waive them is not just unenforceable in a narrow sense; it is void because it attempts to disclaim responsibilities the law does not permit a landlord to shed.
This is why the analysis in a rental-injury case ultimately looks the same whether or not the lease contains an exculpatory clause. With the void clause set aside, the questions are the ordinary ones of premises liability: did the landlord control the area where the injury happened, did it fail to keep that area reasonably safe, did it know or should it have known about the hazard, and did its failure cause the injury. The lease clause, however broadly written, does not change any of those questions. It simply tries, and fails, to prevent them from being asked. Recognizing that the real case is about the landlord’s duties, not the lease language, is what allows an injured tenant to move past the clause and toward the substance.
Common rental injuries where this defense appears
The landlord liability waiver defense surfaces in a familiar set of situations, and seeing them helps illustrate how consistently the void clause fails.
Falls on defective common stairways and steps are perhaps the most common, broken treads, missing or loose railings, uneven surfaces, and worn nosing in the shared stairwells tenants must use every day. Inadequate lighting in hallways, stairwells, entries, and parking areas is another recurring hazard, one that both causes falls and enables other harm. Deteriorated walkways, porches, and decks, structures the landlord is responsible for maintaining, cause serious injuries when they give way or trip a tenant. And in Massachusetts, snow and ice left unaddressed on common walkways and entries is a frequent source of falls, governed by the landlord’s ordinary duty of reasonable care.
Beyond falls, neglected conditions inside and around rental housing, hazards a landlord knew about and failed to repair, code violations, and unsafe systems, can cause a wide range of injuries. In each of these, the landlord’s exculpatory clause is invoked, and in each it is void as applied to the landlord’s own negligence. What determines the outcome is not the lease language but whether the landlord failed in its duty to keep the property, especially the areas it controls, reasonably safe. Documenting the specific hazard and the landlord’s knowledge of it is what builds the claim the clause was designed to discourage.
Common myths about the lease clause
The landlord liability waiver travels with several confident claims that do not hold up in Massachusetts. Naming them helps injured tenants resist giving up.
The first myth is that signing the lease means you accepted the clause and gave up your rights. Because the clause is void, your signature does not give it effect; you cannot validly agree to something the law refuses to enforce.
The second myth is that the clause covers everything because it is broadly worded. The statute reaches any wording, in any words whatsoever, that tries to exonerate the landlord from its own negligence, so broad drafting does not save the clause; if anything, a sweeping exculpatory clause is squarely what the law voids.
The third myth is that an as-is clause or a disclaimer accomplishes the same thing. It does not. Accepting a unit in its condition when you rented it is not a waiver of the landlord’s ongoing duty of care, and disclaimer language cannot be stretched to relieve the landlord of liability for future negligence.
The fourth myth is that the clause at least protects the landlord against a tenant’s guest or family member. It does not; the statute protects any person injured by the landlord’s negligence, not only the tenant. Seeing through these myths reveals that the clause the landlord is counting on does almost nothing of what the landlord claims.
The bottom line for Massachusetts tenants
The essential point is simple: a lease clause saying the landlord is not responsible for injuries caused by its own negligence is void in Massachusetts, and your signature does not change that. The clause is a deterrent, meant to discourage claims, not a bar that can actually defeat them. Once it is set aside, as the law requires, the case is an ordinary premises claim about whether the landlord failed to keep the property reasonably safe.
For an injured tenant, this means the landlord’s your lease says we are not liable should never be accepted as the end of the matter. The real questions are whether the landlord controlled the area where you were hurt, whether it kept that area reasonably safe, whether it knew or should have known about the hazard, and whether its failure caused your injury, none of which the void clause affects. Those questions frequently favor the tenant, especially for the common-area hazards the statute specifically addresses.
Because the clause is designed to make tenants give up before they start, and because the evidence of the hazard and the landlord’s knowledge fades quickly, the most important thing an injured tenant can do is refuse to take the lease clause at face value, document the hazard, and get a knowledgeable evaluation promptly. Doing so is what ensures that an injury caused by a landlord’s neglect leads to accountability rather than to a claim abandoned over a clause that never had any legal force.
What the void clause does not change
It is worth being clear about the limits of this protection, because an injured tenant still has to prove a real claim. Voiding the exculpatory clause does not make a landlord automatically responsible for every injury on the property; it simply removes an obstacle the landlord tried to erect, and returns the case to ordinary premises principles. The tenant must still show that the landlord had a duty with respect to the area or condition at issue, that it failed to meet that duty, and that the failure caused the injury. A truly unforeseeable accident, or a hazard the landlord neither created nor had any reason to know about, may not support a claim even with the clause set aside.
What the statute does is level the field. It prevents a landlord from using lease language to escape a claim it would otherwise have to answer, ensuring that a tenant injured by genuine landlord negligence is judged on the merits rather than turned away at the door by a void clause. For most tenants, that is exactly the difference that matters: not a guarantee of recovery, but a fair chance to hold a negligent landlord accountable, unobstructed by a provision the law has already declared unenforceable. Understanding both what the protection provides and what it still requires is what allows an injured tenant to pursue a rental-injury claim realistically and effectively.
A void lease clause is one of several defenses that do less than a landlord claims. The same limits apply to a general liability waiver, and these rental-injury cases connect to our work on snow and ice and parking-lot hazards.
Frequently asked questions
My lease says the landlord is not liable for injuries. Can I still sue?
Yes. Under MGL c. 186, § 15, any lease provision that tries to hold a landlord harmless or exonerate it from liability for injuries caused by its own negligence is against public policy and void. It does not matter that you signed the lease, the clause is void, not merely voidable. A landlord liability waiver of this kind cannot bar your claim, and the case proceeds as an ordinary premises claim focused on whether the landlord failed to keep the property reasonably safe.
Does it matter that I signed the lease with that clause?
No. Because the statute makes the exculpatory clause void as a matter of public policy, your signature does not give it effect. The law refuses to enforce this kind of clause precisely so that landlords cannot use a tenant’s signature to escape responsibility for their own negligence. The clause is effectively removed from the case, and the landlord must answer for its negligence as if the clause were not there.
What if the lease says I took the apartment as-is?
An as-is clause addresses the condition of the unit when you rented it; it does not waive the landlord’s future negligence. The landlord still has ongoing duties to maintain the common areas, keep the premises reasonably safe, and comply with the building and sanitary codes. An as-is or disclaimer clause cannot be stretched into a shield against the landlord’s own carelessness, because the effect it seeks, relieving the landlord of liability for its negligence, is exactly what Massachusetts law voids.
I was hurt on a common stairway. Does the lease clause protect the landlord?
No. MGL c. 186, § 15 specifically covers injuries on stairways, hallways, elevators, and other common appurtenances, exactly where an exculpatory clause is void. A landlord controls the common areas and has a duty to keep them reasonably safe, and that duty overrides any lease term that tries to disclaim it. If the landlord failed to keep a common stairway reasonably safe and you were hurt as a result, the lease clause does not shield the landlord.
Does the clause also affect my guest or family member who was hurt?
The statute protects not only the tenant but any other person injured as a result of the landlord’s negligence, so a guest or family member hurt by a neglected condition is covered as well. A landlord cannot use an exculpatory lease clause against them either. Whether the injured person is the tenant or a visitor, the void clause does not bar a claim based on the landlord’s failure to keep the property reasonably safe.
Fire safety is one of a landlord’s most serious duties. When missing alarms or blocked exits turn a blaze into a catastrophe, an apartment fire injury claim holds the landlord accountable, and “the fire was accidental” is no defense to those failures.