The Truth About TOPA

The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA - H.1544/S.998) is a simple way to level the playing field for tenants at risk of displacement while ensuring that property owners can still maximize the sale price for their buildings. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation about TOPA has circulated over the years. Here are a few of the most common myths, along with the facts about what this fair, humane policy actually is.

MYTH: TOPA Purchases will slow down the sale process.

FACT: TOPA timeframes mirror normal bank-financed real estate transactions. 
Like all bank-financed sales, TOPA sales will take longer than the cash sales favored by speculators and flippers looking to displace residents and make a quick profit. These are the types of sales municipalities need to be able to slow down, to protect tenants & preserve affordable housing.
Under TOPA, an owner can market a property for sale as soon as it gives notice to tenants and municipality of its intent to sell - there is no waiting period. After notice of a third-party offer, a tenant association or its designee has only 21 - 45 days, depending on when the owner gives notice, to execute a purchase contract at the market price – and to provide a substantial deposit of up to $250,000.

MYTH: TOPA will hurt small property owners

FACT: Small property owners are explicitly excluded from TOPA.
Even in municipalities that choose to adopt TOPA, property owners with 9 or fewer residential rental units in the municipality are exempt from TOPA. ​

MYTH: Tenants will use topa to extort money from owners to buy out their rights

FACT: Massachusetts' TOPA bill prohibits tenants from selling any of their rights. 

MYTH: TOPA would deprive municipalities of local real estate taxes

FACT: TOPA has nothing to do with local real estate taxes, which are not assessed on property sales. 

TOPA is a market-driven bill - Tenant associations/designees must match the market prices of a third-party offer. All residential real estate developers and owners, non-profit or for-profit, pay real estate taxes in Massachusetts. 
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Also, TOPA is a local option bill: no municipality is required to adopt TOPA. 

MYTH: TOPA will chill production of new rental housing

FACT: TOPA has not damaged rental development anywhere it's been adopted in the U.S. 

More than a dozen cities and states have TOPA. During the 40 years that Washington DC has had TOPA in effect, housing production and preservation have both been robust. Since 2019, 40,178 new units at all affordability levels have been built, far outpacing any other jurisdiction in the surrounding region. Similarly, census data show production of more than 53,000 new housing units in Washington DC between 2010-2020, a nearly 18% increase to their housing stock. That would be like Massachusetts adding over 540,000 new units.

At the same time, TOPA helped preserve 16,200 occupied rental units in Washington DC as affordable from 2006 to 2020. TOPA also greatly expanded affordable homeownership in Washington DC. In the same 14 year period, 771 units of cooperative resident-owned housing were added to Washington's homeownership inventory through TOPA. 

​In addition, TOPA does not apply to newly-constructed property, which is exempted for a period of three years after it's built.

TOPA Fact Sheet

TOPA Myths & Facts