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Marina Bay Residences, LLC vs. Naguib, Ahmed et al

Housing Court·Metro South Housing Court·Last checked Jul 25, 2026, 8:04 PM·View on masscourts.org ↗

01— Where things stand right now

This eviction case ended in a settlement. On August 6, 2024 the case went to trial, was reported settled after mediation, and an Agreement of the Parties was filed on August 7, 2024.

That agreement resolved the fight before the judge had to rule on the landlord’s big motion to strike the tenants’ answers, counterclaims, and jury demand. The specific terms of the deal aren’t spelled out in the docket entries available here.

02— The case in a nutshell

Marina Bay Residences, LLC owns a large apartment building at 550 Victory Road in Quincy (the “Meriel Marina Bay,” managed by Bozzuto). It decided not to renew the lease for Unit S339 and, when the tenants didn’t leave, filed an eviction (“summary process”) case in June 2024.

Crucially, the landlord filed this as a “fault” or “for cause” eviction, not a nonpayment case. The April 24, 2024 Notice of Non-Renewal accuses the tenants of chronic late or non-payment of rent, refusing a reasonable escrow agreement for rent they were withholding, refusing to cooperate with efforts to fix problems they complained about, and refusing reasonable access to the unit for repairs.

The tenants tell a very different story. Sandra Fernandez says the apartment has had recurring mold and water problems for years, that her son got sick from mold exposure, that management and the Quincy health department kept calling visible mold “just dust,” and that the eviction is retaliation for her complaints and for the class action lawsuit her co-tenant Dany Abouelkhier filed against the owner and manager in Norfolk Superior Court.

So you have two lawsuits running in parallel: the tenants’ mold class action in Superior Court, and the landlord’s eviction in Housing Court. The eviction settled on the eve of/at trial.

03— Who's involved
04— What's happening now

The case moved fast, as eviction cases do. The complaint was filed June 17, 2024, a first-tier court event was held July 23, and trial was set for August 6 — about seven weeks total.

In that window, Fernandez filed a blizzard of paperwork on her own: a request to push the first court date 60 days (denied by Judge Sherring at the hearing), an answer with sweeping counterclaims and a jury demand, an affidavit with mold photos and email chains with management and the Quincy health department, a motion to amend her counterclaims, interrogatories, requests for admission, and document requests — some of them served on the opposing lawyers personally.

Abouelkhier separately filed his own handwritten counterclaim and a motion for leave to file a late answer, arguing his answer was a few days late due to a date-calculation error, that he’d be out of the country from July 23, and that the eviction should be paused or dismissed because he is the lead plaintiff in the mold class action.

On August 1 the landlord fired back with one big “omnibus” motion: strike Fernandez’s answer and amended answer as filed and served late under Housing Court Standing Order 1-23; alternatively strike her jury demand; strike her counterclaims because c. 239 §8A doesn’t allow counterclaims in a fault eviction; deny Abouelkhier’s late-answer motion because he was already defaulted; strike the discovery served on the attorneys as privileged and improper; and deny the 14-week trial delay.

The judge never had to decide any of it. On August 6 the parties went through the court’s mediation program and reported the case settled; an Agreement of the Parties was filed the next day.

05— What's next

Because the case settled, the normal next step is simply performance of whatever the parties agreed to — typically a move-out date, a payment or waiver arrangement, or dismissal terms. The docket entries here don’t reveal the terms.

If a party doesn’t live up to the agreement, the usual path is a motion to enforce it or, if the deal included an agreement for judgment, a request to issue execution (the eviction order). Nothing further is scheduled on this docket.

Separately, the mold class action in Norfolk Superior Court is a different case and would continue on its own track; this settlement doesn’t visibly resolve it.

06— Reading between the lines

This was a mismatch in firepower, and both sides played to their strengths.

The landlord made a deliberate, sophisticated choice by pleading this as a “fault” eviction rather than nonpayment. Under M.G.L. c. 239 §8A, tenants generally can’t raise counterclaims (bad conditions, retaliation, 93A) when the eviction is based on their own fault. The landlord’s own affidavits pointedly write “N/A” for rent owed and note in handwriting “this matter was brought for ‘fault’/’cause’.” That’s not an accident — it’s an attempt to close the door on exactly the mold-and-retaliation defense these tenants most wanted to make. Legitimate legal strategy, but strategic all the same.

The landlord also leaned hard on the calendar. Summary process is fast by design, and every request the tenants made for breathing room — 60 days, then 14 weeks — was opposed as prejudicial, with the pointed line that the tenants were holding over “without making payments.” Again: normal, aggressive landlord litigation.

Fernandez, representing herself, did what unrepresented tenants often do — she threw everything at the wall. Some of it was strong and on point: photos of what looks like mold, emails where management said in 2023 “we do not have any reports of mold” and later called visible growth “a slight buildup of debris,” and emails pressing the city health department. That’s real evidence of a habitability and retaliation story. But she also filed counterclaims against seven opposing lawyers over the fact that a lease naming her minor son was attached to a public court filing, and then served those lawyers with interrogatories asking about their internal decision to evict. That was almost certainly going nowhere — the landlord’s motion correctly points out those lawyers were never served with a summons, aren’t parties, and are likely protected by litigation privilege. It reads as understandable anger rather than a viable claim, and it gave the landlord an easy target.

Abouelkhier’s “pause the eviction because I’m the class action lead plaintiff” argument is interesting but was procedurally doomed here: he missed the first court event while traveling and got defaulted, which is why the landlord could say his late-answer motion was moot. The tenants’ underlying instinct — that being evicted while suing your landlord over mold smells like retaliation — is the kind of argument courts do take seriously; the problem was that the §8A fault framing and the missed deadlines made it hard to get in the door.

The settlement on the trial date is the unsurprising ending. Facing a motion that could have wiped out their answers, counterclaims, and jury demand all at once, the tenants had real risk; facing photos, health-department emails, and a pending class action, the landlord had real risk too. Mediating it out was rational for both.

A candid read, not legal advice.
07— The record, translated

Newest first — the plain-English reading leads; the court's wording follows.