June 17, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode, I sat down with my long-time eviction attorney, Len Mancini, to break down exactly what Philly landlords need to know about evictions in 2025.
We cover a lot in this one — including all the legal requirements to file, what happens if you’re missing paperwork, the Eviction Diversion Program, and how to avoid common mistakes that could cost you months of lost rent. We also talk about what happens if tenants block repairs, how to deal with lead-safe certificates, rental licenses, water bills, and even the difference between eviction vs. ejectment.
Contact Len Mancini :
Phone: 610-247-1299
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Whether you’re just getting started or scaling your portfolio, TrustArt helps you stay compliant, efficient, and profitable.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Can landlord file themselves or they have to have
an attorney?
Let's say we are in court nowand again it's a second
mediation at this point so wereached an agreement let's say
it's a payment plan or tenantneeds to vacate at certain point
what happens after?
If or when you go in front ofthe judge do you see that our
(00:21):
judges in the city they moretenant friendly or landlord
friendly or it's all over theplace?
I would say most of the Thejudges are.
We're here to share insights andexperiences, not legal or
(00:43):
accounting advice.
Be sure to talk to yourattorney, accountant, or
professional advisor beforemaking any decisions.
Everyone's situation isdifferent.
Get the help that is right foryou.
Welcome to the Philly LandlordGuy show.
My name is Yuri Skripnichenko.
The guy was a crazy last name.
Do not try to remember it.
(01:04):
Just think of me as PhillyLandlord Guy.
I am a licensed real estatebroker.
certified property manager inthe city of Philadelphia.
And today we're joined byPhiladelphia eviction attorney
Len Mancini to break down whatit actually takes legally to
evict a tenant in the city.
(01:24):
From what documents you need, tocourt times, to what happens if
your rental license or lead certisn't in place, we're covering
it all.
So let's jump right in.
Today, I have eviction attorneyhere, Len Mancini, a great
person.
I've been working with him formultiple, multiple years, and he
(01:46):
will be sharing a lot ofinformation about evictions in
the city of Philadelphia.
Len, welcome.
And if you can introduceyourself and tell us a little
bit more about how did you geton this and how long you've been
doing this?
SPEAKER_02 (01:59):
Sure.
Good afternoon, my friend.
I've been doing evictions forover 25 years.
When I started out, it was avery small part of my practice.
But there's a lot of people whodo only a little bit delving
into this, but there's only afew who do a whole lot of it.
(02:20):
And it just became a bigger andbigger part of my practices.
One client heard that I did it,they referred them out, and the
practice just grew and grew andgrew to the point where it was
enough to make a living at.
And I enjoy it.
And I enjoy meeting thedifferent tenants.
They're always interesting andfun to talk to.
You meet a wide variety ofpeople.
(02:42):
As also landlords, you meet awide variety of people.
So it's an enjoyable practice.
SPEAKER_00 (02:47):
Well, that's great that you're enjoying it because
sometimes evictions or most ofthe time evictions are not
enjoyable.
Not for the people involved.
That's correct.
Yeah.
So you've been doing it for 25years.
That's a long time.
And I think I've been workingwith you over 10 years now.
I was looking into the historybefore this recording and I was
like, I've known Len for a longtime.
(03:09):
I didn't realize it was thatlong either, to be honest with
you.
Yeah.
And I just still remember myfirst experience with eviction
that was about 10 years ago, howshocked I was from the whole
process.
And that was 10 years ago.
So in 10 years, we had a lot ofchanges and it looks very
different now or the timeframes
SPEAKER_02 (03:29):
are very different.
So timeframes are a areextremely different.
And yes, just the whole processhas changed.
SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
The whole process.
Yeah, especially since thepandemic.
So let's start with the basics.
What are the legal requirementsbefore a landlord can file for
eviction in Philadelphia?
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
Landlord-tenant court is what's called a
codified court, which means youhave to fulfill certain
requirements to actually even beentitled.
It has to be a landlord-tenantrelationship first.
So If you're trying to evict asquatter, landlord-tenant court
is not your place.
They have to have paid you rentor you need a lease.
The basic requirements you needare a rental license, a
(04:13):
certificate of rentalsuitability, assuming it's a
relatively new case, there'ssome exceptions to that, and a
lead safe certificate.
There's also some exceptions tothat.
If the property was built after1978, you don't need a lead
certificate.
And those are the three basicthings you need to file a
landlord tenant complaint to getit approved by the court.
(04:36):
Before you do that, though,you're supposed to go into
what's called now the evictiondiversion program.
And in order to do that, andthat's getting ready to change a
little bit, too, in the next 45days, which it's not completely
out yet.
So they're getting ready torelease it.
I believe it's June 16th.
but there'll be some minorchanges to that.
(04:57):
But at that point, we need a lotmore information.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
Well, let's dive in into the eviction diversion
program a little bit later.
Let's start with the evictionand what are the requirements.
So you mentioned that you needto have rental license, rental
suitability certificate, and LATcertificate.
Those are the
SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
basics of what you need.
You should have a lease, but alease is not a requirement to
get into Landlord Tenant Court.
There are oral leases.
So it is not a requirement.
Those are the three basicrequirements you need to get
into the
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
land.
Okay.
And something that you mentionedin the beginning that you have
to file with the tenant landlordcourt, and that may be very
different for people who's not,or who's from out of city or out
of state, because our courtsystem is not the same as on the
state and not the same aseverywhere else.
We have separate court forlandlord tenant cases.
(05:49):
Is that right?
That
SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
is correct.
I don't know how otherjurisdictions are as far as
states, but as far as even thecounties have a different
practice.
As far as the city has one bigcourt, the counties use little
magisterial districts in each oftheir little separate areas and
they have different, each onehas different requirements.
SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
Yeah, it's definitely not easy to keep
track of all of them.
So what happens if a landlord ismissing one of these
requirements that you justmentioned, one of these
documents?
Can they still file?
SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
Theoretically, yes.
You can do what's called a 109affidavit and say you'll provide
it at court.
But if you don't have it, youjust wasted your money because
you cannot proceed at courtwithout all the documents.
they will throw in your case.
If you can get it throughfiling, they will throw it out
at the hearing if you don't haveall your documents.
SPEAKER_00 (06:44):
That is very interesting.
And we're going to get to itlater, but keep your foot on
that.
So another question is when youfile, can landlord file
themselves or they have to havean attorney involved?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
No, they are not required to have an attorney in
municipal court.
If it's a corporation, You canget what's called the authorized
rep form and the corporation canbe represented by a member of
the corporation.
Individuals can representthemselves.
Individuals theoretically caneven represent a family member
(07:18):
as long as they have theauthorized rep form.
I don't recommend it.
But yes, you can do it.
If the case gets appealed to CPcourt, you have to be the owner
of the property.
If it's a LLC or a corporation,they have to have an attorney.
There is no authorized rep incommon pleas court.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
Okay.
So if you go to common pleas, ifyour property is held an LLC or
corporation, you will have tohave an attorney.
But if you're going to landlordtenants court, somebody or a
member of LLC or owner of Scorporation or whatever
corporation, and representthemselves as long as they have
this affiliate, like whateverpaper that they need to submit.
(07:58):
Okay.
So let's say now we have therequirement or all of these
papers that are required.
We know that we can file foreviction.
So we go and file for it.
Can you walk us through the fullprocess from beginning to the
(08:19):
actual account, how it allworks.
And I know that you mentionedthe eviction diversion program.
So we'll dive into that, whatthat is and when that comes in
play.
SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
Clarify that for me.
You want to know if anindividual goes over or what
documents they need or wherethey go or are you
SPEAKER_00 (08:37):
looking?
No, after we have all of thedocuments, we already...
like clear that we need to havea lead search, we need to have
rental license, we need to havea rental suitability
certificate.
So we have all that, we go andfile for eviction.
What happens then?
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
Well, next you'll schedule a hearing date.
So if it's an individual, ifthey don't have access to file
electronically, they would haveto go down to the 10th floor at
municipal court.
And there are people down therewho would help them file
everything.
If you give all your paperworkto an attorney, attorney will
file electronically online andbasically what we do is we input
(09:13):
all the information onto thewebsite it creates a complaint
we download all of the exhibitsonto the complaint and we
schedule a hearing date and oncethat gets approved by the court
it then gets served on thetenant
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
is it only attorneys that can do it online or myself
as a landlord i can go onlineand fill out that as well or i
have to go into the city so
SPEAKER_02 (09:38):
i'm not 100 sure about that i know previously if
you went through the training asa landlord i believe you can get
access to file online i'm notsure at this point i know or
when it's originally open butthat was 15 years ago yes an
individual as long as they wentthrough the training could be
(09:59):
approved to file online now idon't really know what the
requirements are.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
Okay.
So going back to filing, atwhich point eviction diversion
program kicks in and what isthat?
SPEAKER_02 (10:13):
So the eviction diversion program was created
during the pandemic, duringCOVID.
And basically what it is, I lookat it as a 30 day cooling off
period between the parties.
So in order to file, you have togo through diversion first.
And once diversion is approved,you have to wait 30 days before
(10:35):
you can file your landlordtenant complaint.
For diversion, you're basicallyinputting a lot of the same
things you input for thecomplaint.
However, once it gets approved,they will either schedule it for
a mediation or you're supposedto negotiate with the tenant
individually and try and worksomething out before you
(10:56):
actually get it into court.
And once the 30 days is up, ifthere's no agreement, then you
can file your landlord-tenant
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
complaint.
What if there is an agreementduring this 30 days?
SPEAKER_02 (11:07):
Well, then you'd live up to the agreement.
So mediation, you can prettymuch come to any agreement you
want.
You can come to a payment planwhere the tenant agrees to pay
their rent plus somethingtowards the back, or you give
them 30 days to pay everythingin full, or they agree to
vacate.
So it's whatever you can agreeto, it's to avoid basically
filing in court against thetenant.
(11:29):
And if they don't live up to it,you have the right to file your
complaint right away.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Do you have to agree to something during the
mediation process?
SPEAKER_02 (11:39):
You are not required to agree to anything.
The requirement is to negotiatein good faith.
So you can't just walk in andgo, I'm not doing anything.
So if you go in and you want thetenant to leave and you say, I
want the tenant to leave in twoweeks, That's good faith
negotiation, whether the tenantwants to do it or not.
You don't have to break fromthat.
That's what you want.
(11:59):
You can't just go in and go, I'mnot negotiating.
I'm not doing anything.
That's not considered goodfaith.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
So what do you usually see when this mediation
happens?
What do you usually see as anoutcome?
Is it some kind of payment planor it's tenants moving out?
It's
SPEAKER_02 (12:15):
every case is different.
There's no way of knowingbecause a lot of it depends on
what the landlord wants to dobecause we're taking our
instructions from the landlord.
If the landlord wants them out,we try and work out an agreement
where they're going to vacate.
If the landlord's willing to doa payment plan, we'll work out
some kind of payment plan.
But it really is controlled bywhat the landlord wants to do.
SPEAKER_00 (12:37):
Okay.
And the EDP also comes with TFA.
I know it's a lot of...
Targeted financial assistance.
Yeah, but it's targetedfinancial assistance for
tenants, but kind of forlandlords as well.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and what that means if
landlord accepts that
SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
so targeted financial assistance as it
stands right now because they dochange it every now and then if
the tenant well he can they canowe more than 3 500 but if you
file for 3 500 or less you canget what's called targeted
financial assistance if theyqualify it's not a guarantee the
tenant still has to participateand put their application in,
(13:17):
the landlord has to put theirapplication in, and then they
qualify, you'll get paid up to$3,500 in your arrears, plus two
months going forward.
The downside to it is you cannotfile your landlord tenant
complaint for 60 days after thelast month is paid.
(13:38):
So just as an example, if theypaid you through May, you
couldn't file for until August1st.
So if they don't pay you, youget paid through May, But if
they don't pay you for June andJuly, you can't do anything
until August 1st.
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Before we continue, I would like to take a moment to
thank our sponsor, Trust ArtRealty, property management
company in Philadelphia.
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Philadelphia can be a headache.
And as we just spoke to Len, youknow that it's not easy to do an
eviction.
So that's why Trust Art Realtyis offering to all of our
(14:15):
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So to claim your free rentalanalysis, just send an email to
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(14:36):
the link in the show notes tofill out a quick form and
somebody will get in touch withyou.
Okay.
And August 1st, that's actuallythe time when you can start the
eviction process.
SPEAKER_02 (14:47):
Right.
You can go straight to landlordtenant.
and one other thing I forgot tomention is if you file your
landlord tenant complaint duringthe TFA process they will not
pay out TFA as soon as you filethe landlord tenant complaint
even if you're approved for TFAthat you're not allowed to
collect TFA they'll close yourapplication so you have to
(15:12):
Basically, as the landlord, youhave to agree not to file your
complaint and accept the money.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Okay.
So let's say we filed fordiversion program.
We went through mediation.
We had an agreement in place orwe didn't have the mediation and
it's past 30 days and now we canfile for eviction.
So at the timeline when we canfile for eviction.
So we go and file.
What happens after?
SPEAKER_02 (15:36):
Yeah, once you file, then the minimum time to get a
hearing date is 21 days underthe law.
Right now, they run generallyaround 30 days, give or take, to
actually get a hearing date.
And then that's basically yourday in court.
As a general rule, there are alot of tenants now getting
attorneys to represent them.
There's a lawyer of the dayprogram.
(15:57):
There's lots of programs downthere.
And a large percentage of thetenants now get attorneys.
also if the tenant comes downthemselves we negotiate with
them it's the same type ofnegotiation that's in mediation
the difference being now if wecan come to an agreement that
agreement will be put in writingit'll be a judgment and if they
(16:18):
don't keep to it you can startthe eviction process if you
can't come to an agreement thecase is set up either you have
the trial that day or you'llcontinue it for a trial.
SPEAKER_00 (16:30):
Okay.
So you said that a lot oftenants have representation now
because they can get it forfree.
There are a lot of tenants, Iguess, groups and organizations
who provide it.
And there are actually a few zipcodes in the city that
specifically have free attorneysthat tenants can request if they
reside in those zip codes.
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
Correct.
And they're expanding that.
They're going to expand it outto the whole city.
SPEAKER_00 (16:55):
yeah
SPEAKER_02 (16:55):
all tenants are available but they're targeting
certain zip codes
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
so what does that mean for the landlord if a
tenant gets representation likehow does that change the
structure or
SPEAKER_02 (17:08):
it it really doesn't it's just that from my point of
view i'm negotiating with theirattorney as opposed to the
tenant it doesn't really changeanything
SPEAKER_00 (17:17):
does it usually help tenants to get out of more
things that they would usuallydo or that's
SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
hard to say some tenants are very good at
negotiating and they know youknow everything from top to
bottom it's it's very hard tosay i will say if you go in as
an individual not an attorney ifyou go in by yourself and you
get an attorney on the otherside could make it a lot more
difficult for you because theyknow all the ins and outs and
(17:47):
they're going to play hardballwith you because they're not
concerned about going in frontof the judge.
SPEAKER_00 (17:52):
Okay.
So let's say if I'm as alandlord filed for eviction
myself, I went through thiswhole process and now I know
that my course schedule is in, Idon't know, in two weeks.
And now all of a sudden Ireceived this letter that the
tenant has a presentation.
Can I, as a landlord, go and getmy eviction attorney at this
point or not really?
(18:13):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
you absolutely can.
not a problem the problem comesin where certain attorneys i
usually consider myself part ofthat i won't take your case if
you're that far in i'd reallyhave to review the case to make
sure you did everything properlybecause if i take over your case
and you did something thatwasn't proper theoretically i
(18:37):
could get sued for accepting thecase and not realizing whether
it was done or not so i'd haveto go through the whole case
make sure everything was correctand make sure that I'm not going
to get sued because you didsomething wrong because there's
the Fair Debt CollectionPractices Act.
There's all sorts of things thatwe as attorneys know not to do,
(19:01):
but landlords who are going inthere aren't 100% sure
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
about.
So let's talk about that alittle bit.
So what would you say commonerrors or issues that you see on
the landlord's part if they doit themselves?
Like what kind of problems canthey have when they file for
eviction?
SPEAKER_02 (19:20):
So the biggest problem that I see is they don't
have their correct paperwork.
They don't have their licenseslined up, their certificates,
their lead safe certificates.
And they sue for all the rentthat they're owed.
They think they're owed.
But if you don't have the properlicensing, you can't ask for it.
but they're asking for itanyway.
If I do that, I can get suedunder the Fair Debt Collection
(19:42):
Practices Act for filing formonies that I know are not due.
That's the biggest problem.
SPEAKER_00 (19:50):
Can the landlord
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
get sued for that as well?
So that's a good question.
I'd have to look that one up.
I believe, and you can't takethis for, if you're an
individual, it's your property.
No.
But if you're a property managerwho's going in and representing
them or someone who's not named,so if it's an LLC and you're an
(20:14):
individual going into authorizedrep, I believe you can,
SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
yes.
So you see property managersrepresenting landlords as well
in
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
court?
Not too much anymore.
They used to, but not too muchanymore.
I would think so.
I would not do that.
You're opening yourself up to alot of liability that you
just...
Liability and headache that youjust...
don't need.
Correct.
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
So let's say we are in court now.
And again, it's a secondmediation at this point.
So we reached an agreement.
Let's say it's a payment plan ora tenant needs to vacate at a
certain point.
What happens after?
SPEAKER_02 (20:49):
So we would write it up in court.
There's computer systems inthere.
We type up the judgment byagreement.
The tenant would sign it.
It would get entered on thedocket.
And if they keep to the paymentagreement, great.
They get to stay.
You get your money.
Everyone's happy.
If they don't, then we wouldfile a breach of the agreement.
(21:10):
So the tenant would get noticethat they didn't keep to the
agreement and we'd start ourwrits.
And then the lockout procedurebegins.
SPEAKER_00 (21:17):
And what happens if during this mediation on the
court date, we cannot come to anagreement?
What happens then?
so
SPEAKER_02 (21:24):
theoretically and doesn't always happen that day
as i said a lot of times it'llget continued for an actual
trial date because either we'renot ready the tenant's not ready
the tenants attorneys aren'tready but if we can't come to an
agreement then the case goes infront of the judge and both
sides put their case up and thenthe judge will make a ruling on
(21:46):
the facts
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
that they hear.
And how often, through the casesthat you have, how often that
happens?
How often do you actually go infront of the judge versus
signing an
SPEAKER_02 (21:57):
agreement?
You don't go in front of thejudge very often.
What I always tell my clients isif you go in front of the judge,
you are putting your case in thejudge's hands.
You have no idea how the judgeis going to rule.
They could rule for thedefendant, in which case you're
out of luck.
(22:17):
They could rule 100% for you, inwhich case, great.
But, and we'll get to this in asecond, there's what's called a
de novo appeal.
And if you go in front of thejudge, in my opinion, if you can
make an agreement that bothparties can agree to, you know,
it's a green, both parties canagree to, it's better for both
sides because that way, youknow, where you stand at that
(22:38):
point.
You didn't give your case up toa third party to decide what's
going to happen.
Sometimes you just can't come toan agreement.
But if you can, to me, it'salways a benefit because that
way there's no appeal.
The problem, if you go in frontof a judge, there's what's
called a de novo appeal, whichmeans they can go to common
police court regardless of win,loss, doesn't matter.
(23:01):
And it's a brand new case overthere.
And it's a lot more expensivebecause it's a full-blown case
and it takes a lot longer overthere.
If it gets appealed, it's notfun.
SPEAKER_00 (23:14):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the part where alot of landlords hang up or
cannot get their head around iswhy would I sign some agreement?
If I'm at this stage, I'm ateviction, I'm at the court, I
want you out.
I don't want to be talking toyou.
And I have all of this case thatyou're destroying my property or
(23:34):
you're not paying my rent orwhatever else is happening.
Landlord is not happy at thatpoint with this tenant.
And they, I was there as well,10 years ago when and I had my
first eviction happening, Icould not wrap my head around
why would I agree to somethingif this tenant has not been
paying for the last few months,I want this to go in front of
(23:56):
the judge.
And it is hard to understand,especially if you're going
SPEAKER_02 (24:00):
to- Especially for new landlords.
Yep.
The advantage to doing theagreement is certainty on your
behalf.
You know, if it goes bad, youhave an idea of how long it's
going to take you to get themout.
You have an idea of how muchit's going to cost you to get
them out.
You have a time schedule andyou're theoretically done with
(24:21):
court.
If it goes in front of thejudge, now you're in, this is
assuming they appeal it.
If it goes in front of the judgeand they appeal it, now you're
in a totally different court ona totally different schedule.
you're paying additionalattorney fees, which are way
more expensive than going tomunicipal court attorney fees.
(24:41):
And your timeline is different.
You have no idea how long it'sgoing to take you to get them
out over there.
So it's more about the certaintythat you have as a landlord by
doing the judgment by agreement.
If you go in front of the judge,not only do you have no idea
what he's going to rule, but ifeither side doesn't like it and
it gets appealed, now you're ina whole nother case and a whole
(25:03):
nother area costing you a wholebunch more money and you don't
have the certainty and you got abunch of more hearings to go
attend.
So it's time, it's money.
A lot of times, that's aconsideration you gotta take in
when you decide whether or notto go in front of the judge.
Sometimes you don't have achoice.
Sometimes there just is not anagreement to be had and you have
(25:25):
no choice but to go to thatpath.
But if there is a choice, a lotof times it's a better choice to
agree just for certainty.
SPEAKER_00 (25:34):
Yeah, that makes sense.
And if or when you go in frontof the judge, do you see that
our judges in the city pay moreattention tenant friendly or
landlord friendly or it's allover the place?
SPEAKER_02 (25:48):
I would say most of the judges are very fair.
I don't want to get into who'slandlord friendly and who's
tenant friendly, but I would saymost of the judges do their best
to be fair and honest.
And if you have your paperworkand you as a landlord have done
the right things, you'll have avery good shot of win.
If you're a landlord who justgot your certificates and just
(26:09):
did this and you haven't doneyour repairs and the tenant can
come in and show the place isdisgusting and you're not doing
your repairs, it's not going togo well for you.
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
That's a separate topic about the repairs during
eviction.
And I think we need to talkabout that as well.
But before we get into that,right now we are at the
timeline, at least three months,once we get this agreement
signed at court hearing, becausewe have filed for mediation or
for eviction diversion program.
Then we waited for 30 days.
(26:40):
Then we filed for eviction, wewaited another 30 days to get
the hearing So it's been twomonths now, right?
And now we sign in thismediation agreement, which
usually something should happenwithin 30 days.
It's either a payment or...
So,
SPEAKER_02 (26:58):
yeah.
So the rule is you can't file,after judgment, you can't file
your writ for 11 days after thejudgment.
I believe it's 11.
Pretty sure it's 11.
It's 10 or 11.
Nothing's going to happen forthat next 10 or 11 days.
If they don't make their paymentor you just want to start the
eviction process after that 10or 11 days, you file your writ,
(27:20):
then the writ gets served.
And then 10 days after that, youcan file your alias writ, which
is what schedules the lockout.
So realistically with getting itfiled and having the court
approve it and getting it downto the sheriff to get it served,
I mean, you're looking atanother 30 days.
The quickest as of right now, Ifyou could get a 90-day lockout,
(27:44):
you should be loving life.
The problem we're running intoright now is the sheriff's
taking a considerable amount oftime to actually schedule the
lockouts.
And that's where the big delayis, right?
SPEAKER_00 (27:55):
Is that 90 days from the time when you got the
judgment or from the time whenyou filed your reads?
SPEAKER_02 (28:01):
So 90 days from the start of the case.
That would be great.
not going to happen right nowyou know 60 to 90 days from when
the alias is filed is when thesheriff's scheduling lockouts so
you're really realisticallylooking at i say six months from
the time you start give or takeit could be a little longer it
(28:25):
could be a little shorterthere's continuances there's
answers to breaches there'spetitions but you know i would
say six months was is aroundabout good area
SPEAKER_00 (28:38):
And it all depends on how the case goes.
And if you accept TFA, you don'taccept TFA, how creation goes.
SPEAKER_02 (28:46):
Right.
Every case is individual.
You can say that, you know,they're all similar, but every
case based on its own fact hasits own path.
And some tenants who know whatthey're doing can delay stuff a
long time.
SPEAKER_00 (28:59):
Yeah.
And unfortunately, we see thathappen pretty often.
So you touched a little bit onthat, the repairs that so let's
say we are in the court and bytime we get to the court again
it's been at least three monthssince we started this process
that means that tenant wasbehind at least one month before
(29:20):
that so that means that wealready have some kind of bad
relationship with the tenant forat least four months up to this
point And usually when thathappens, tenants stop paying.
They're not very responsive ornot cooperating.
They will not let you into theproperty.
And I don't know, let's sayduring the process, tenants send
(29:43):
you a maintenance request that,I don't know, there's a hole in
the wall or whatever else theycan send, some kind of
maintenance problem.
And some of them, that we dealtwith before, they would call L&I
to have L&I out, do theinspection of the unit, and then
they will submit that to you.
(30:04):
So you receive the letter fromL&I saying that you have a
certain amount of time to do therepairs, and you want to do the
repairs, but the tenants won'tlet you in, and then they won't
let the L&I inspector in again.
So how does that work?
How do we do that, of course?
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SPEAKER_02 (31:16):
Well, yeah, it's a problem, but the best thing you
can do is document.
everything that you do so showwhen the inspection was done if
if this gets into court for thelandlord tenant case show when
the inspection was done show andthen show every attempt you made
to contact the tenant toschedule it to send people over
(31:37):
to do the repairs the judgeswill look at it i mean it's it's
a good reason if you tried to dowhat's right and the tenant
won't permit you that's mostjudges will see you did what you
were supposed to do but if it'sjust they did it and you totally
ignored it the judges will alsotake that into account and
you're probably going to getreduced rent if not a judgment
(31:58):
for the defendant because youjust let them stay in there and
you know if especially the thebig things are heat in the
winter that's a no-no if youhave a heat problem if in the
winter you need to get overthere as soon as possible and
remedy it that's a big no-no theother big no-no is uh bugs
roaches you know, any kind ofinfestation, that's also a big
(32:23):
no-no.
SPEAKER_00 (32:23):
That is interesting about the bugs and whatever
infestation it can be.
Is that only for multifamilyunits or single family as well?
Because from my understanding, asingle family, it's the tenant's
responsibility to treat theplace.
So first you have to look to
SPEAKER_02 (32:40):
the lease and see what the lease says.
because a lot of the leases willhave in there who's responsible
for it.
But yes, in single-family homes,the rule is if it's a
single-family home, you have toprovide them with a rodent, an
infestation-free property whenthey move in.
But once they're in there,they're responsible for it
themselves.
(33:00):
And like I said, unless thelease says different.
For multifamily units, theowner's responsible.
SPEAKER_00 (33:04):
Doesn't matter what the lease says.
SPEAKER_02 (33:06):
Not really, because it's not really fair.
I mean, if you think about it,not really fair to the tenant if
there's one tenant who's reallygood and the other tenant or
other tenants in the propertyare bad as far as you know
infestations are concerned howdoes the good tenant keep their
place clear if the bad tenantisn't and they can't get into
(33:29):
the other unit to spray theother unit.
So they really put the onus onthe landlords on that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
What happens if your rental license lapses during the
lease term and you need to filefor eviction?
So let's say we're filing foreviction today, which is what,
May 6, we're recording it on May6, and my rental license was
active or is active, but it'sgoing to expire in doing
SPEAKER_02 (33:55):
so you can file you can file today you can ask for
rent up to the time ofexpiration but you better get
your new license before you getto court they will not give you
a judgment in court unless youhave an active rental license
and you cannot ask for any rentduring the period of the lap so
it makes a lot you know it'sreally important to keep your
(34:16):
rental license active
SPEAKER_00 (34:17):
and if we change the example a little bit so we're
filing in may again we hadrental license but rental
license ended december and wasnot renewed until january would
we be able to claim rent fordecember
SPEAKER_02 (34:33):
no plain and simple now if you go to court you can
only ask for rent for the timethat you had active rental
licenses Your certificate ofrental suitability was good and
your lead safe certificate wasgood.
SPEAKER_00 (34:46):
Now, if we had rental license at all of this
time, but we go to file and wefind out that there is this
rental suitability certificatethat we need to have and we did
not have that, can we claim?
No, you have to have all ofthem.
So what do we do at that pointif we have unpaid tenant, we
have rental
SPEAKER_02 (35:04):
license?
It is a correctable problem.
So you can go print out yourcertificate of rental
suitability in the Partners inGood Housing handbook, serve it
on the tenant, and then you canask for rent from that point
going forward.
But you lose all your old rent,can't ask for
SPEAKER_00 (35:19):
it.
That's a hard hit to find outthat way.
SPEAKER_02 (35:22):
Well, and I believe you're going to, my
recommendation for alllandlords, property managers,
when you have the tenant come into sign all the lease documents,
you should have your rentallicense, your certificate of
rental suitability, yourpartners in good housing
handbook, and your lead safecertificate there and have the
tenant sign and date each oneand keep a copy in your file.
(35:46):
That'll save you a lot ofheadaches going forward.
If you just let them in withoutthose documents, you know, It's
a crapsheet.
SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
What happens if, take our last example that we're
filing now in May and we findout that we didn't have rental
suitability certificate.
Now we print it out, we send itto the tenant and we go to court
and we'll go in front of thejudge, or maybe the tenant has a
representation.
Can they make the landlord payback the rent that tenant paid
(36:17):
during the time when thelandlord didn't have active
rental license or rentalsuitability certificate?
SPEAKER_02 (36:23):
No.
The case law as it stands rightnow is once the tenant pays that
rent, they cannot claw it back.
But that's only for the rentallicense and the certificate of
rental suitability.
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
If you
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
were required to have a lead safe certificate,
and in order to get yourlicense, you're required to get
that.
But let's just say for the sakeof an example, you didn't get
your lead safe certificate untilsix months after the lease
started.
Theoretically, the tenant couldcome in and sue you for those
(36:55):
six months to get their rentback.
Have you seen
SPEAKER_00 (36:58):
that
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
happen before?
Not uncommon.
SPEAKER_00 (37:01):
Really?
Really.
How does it start?
Is it the tenant that sues thelandlord or the other way
around?
How?
SPEAKER_02 (37:08):
So normally the way it starts is the landlord goes
in and sues for eviction andthey either get a tenant's
attorney or they do enoughresearch on their own and they
realize it's like, oh, theydidn't give me, they didn't have
their lead safe certificatebecause we have to provide it in
the filing until a certain date.
(37:29):
We can sue you for that.
know and sometimes sometimesthey just use it as a
negotiating to ploy too thatokay you owe us six months we
owe you eight we only owe youtwo now are you okay with that
but yes i mean the law is whatthe law is and if they know it
and proceed on it you're openingyourself up to a lawsuit that's
(37:51):
one of the things why when yougive me all your paperwork i
gotta look at everything andmake sure because You need to
know that before you go intocourt.
It doesn't happen on every case,but it's not uncommon.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Definitely not an easy city to navigate all of
that.
What do you actually do if,let's say another hypothetical
situation that we're in, we haverental license, we had rental
suitability certificate, and wehad our lead inspection done
with the certificate, but it'svalid for four years.
(38:24):
Right.
So it's been four years, nowit's expired and we cannot renew
rental license until we have newcertificate or until we have new
test done.
And of course it happens rightat the time when tenant stops
paying and they will not let usinto the apartment or into the
property to do the test.
(38:46):
Is there any remedy for that orhow are we able to still do
something?
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Yes, theoretically.
Sometimes if you can prove allthat to the city, they'll give
you a waiver and they will giveyou a new license because you
had the old certificate.
The city will give you a waiver.
I believe it's a one year waiverto get your new lead certificate
based on this.
But you need to prove to themthat you've been trying to get
in there.
So you need to show attempts toget in.
(39:11):
You need something from yourlead inspector showing that.
And then once you get to court,then we need to show the judge
all that that hey we've beentrying they won't let us in you
know can we proceed anddepending on sometimes the judge
will order them to let you in todo the lead safe certificate
then they'll let you proceedsometimes they'll just let you
(39:32):
proceed at that point becauseit's not fair to the landlord
that the tenant is restrictingyou from doing what you're
supposed to do
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
where do you go to do that do you go to lni first
or do you If it
SPEAKER_02 (39:44):
was, so if it's the violations, you would need to go
to the inspector and talk tothem.
If it's for the lead safecertificate, you'd need to go to
where you renew your license andshow them and see if they'll
give you a
SPEAKER_00 (39:56):
waiver.
Okay.
Makes sense.
Let's switch the gears a littlebit and let's talk about utility
bills and specifically waterbills.
So what we often see is thatlandlords, especially for
multifamily buildings, wouldplate the bill between the
tenants.
So let's say we have athree-unit building and in the
city of Philadelphia, we alwayshave one meter water meter per
(40:19):
building.
So we have three units and thelandlord splits the bill between
the tenants for whicheveramount, 30-30 or whatever they
split it.
So if they do that, first, canthey legally do that?
And second, if they do that, canthey claim that in court?
SPEAKER_02 (40:38):
Theoretically, there's two, some of this
depends on the judge.
Legally, no.
In order to charge water, youneed separately metered units
for each unit.
But the lease is a contract andsome judges will find if they
agreed to it, then yeah, you cando it.
It's not a huge headache.
I generally say if it was mewatching everything, if you have
(41:04):
three units, rather thancharging each individually
water, why not just raise therent for the water and just
charge it as rent?
Some months you win, some monthsyou lose, but if you know the
unit is eats up$150 worth ofwater every month, just raise
everyone's rent$50 and don'teven bother with the water.
SPEAKER_01 (41:27):
That's the
SPEAKER_02 (41:27):
safer way to do it.
Or have them individuallymetered.
But I believe that's prettyexpensive.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
That is very expensive.
And you will have to have somecompany that will be doing sub
billing besides the submetering.
That is expensive.
It doesn't make sense to do on asmall scale unless you have some
kind of big apartment complexmaybe at that time.
The
SPEAKER_02 (41:50):
other problem with it is regardless of whether they
pay or not, order bills areliens against the property.
So even if the tenant doesn'tpay it, theoretically the owner
is still responsible for
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
it.
Yeah, which is a great segue tomy next question.
So that was multifamilybuildings, but now we have
single family and in singlefamily, there is no problem.
We can build it back to thetenants, which we usually do.
And what we usually recommendpeople never put water bill onto
the tenants or in the tenant'sname.
It always has to stay with thelandlord, but you can just build
(42:23):
back the tenant for the actualwater usage.
So let's say the landlord rentedthe property.
They told the tenants that theywill have to pay water bills.
And the tenants never did.
They just didn't pay waterbills.
And now the time comes whentenants move out and landlord
(42:45):
finds out that there is$1,500water bill that was unpaid with
late charges and all of that.
Can the landlord deduct thatfrom tenant
SPEAKER_02 (42:57):
security deposit?
100%.
As long as the tenant wasresponsible under the lease,
yes, you can take it out of thesecurity deposit.
SPEAKER_00 (43:04):
Does the lease have specifically say that it's
tenant's responsibility to payfor water?
SPEAKER_02 (43:10):
Well, it has to say, yeah, they're responsible for
water.
Normally on the standard leases,there's a little checkbox.
SPEAKER_00 (43:16):
Well, that makes sense.
It's a little bit easier forsome people.
But yeah, hopefully the way todo it, it's actually for the
landlords to pay the billthemselves.
I agree with
SPEAKER_02 (43:26):
that because that way you can monitor it and you
know if they're not paying you.
Yeah.
At least you can keep the waterbecause at least you can keep
the water on and you know ifit's getting too big and then
you can put them into court toget them to pay the water bill.
SPEAKER_00 (43:43):
Oh, that's another interesting topic that you just
touched.
Keep the water on.
So I've heard that many timesspeaking to landlords who's
having issues with tenants, thatthey would say things like, oh,
they stopped paying.
So I will just go and shut offgas or water to the building.
So they will move out or, Idon't know, take the front door
(44:05):
of the building off for therepair.
Can they do that?
SPEAKER_02 (44:08):
Totally illegal.
They can get sued for self-helpeviction.
They can get sued for lots ofthings.
I would not recommend doingthat.
If the tenant takes you to courtunder that scenario, there isn't
a judge around who isn't goingto hit you with a fine if they
sue you properly and let themright back in and order you to
(44:30):
turn the water on, turn the heaton.
Yeah, you don't want to do that.
They call it a constructive, Iwas looking for the term, it's
constructive eviction.
You're trying to kick them outby turning off their utilities.
And you're just not allowed todo that.
SPEAKER_00 (44:43):
Yeah.
If we were, everybody would goand do it.
Right.
There is, we were talking abouteviction all of this time, but
there are two different thingsthat we need to know, eviction
and ejection, right?
And can you tell us what is thedifference between eviction and
ejection and when we should useone or the other?
(45:05):
If you have a
SPEAKER_02 (45:05):
landlord tenant relationship and you have all
your documents, you shouldalways go to municipal court.
It's cheaper, it's quicker.
Ejectment actions are forsquatters, basically.
So that's for when you have avacant property, you go over
there and there's someone in theproperty and you need to get
them out.
(45:26):
Ejectment is how you get aperson out when you don't have a
landlord tenant relationshipwith them.
You didn't let them in, theyjust moved in on you or someone
else moved them in under a falselease or whatever.
That's the big difference.
But if you can go to landlordtenant court, 99.9% of the time
is the way to go.
Like I said, it's cheaper andit's quicker.
SPEAKER_00 (45:48):
Okay.
So when we actually go to thecourt, what should landlords
bring with them to evictioncourt?
Any documents, any proof ofthings?
As
SPEAKER_02 (46:01):
all the judges say, today's your day in court, bring
everything.
Oh, I didn't bring this with me.
And the judges look at you andgo, well, today was your day in
court.
Why didn't you bring it?
You should bring your completefile, regardless of whether you
think you need it or not.
You get in front of a judge.
Cases sometimes take weird turnsand you need to have proof that
(46:23):
you repaired, I don't know, awindow a year ago because
they're complaining about it.
And we didn't even think itmattered because it was done a
year ago.
But the tenant's like, well, Ihad a window, you know, and they
didn't repair it for six monthsa year ago.
And you can, you know, so youbring your whole file.
(46:44):
That way you have no problemsregardless of which way the case
gets.
You know, who knows if someonewants to see a rental license
from two years ago or which willstart coming up a lot more with
the four years of the leadcertificates.
I only need the current leadcertificate to file right now.
But what if they want to sue youor try and, you know, they want
(47:08):
to see an old lead certificate?
Well, if I don't have it in thefile and you don't have it, we
either need to continue it orit's going to be a problem.
So you bring your whole file.
That's best practice.
SPEAKER_00 (47:20):
Yeah.
So you have to have records.
You have to keep good records
SPEAKER_02 (47:25):
of everything.
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
Yeah.
and have that.
What are some of the most commonmistakes that you see landlords
make that hurt their case incourt?
SPEAKER_02 (47:36):
Well, obviously not having the proper documentation.
Trying to rent a propertywithout your rental license,
without your certificates,without everything.
That always comes back to burnyou in the long run.
The other big one is not doingrepairs timely.
If the tenant requests that yourheat know it's the middle of the
winter and they don't have heata it's not good for your
(47:57):
property but b you're not goingto get rent if if they don't pay
you and they come to court andsay your honor they didn't fix
my heat for three months that'snot going to look good for you
and then the other thing isleaking roofs you know all the
basic maintenance stuff is wherethe the the judges don't want to
see that what do they considertimely
SPEAKER_00 (48:18):
We don't have any
SPEAKER_02 (48:19):
specific law.
It depends on the repair.
You know, a heater being bad,well, you don't even need to
give them heat in the summer.
So if the heater went bad in thesummer, timely would be before
the winter.
But if the heat went bad andit's, you know, 20 degrees out,
timely will be, you know, YourHonor, I called my guy.
(48:40):
They called me at 9 o'clock atnight.
I called my guy first thing inthe morning, and he was booked
up.
He got over there in two days.
That's considered timely.
But if you go, yeah, I called myguy and he can't get out there
for a month, that isn't going tofly.
Call someone else.
You got to get someone overthere, even if it's just a
temporary repair to get the heatback on.
SPEAKER_00 (49:02):
Okay.
As long as you show your besteffort that you actually try to
do that.
SPEAKER_02 (49:07):
Correct.
Now cosmetic things, you know,if it's not affecting the
livability or the habitabilityof the property and it's just
cosmetic, You know, timely couldbe 30 days, 60.
A lot of it depends on what therepair is.
A leaking roof, you know, hey,you want to get that done
because it's damaging yourproperty.
But B, two months isn't going tocut it on a roof repair, you
(49:30):
know.
Under 30 days, normally 30 daysis a good cutoff for most
things.
Over 30, they're not going to behappy.
Under 30, as long as you can seethat you've been on top of it
and scheduling everything to getpeople over there.
Anything other than heat, Ithink you're at, or, you know,
something that would get themout of the house.
(49:50):
Like if there was a window thatwas broken out on the first
floor, that wasn't the tenant'sfault and you were responsible,
you know, that's, you got to getsomeone over there at least at a
minimum to board it up as quickas possible.
So you can get the window, youknow, fixed stair, you know, the
stairs, they can't use theupstairs because the stairs are
(50:12):
bad plumbing.
a plumbing leak in the basementwhere it's flooding or a toilet
that's not working, now you'redown into the under a week type
of thing as opposed to 30 days.
So each one is individual, butlet's put it this way.
If you were living in the house,how quick would you want it done
(50:33):
in your own house?
If it's the only bathroom in thehouse, I need that fixed ASAP.
I need my heat fixed.
If you have two or threebathrooms in the house and one
of them is bad, okay, 30 days isprobably reasonable.
SPEAKER_00 (50:46):
You try to fix it for the tenants much quicker
than what you do for yourself.
So Len, when does it make sensefor a landlord to bring in an
attorney instead of trying tohandle things on their own?
SPEAKER_02 (51:00):
10 years ago when we first met, you could probably do
it very easily as a landlord.
Nowadays, I'm not sure I wouldrecommend any landlord going
there without representation.
You can do it, but let's say yougo in as a landlord and you did
your own diversion and youdidn't do it properly.
(51:21):
If the other attorney finds youdidn't do it properly or the
judge finds you didn't do itproperly, they're going to
either dismiss your case or rulefor the defendant.
Now you've just wasted 60 days.
Those two months rent that youdidn't get, you could have
easily paid an attorney.
And hopefully if the attorneydoes what they're supposed to
(51:41):
do, you're not another 60 daysout.
So unless you know what you'redoing, I recommend getting an
attorney.
SPEAKER_00 (51:50):
And what would be your top piece of advice for new
or smaller landlords who may notbe familiar with the legal
process?
What would that be?
SPEAKER_02 (52:00):
First of all, you may want to get yourself a
property manager if you don'twant the headache because it's a
job.
You can't just buy a house, rentit out and think that, you know,
you're going to collect rentevery month.
As I had one client tell me onetime, because I thought about
buying and renting properties,he goes, he goes, if you're not
(52:21):
going to do it as a business,don't even bother.
He said, you can't own one ortwo houses and think you're just
going to collect rent on themand everything's going to be
happy.
There's maintenance, there'srequests, there's who knows what
you, your own house it'sconstant maintenance now you got
two or three houses you have aregular job and you're trying to
do this and you know propertymanagers and and bigger people
(52:45):
they have access to repairpeople like that all they do is
make a call if you don't haveaccess to that all of a sudden
you got a call you got to goover there and get estimates the
property managers don't need todo that the other big thing do
not rent to anyone without allyour documents in line before
you put them in it always comesback to bite you in the end and
(53:09):
the best thing is when they cometo sign the lease they're more
than willing to sign everythingbecause there's you know the
parties are still on good termsso you can get them to sign off
on everything and you have it inthe file and you're basically
good to go know if you wait sixmonths and all of a sudden
they're not happy and you heycan you sign this certificate of
(53:30):
rental suitability can you signthis lead safe certificate they
may look at it and you may emailit to them and they're just like
oh you get it you know so getall your paperwork in order you
shouldn't be running without itanyway so have it when at the
lease signing and it'll save youa lot of headaches in the long
run
SPEAKER_00 (53:49):
Yeah, that's a great advice.
And Len, thank you so much forjoining us today.
It's been a wealth ofinformation, I'm sure,
especially for newer landlords.
It's a headache and your headmay spin from learning all of
this, but it's not that scarywhen you go through this
multiple times.
And Len has been doing it for 25years and you have a lot of
(54:12):
experience.
So Len, remind me if you workwith regular landlords.
So if somebody is looking tostart an eviction, can they
reach out to you?
I do.
SPEAKER_02 (54:24):
Yeah, I work with individual landlords.
I'd recommend you get a propertymanager, but yes, I do work for
individual landlords.
They can contact me at 610-247-1299 is my office number.
SPEAKER_00 (54:37):
Okay.
And we'll also add your contactinformation in the show notes.
So if anybody is interested orwant to get in touch with Len,
call the number and I guess hewill take it from there.
Len, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Yeah, we're good to go at thistime.
Okay, let's wrap up on today'sshow.
So as Len mentioned, you have alot of different requirements
(54:59):
before you can go to court andbefore you can evict your
tenant.
Make sure that all of yourdocuments are in place.
Make sure to keep good records.
Property managers are always agreat help with that because
most of them will have goodrecords and will have a system
that can help them with that.
But at least, for the veryleast, make sure that you have
your rental license, rentalsuitability certificate, and the
(55:22):
LAT certificate if the propertywas built before 1978, which
most of the properties in our CAwere.
Before you can file foreviction, you will need to have
eviction diversion program.
And only after that is done,then you can file for eviction.
With this, let's wrap up ontoday's episode.
Big thanks to Len for sharingthis time and his legal insight.
(55:46):
So if you would like to get intouch with Len, his information
is in show notes.
And again, thank you for joiningin.
See you next time.
UNKNOWN (55:55):
Bye.
Can landlord file themselves or they have to have
an attorney?
Let's say we are in court nowand again it's a second
mediation at this point so wereached an agreement let's say
it's a payment plan or tenantneeds to vacate at certain point
what happens after?
If or when you go in front ofthe judge do you see that our
(00:21):
judges in the city they moretenant friendly or landlord
friendly or it's all over theplace?
I would say most of the Thejudges are.
We're here to share insights andexperiences, not legal or
(00:43):
accounting advice.
Be sure to talk to yourattorney, accountant, or
professional advisor beforemaking any decisions.
Everyone's situation isdifferent.
Get the help that is right foryou.
Welcome to the Philly LandlordGuy show.
My name is Yuri Skripnichenko.
The guy was a crazy last name.
Do not try to remember it.
(01:04):
Just think of me as PhillyLandlord Guy.
I am a licensed real estatebroker.
certified property manager inthe city of Philadelphia.
And today we're joined byPhiladelphia eviction attorney
Len Mancini to break down whatit actually takes legally to
evict a tenant in the city.
(01:24):
From what documents you need, tocourt times, to what happens if
your rental license or lead certisn't in place, we're covering
it all.
So let's jump right in.
Today, I have eviction attorneyhere, Len Mancini, a great
person.
I've been working with him formultiple, multiple years, and he
(01:46):
will be sharing a lot ofinformation about evictions in
the city of Philadelphia.
Len, welcome.
And if you can introduceyourself and tell us a little
bit more about how did you geton this and how long you've been
doing this?
SPEAKER_02 (01:59):
Sure.
Good afternoon, my friend.
I've been doing evictions forover 25 years.
When I started out, it was avery small part of my practice.
But there's a lot of people whodo only a little bit delving
into this, but there's only afew who do a whole lot of it.
(02:20):
And it just became a bigger andbigger part of my practices.
One client heard that I did it,they referred them out, and the
practice just grew and grew andgrew to the point where it was
enough to make a living at.
And I enjoy it.
And I enjoy meeting thedifferent tenants.
They're always interesting andfun to talk to.
You meet a wide variety ofpeople.
(02:42):
As also landlords, you meet awide variety of people.
So it's an enjoyable practice.
SPEAKER_00 (02:47):
Well, that's great that you're enjoying it because
sometimes evictions or most ofthe time evictions are not
enjoyable.
Not for the people involved.
That's correct.
Yeah.
So you've been doing it for 25years.
That's a long time.
And I think I've been workingwith you over 10 years now.
I was looking into the historybefore this recording and I was
like, I've known Len for a longtime.
(03:09):
I didn't realize it was thatlong either, to be honest with
you.
Yeah.
And I just still remember myfirst experience with eviction
that was about 10 years ago, howshocked I was from the whole
process.
And that was 10 years ago.
So in 10 years, we had a lot ofchanges and it looks very
different now or the timeframes
SPEAKER_02 (03:29):
are very different.
So timeframes are a areextremely different.
And yes, just the whole processhas changed.
SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
The whole process.
Yeah, especially since thepandemic.
So let's start with the basics.
What are the legal requirementsbefore a landlord can file for
eviction in Philadelphia?
SPEAKER_02 (03:50):
Landlord-tenant court is what's called a
codified court, which means youhave to fulfill certain
requirements to actually even beentitled.
It has to be a landlord-tenantrelationship first.
So If you're trying to evict asquatter, landlord-tenant court
is not your place.
They have to have paid you rentor you need a lease.
The basic requirements you needare a rental license, a
(04:13):
certificate of rentalsuitability, assuming it's a
relatively new case, there'ssome exceptions to that, and a
lead safe certificate.
There's also some exceptions tothat.
If the property was built after1978, you don't need a lead
certificate.
And those are the three basicthings you need to file a
landlord tenant complaint to getit approved by the court.
(04:36):
Before you do that, though,you're supposed to go into
what's called now the evictiondiversion program.
And in order to do that, andthat's getting ready to change a
little bit, too, in the next 45days, which it's not completely
out yet.
So they're getting ready torelease it.
I believe it's June 16th.
but there'll be some minorchanges to that.
(04:57):
But at that point, we need a lotmore information.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
Well, let's dive in into the eviction diversion
program a little bit later.
Let's start with the evictionand what are the requirements.
So you mentioned that you needto have rental license, rental
suitability certificate, and LATcertificate.
Those are the
SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
basics of what you need.
You should have a lease, but alease is not a requirement to
get into Landlord Tenant Court.
There are oral leases.
So it is not a requirement.
Those are the three basicrequirements you need to get
into the
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
land.
Okay.
And something that you mentionedin the beginning that you have
to file with the tenant landlordcourt, and that may be very
different for people who's not,or who's from out of city or out
of state, because our courtsystem is not the same as on the
state and not the same aseverywhere else.
We have separate court forlandlord tenant cases.
(05:49):
Is that right?
That
SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
is correct.
I don't know how otherjurisdictions are as far as
states, but as far as even thecounties have a different
practice.
As far as the city has one bigcourt, the counties use little
magisterial districts in each oftheir little separate areas and
they have different, each onehas different requirements.
SPEAKER_00 (06:10):
Yeah, it's definitely not easy to keep
track of all of them.
So what happens if a landlord ismissing one of these
requirements that you justmentioned, one of these
documents?
Can they still file?
SPEAKER_02 (06:22):
Theoretically, yes.
You can do what's called a 109affidavit and say you'll provide
it at court.
But if you don't have it, youjust wasted your money because
you cannot proceed at courtwithout all the documents.
they will throw in your case.
If you can get it throughfiling, they will throw it out
at the hearing if you don't haveall your documents.
SPEAKER_00 (06:44):
That is very interesting.
And we're going to get to itlater, but keep your foot on
that.
So another question is when youfile, can landlord file
themselves or they have to havean attorney involved?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
No, they are not required to have an attorney in
municipal court.
If it's a corporation, You canget what's called the authorized
rep form and the corporation canbe represented by a member of
the corporation.
Individuals can representthemselves.
Individuals theoretically caneven represent a family member
(07:18):
as long as they have theauthorized rep form.
I don't recommend it.
But yes, you can do it.
If the case gets appealed to CPcourt, you have to be the owner
of the property.
If it's a LLC or a corporation,they have to have an attorney.
There is no authorized rep incommon pleas court.
SPEAKER_00 (07:37):
Okay.
So if you go to common pleas, ifyour property is held an LLC or
corporation, you will have tohave an attorney.
But if you're going to landlordtenants court, somebody or a
member of LLC or owner of Scorporation or whatever
corporation, and representthemselves as long as they have
this affiliate, like whateverpaper that they need to submit.
(07:58):
Okay.
So let's say now we have therequirement or all of these
papers that are required.
We know that we can file foreviction.
So we go and file for it.
Can you walk us through the fullprocess from beginning to the
(08:19):
actual account, how it allworks.
And I know that you mentionedthe eviction diversion program.
So we'll dive into that, whatthat is and when that comes in
play.
SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
Clarify that for me.
You want to know if anindividual goes over or what
documents they need or wherethey go or are you
SPEAKER_00 (08:37):
looking?
No, after we have all of thedocuments, we already...
like clear that we need to havea lead search, we need to have
rental license, we need to havea rental suitability
certificate.
So we have all that, we go andfile for eviction.
What happens then?
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
Well, next you'll schedule a hearing date.
So if it's an individual, ifthey don't have access to file
electronically, they would haveto go down to the 10th floor at
municipal court.
And there are people down therewho would help them file
everything.
If you give all your paperworkto an attorney, attorney will
file electronically online andbasically what we do is we input
(09:13):
all the information onto thewebsite it creates a complaint
we download all of the exhibitsonto the complaint and we
schedule a hearing date and oncethat gets approved by the court
it then gets served on thetenant
SPEAKER_00 (09:29):
is it only attorneys that can do it online or myself
as a landlord i can go onlineand fill out that as well or i
have to go into the city so
SPEAKER_02 (09:38):
i'm not 100 sure about that i know previously if
you went through the training asa landlord i believe you can get
access to file online i'm notsure at this point i know or
when it's originally open butthat was 15 years ago yes an
individual as long as they wentthrough the training could be
(09:59):
approved to file online now idon't really know what the
requirements are.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
Okay.
So going back to filing, atwhich point eviction diversion
program kicks in and what isthat?
SPEAKER_02 (10:13):
So the eviction diversion program was created
during the pandemic, duringCOVID.
And basically what it is, I lookat it as a 30 day cooling off
period between the parties.
So in order to file, you have togo through diversion first.
And once diversion is approved,you have to wait 30 days before
(10:35):
you can file your landlordtenant complaint.
For diversion, you're basicallyinputting a lot of the same
things you input for thecomplaint.
However, once it gets approved,they will either schedule it for
a mediation or you're supposedto negotiate with the tenant
individually and try and worksomething out before you
(10:56):
actually get it into court.
And once the 30 days is up, ifthere's no agreement, then you
can file your landlord-tenant
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
complaint.
What if there is an agreementduring this 30 days?
SPEAKER_02 (11:07):
Well, then you'd live up to the agreement.
So mediation, you can prettymuch come to any agreement you
want.
You can come to a payment planwhere the tenant agrees to pay
their rent plus somethingtowards the back, or you give
them 30 days to pay everythingin full, or they agree to
vacate.
So it's whatever you can agreeto, it's to avoid basically
filing in court against thetenant.
(11:29):
And if they don't live up to it,you have the right to file your
complaint right away.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Do you have to agree to something during the
mediation process?
SPEAKER_02 (11:39):
You are not required to agree to anything.
The requirement is to negotiatein good faith.
So you can't just walk in andgo, I'm not doing anything.
So if you go in and you want thetenant to leave and you say, I
want the tenant to leave in twoweeks, That's good faith
negotiation, whether the tenantwants to do it or not.
You don't have to break fromthat.
That's what you want.
(11:59):
You can't just go in and go, I'mnot negotiating.
I'm not doing anything.
That's not considered goodfaith.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
So what do you usually see when this mediation
happens?
What do you usually see as anoutcome?
Is it some kind of payment planor it's tenants moving out?
It's
SPEAKER_02 (12:15):
every case is different.
There's no way of knowingbecause a lot of it depends on
what the landlord wants to dobecause we're taking our
instructions from the landlord.
If the landlord wants them out,we try and work out an agreement
where they're going to vacate.
If the landlord's willing to doa payment plan, we'll work out
some kind of payment plan.
But it really is controlled bywhat the landlord wants to do.
SPEAKER_00 (12:37):
Okay.
And the EDP also comes with TFA.
I know it's a lot of...
Targeted financial assistance.
Yeah, but it's targetedfinancial assistance for
tenants, but kind of forlandlords as well.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and what that means if
landlord accepts that
SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
so targeted financial assistance as it
stands right now because they dochange it every now and then if
the tenant well he can they canowe more than 3 500 but if you
file for 3 500 or less you canget what's called targeted
financial assistance if theyqualify it's not a guarantee the
tenant still has to participateand put their application in,
(13:17):
the landlord has to put theirapplication in, and then they
qualify, you'll get paid up to$3,500 in your arrears, plus two
months going forward.
The downside to it is you cannotfile your landlord tenant
complaint for 60 days after thelast month is paid.
(13:38):
So just as an example, if theypaid you through May, you
couldn't file for until August1st.
So if they don't pay you, youget paid through May, But if
they don't pay you for June andJuly, you can't do anything
until August 1st.
SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
Before we continue, I would like to take a moment to
thank our sponsor, Trust ArtRealty, property management
company in Philadelphia.
If you are a landlord, you knowthat managing properties in
Philadelphia can be a headache.
And as we just spoke to Len, youknow that it's not easy to do an
eviction.
So that's why Trust Art Realtyis offering to all of our
(14:15):
listeners a free rental analysisor management advice session.
Whether you need helpunderstanding market trends or
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So to claim your free rentalanalysis, just send an email to
trustartrealty atphilalandlordguy.com or click
(14:36):
the link in the show notes tofill out a quick form and
somebody will get in touch withyou.
Okay.
And August 1st, that's actuallythe time when you can start the
eviction process.
SPEAKER_02 (14:47):
Right.
You can go straight to landlordtenant.
and one other thing I forgot tomention is if you file your
landlord tenant complaint duringthe TFA process they will not
pay out TFA as soon as you filethe landlord tenant complaint
even if you're approved for TFAthat you're not allowed to
collect TFA they'll close yourapplication so you have to
(15:12):
Basically, as the landlord, youhave to agree not to file your
complaint and accept the money.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Okay.
So let's say we filed fordiversion program.
We went through mediation.
We had an agreement in place orwe didn't have the mediation and
it's past 30 days and now we canfile for eviction.
So at the timeline when we canfile for eviction.
So we go and file.
What happens after?
SPEAKER_02 (15:36):
Yeah, once you file, then the minimum time to get a
hearing date is 21 days underthe law.
Right now, they run generallyaround 30 days, give or take, to
actually get a hearing date.
And then that's basically yourday in court.
As a general rule, there are alot of tenants now getting
attorneys to represent them.
There's a lawyer of the dayprogram.
(15:57):
There's lots of programs downthere.
And a large percentage of thetenants now get attorneys.
also if the tenant comes downthemselves we negotiate with
them it's the same type ofnegotiation that's in mediation
the difference being now if wecan come to an agreement that
agreement will be put in writingit'll be a judgment and if they
(16:18):
don't keep to it you can startthe eviction process if you
can't come to an agreement thecase is set up either you have
the trial that day or you'llcontinue it for a trial.
SPEAKER_00 (16:30):
Okay.
So you said that a lot oftenants have representation now
because they can get it forfree.
There are a lot of tenants, Iguess, groups and organizations
who provide it.
And there are actually a few zipcodes in the city that
specifically have free attorneysthat tenants can request if they
reside in those zip codes.
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
Correct.
And they're expanding that.
They're going to expand it outto the whole city.
SPEAKER_00 (16:55):
yeah
SPEAKER_02 (16:55):
all tenants are available but they're targeting
certain zip codes
SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
so what does that mean for the landlord if a
tenant gets representation likehow does that change the
structure or
SPEAKER_02 (17:08):
it it really doesn't it's just that from my point of
view i'm negotiating with theirattorney as opposed to the
tenant it doesn't really changeanything
SPEAKER_00 (17:17):
does it usually help tenants to get out of more
things that they would usuallydo or that's
SPEAKER_02 (17:24):
hard to say some tenants are very good at
negotiating and they know youknow everything from top to
bottom it's it's very hard tosay i will say if you go in as
an individual not an attorney ifyou go in by yourself and you
get an attorney on the otherside could make it a lot more
difficult for you because theyknow all the ins and outs and
(17:47):
they're going to play hardballwith you because they're not
concerned about going in frontof the judge.
SPEAKER_00 (17:52):
Okay.
So let's say if I'm as alandlord filed for eviction
myself, I went through thiswhole process and now I know
that my course schedule is in, Idon't know, in two weeks.
And now all of a sudden Ireceived this letter that the
tenant has a presentation.
Can I, as a landlord, go and getmy eviction attorney at this
point or not really?
(18:13):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
you absolutely can.
not a problem the problem comesin where certain attorneys i
usually consider myself part ofthat i won't take your case if
you're that far in i'd reallyhave to review the case to make
sure you did everything properlybecause if i take over your case
and you did something thatwasn't proper theoretically i
(18:37):
could get sued for accepting thecase and not realizing whether
it was done or not so i'd haveto go through the whole case
make sure everything was correctand make sure that I'm not going
to get sued because you didsomething wrong because there's
the Fair Debt CollectionPractices Act.
There's all sorts of things thatwe as attorneys know not to do,
(19:01):
but landlords who are going inthere aren't 100% sure
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
about.
So let's talk about that alittle bit.
So what would you say commonerrors or issues that you see on
the landlord's part if they doit themselves?
Like what kind of problems canthey have when they file for
eviction?
SPEAKER_02 (19:20):
So the biggest problem that I see is they don't
have their correct paperwork.
They don't have their licenseslined up, their certificates,
their lead safe certificates.
And they sue for all the rentthat they're owed.
They think they're owed.
But if you don't have the properlicensing, you can't ask for it.
but they're asking for itanyway.
If I do that, I can get suedunder the Fair Debt Collection
(19:42):
Practices Act for filing formonies that I know are not due.
That's the biggest problem.
SPEAKER_00 (19:50):
Can the landlord
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
get sued for that as well?
So that's a good question.
I'd have to look that one up.
I believe, and you can't takethis for, if you're an
individual, it's your property.
No.
But if you're a property managerwho's going in and representing
them or someone who's not named,so if it's an LLC and you're an
(20:14):
individual going into authorizedrep, I believe you can,
SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
yes.
So you see property managersrepresenting landlords as well
in
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
court?
Not too much anymore.
They used to, but not too muchanymore.
I would think so.
I would not do that.
You're opening yourself up to alot of liability that you
just...
Liability and headache that youjust...
don't need.
Correct.
SPEAKER_00 (20:36):
So let's say we are in court now.
And again, it's a secondmediation at this point.
So we reached an agreement.
Let's say it's a payment plan ora tenant needs to vacate at a
certain point.
What happens after?
SPEAKER_02 (20:49):
So we would write it up in court.
There's computer systems inthere.
We type up the judgment byagreement.
The tenant would sign it.
It would get entered on thedocket.
And if they keep to the paymentagreement, great.
They get to stay.
You get your money.
Everyone's happy.
If they don't, then we wouldfile a breach of the agreement.
(21:10):
So the tenant would get noticethat they didn't keep to the
agreement and we'd start ourwrits.
And then the lockout procedurebegins.
SPEAKER_00 (21:17):
And what happens if during this mediation on the
court date, we cannot come to anagreement?
What happens then?
so
SPEAKER_02 (21:24):
theoretically and doesn't always happen that day
as i said a lot of times it'llget continued for an actual
trial date because either we'renot ready the tenant's not ready
the tenants attorneys aren'tready but if we can't come to an
agreement then the case goes infront of the judge and both
sides put their case up and thenthe judge will make a ruling on
(21:46):
the facts
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
that they hear.
And how often, through the casesthat you have, how often that
happens?
How often do you actually go infront of the judge versus
signing an
SPEAKER_02 (21:57):
agreement?
You don't go in front of thejudge very often.
What I always tell my clients isif you go in front of the judge,
you are putting your case in thejudge's hands.
You have no idea how the judgeis going to rule.
They could rule for thedefendant, in which case you're
out of luck.
(22:17):
They could rule 100% for you, inwhich case, great.
But, and we'll get to this in asecond, there's what's called a
de novo appeal.
And if you go in front of thejudge, in my opinion, if you can
make an agreement that bothparties can agree to, you know,
it's a green, both parties canagree to, it's better for both
sides because that way, youknow, where you stand at that
(22:38):
point.
You didn't give your case up toa third party to decide what's
going to happen.
Sometimes you just can't come toan agreement.
But if you can, to me, it'salways a benefit because that
way there's no appeal.
The problem, if you go in frontof a judge, there's what's
called a de novo appeal, whichmeans they can go to common
police court regardless of win,loss, doesn't matter.
(23:01):
And it's a brand new case overthere.
And it's a lot more expensivebecause it's a full-blown case
and it takes a lot longer overthere.
If it gets appealed, it's notfun.
SPEAKER_00 (23:14):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's the part where alot of landlords hang up or
cannot get their head around iswhy would I sign some agreement?
If I'm at this stage, I'm ateviction, I'm at the court, I
want you out.
I don't want to be talking toyou.
And I have all of this case thatyou're destroying my property or
(23:34):
you're not paying my rent orwhatever else is happening.
Landlord is not happy at thatpoint with this tenant.
And they, I was there as well,10 years ago when and I had my
first eviction happening, Icould not wrap my head around
why would I agree to somethingif this tenant has not been
paying for the last few months,I want this to go in front of
(23:56):
the judge.
And it is hard to understand,especially if you're going
SPEAKER_02 (24:00):
to- Especially for new landlords.
Yep.
The advantage to doing theagreement is certainty on your
behalf.
You know, if it goes bad, youhave an idea of how long it's
going to take you to get themout.
You have an idea of how muchit's going to cost you to get
them out.
You have a time schedule andyou're theoretically done with
(24:21):
court.
If it goes in front of thejudge, now you're in, this is
assuming they appeal it.
If it goes in front of the judgeand they appeal it, now you're
in a totally different court ona totally different schedule.
you're paying additionalattorney fees, which are way
more expensive than going tomunicipal court attorney fees.
(24:41):
And your timeline is different.
You have no idea how long it'sgoing to take you to get them
out over there.
So it's more about the certaintythat you have as a landlord by
doing the judgment by agreement.
If you go in front of the judge,not only do you have no idea
what he's going to rule, but ifeither side doesn't like it and
it gets appealed, now you're ina whole nother case and a whole
(25:03):
nother area costing you a wholebunch more money and you don't
have the certainty and you got abunch of more hearings to go
attend.
So it's time, it's money.
A lot of times, that's aconsideration you gotta take in
when you decide whether or notto go in front of the judge.
Sometimes you don't have achoice.
Sometimes there just is not anagreement to be had and you have
(25:25):
no choice but to go to thatpath.
But if there is a choice, a lotof times it's a better choice to
agree just for certainty.
SPEAKER_00 (25:34):
Yeah, that makes sense.
And if or when you go in frontof the judge, do you see that
our judges in the city pay moreattention tenant friendly or
landlord friendly or it's allover the place?
SPEAKER_02 (25:48):
I would say most of the judges are very fair.
I don't want to get into who'slandlord friendly and who's
tenant friendly, but I would saymost of the judges do their best
to be fair and honest.
And if you have your paperworkand you as a landlord have done
the right things, you'll have avery good shot of win.
If you're a landlord who justgot your certificates and just
(26:09):
did this and you haven't doneyour repairs and the tenant can
come in and show the place isdisgusting and you're not doing
your repairs, it's not going togo well for you.
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
That's a separate topic about the repairs during
eviction.
And I think we need to talkabout that as well.
But before we get into that,right now we are at the
timeline, at least three months,once we get this agreement
signed at court hearing, becausewe have filed for mediation or
for eviction diversion program.
Then we waited for 30 days.
(26:40):
Then we filed for eviction, wewaited another 30 days to get
the hearing So it's been twomonths now, right?
And now we sign in thismediation agreement, which
usually something should happenwithin 30 days.
It's either a payment or...
So,
SPEAKER_02 (26:58):
yeah.
So the rule is you can't file,after judgment, you can't file
your writ for 11 days after thejudgment.
I believe it's 11.
Pretty sure it's 11.
It's 10 or 11.
Nothing's going to happen forthat next 10 or 11 days.
If they don't make their paymentor you just want to start the
eviction process after that 10or 11 days, you file your writ,
(27:20):
then the writ gets served.
And then 10 days after that, youcan file your alias writ, which
is what schedules the lockout.
So realistically with getting itfiled and having the court
approve it and getting it downto the sheriff to get it served,
I mean, you're looking atanother 30 days.
The quickest as of right now, Ifyou could get a 90-day lockout,
(27:44):
you should be loving life.
The problem we're running intoright now is the sheriff's
taking a considerable amount oftime to actually schedule the
lockouts.
And that's where the big delayis, right?
SPEAKER_00 (27:55):
Is that 90 days from the time when you got the
judgment or from the time whenyou filed your reads?
SPEAKER_02 (28:01):
So 90 days from the start of the case.
That would be great.
not going to happen right nowyou know 60 to 90 days from when
the alias is filed is when thesheriff's scheduling lockouts so
you're really realisticallylooking at i say six months from
the time you start give or takeit could be a little longer it
(28:25):
could be a little shorterthere's continuances there's
answers to breaches there'spetitions but you know i would
say six months was is aroundabout good area
SPEAKER_00 (28:38):
And it all depends on how the case goes.
And if you accept TFA, you don'taccept TFA, how creation goes.
SPEAKER_02 (28:46):
Right.
Every case is individual.
You can say that, you know,they're all similar, but every
case based on its own fact hasits own path.
And some tenants who know whatthey're doing can delay stuff a
long time.
SPEAKER_00 (28:59):
Yeah.
And unfortunately, we see thathappen pretty often.
So you touched a little bit onthat, the repairs that so let's
say we are in the court and bytime we get to the court again
it's been at least three monthssince we started this process
that means that tenant wasbehind at least one month before
(29:20):
that so that means that wealready have some kind of bad
relationship with the tenant forat least four months up to this
point And usually when thathappens, tenants stop paying.
They're not very responsive ornot cooperating.
They will not let you into theproperty.
And I don't know, let's sayduring the process, tenants send
(29:43):
you a maintenance request that,I don't know, there's a hole in
the wall or whatever else theycan send, some kind of
maintenance problem.
And some of them, that we dealtwith before, they would call L&I
to have L&I out, do theinspection of the unit, and then
they will submit that to you.
(30:04):
So you receive the letter fromL&I saying that you have a
certain amount of time to do therepairs, and you want to do the
repairs, but the tenants won'tlet you in, and then they won't
let the L&I inspector in again.
So how does that work?
How do we do that, of course?
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SPEAKER_02 (31:16):
Well, yeah, it's a problem, but the best thing you
can do is document.
everything that you do so showwhen the inspection was done if
if this gets into court for thelandlord tenant case show when
the inspection was done show andthen show every attempt you made
to contact the tenant toschedule it to send people over
(31:37):
to do the repairs the judgeswill look at it i mean it's it's
a good reason if you tried to dowhat's right and the tenant
won't permit you that's mostjudges will see you did what you
were supposed to do but if it'sjust they did it and you totally
ignored it the judges will alsotake that into account and
you're probably going to getreduced rent if not a judgment
(31:58):
for the defendant because youjust let them stay in there and
you know if especially the thebig things are heat in the
winter that's a no-no if youhave a heat problem if in the
winter you need to get overthere as soon as possible and
remedy it that's a big no-no theother big no-no is uh bugs
roaches you know, any kind ofinfestation, that's also a big
(32:23):
no-no.
SPEAKER_00 (32:23):
That is interesting about the bugs and whatever
infestation it can be.
Is that only for multifamilyunits or single family as well?
Because from my understanding, asingle family, it's the tenant's
responsibility to treat theplace.
So first you have to look to
SPEAKER_02 (32:40):
the lease and see what the lease says.
because a lot of the leases willhave in there who's responsible
for it.
But yes, in single-family homes,the rule is if it's a
single-family home, you have toprovide them with a rodent, an
infestation-free property whenthey move in.
But once they're in there,they're responsible for it
themselves.
(33:00):
And like I said, unless thelease says different.
For multifamily units, theowner's responsible.
SPEAKER_00 (33:04):
Doesn't matter what the lease says.
SPEAKER_02 (33:06):
Not really, because it's not really fair.
I mean, if you think about it,not really fair to the tenant if
there's one tenant who's reallygood and the other tenant or
other tenants in the propertyare bad as far as you know
infestations are concerned howdoes the good tenant keep their
place clear if the bad tenantisn't and they can't get into
(33:29):
the other unit to spray theother unit.
So they really put the onus onthe landlords on that.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
What happens if your rental license lapses during the
lease term and you need to filefor eviction?
So let's say we're filing foreviction today, which is what,
May 6, we're recording it on May6, and my rental license was
active or is active, but it'sgoing to expire in doing
SPEAKER_02 (33:55):
so you can file you can file today you can ask for
rent up to the time ofexpiration but you better get
your new license before you getto court they will not give you
a judgment in court unless youhave an active rental license
and you cannot ask for any rentduring the period of the lap so
it makes a lot you know it'sreally important to keep your
(34:16):
rental license active
SPEAKER_00 (34:17):
and if we change the example a little bit so we're
filing in may again we hadrental license but rental
license ended december and wasnot renewed until january would
we be able to claim rent fordecember
SPEAKER_02 (34:33):
no plain and simple now if you go to court you can
only ask for rent for the timethat you had active rental
licenses Your certificate ofrental suitability was good and
your lead safe certificate wasgood.
SPEAKER_00 (34:46):
Now, if we had rental license at all of this
time, but we go to file and wefind out that there is this
rental suitability certificatethat we need to have and we did
not have that, can we claim?
No, you have to have all ofthem.
So what do we do at that pointif we have unpaid tenant, we
have rental
SPEAKER_02 (35:04):
license?
It is a correctable problem.
So you can go print out yourcertificate of rental
suitability in the Partners inGood Housing handbook, serve it
on the tenant, and then you canask for rent from that point
going forward.
But you lose all your old rent,can't ask for
SPEAKER_00 (35:19):
it.
That's a hard hit to find outthat way.
SPEAKER_02 (35:22):
Well, and I believe you're going to, my
recommendation for alllandlords, property managers,
when you have the tenant come into sign all the lease documents,
you should have your rentallicense, your certificate of
rental suitability, yourpartners in good housing
handbook, and your lead safecertificate there and have the
tenant sign and date each oneand keep a copy in your file.
(35:46):
That'll save you a lot ofheadaches going forward.
If you just let them in withoutthose documents, you know, It's
a crapsheet.
SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
What happens if, take our last example that we're
filing now in May and we findout that we didn't have rental
suitability certificate.
Now we print it out, we send itto the tenant and we go to court
and we'll go in front of thejudge, or maybe the tenant has a
representation.
Can they make the landlord payback the rent that tenant paid
(36:17):
during the time when thelandlord didn't have active
rental license or rentalsuitability certificate?
SPEAKER_02 (36:23):
No.
The case law as it stands rightnow is once the tenant pays that
rent, they cannot claw it back.
But that's only for the rentallicense and the certificate of
rental suitability.
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
If you
SPEAKER_02 (36:35):
were required to have a lead safe certificate,
and in order to get yourlicense, you're required to get
that.
But let's just say for the sakeof an example, you didn't get
your lead safe certificate untilsix months after the lease
started.
Theoretically, the tenant couldcome in and sue you for those
(36:55):
six months to get their rentback.
Have you seen
SPEAKER_00 (36:58):
that
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
happen before?
Not uncommon.
SPEAKER_00 (37:01):
Really?
Really.
How does it start?
Is it the tenant that sues thelandlord or the other way
around?
How?
SPEAKER_02 (37:08):
So normally the way it starts is the landlord goes
in and sues for eviction andthey either get a tenant's
attorney or they do enoughresearch on their own and they
realize it's like, oh, theydidn't give me, they didn't have
their lead safe certificatebecause we have to provide it in
the filing until a certain date.
(37:29):
We can sue you for that.
know and sometimes sometimesthey just use it as a
negotiating to ploy too thatokay you owe us six months we
owe you eight we only owe youtwo now are you okay with that
but yes i mean the law is whatthe law is and if they know it
and proceed on it you're openingyourself up to a lawsuit that's
(37:51):
one of the things why when yougive me all your paperwork i
gotta look at everything andmake sure because You need to
know that before you go intocourt.
It doesn't happen on every case,but it's not uncommon.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
Definitely not an easy city to navigate all of
that.
What do you actually do if,let's say another hypothetical
situation that we're in, we haverental license, we had rental
suitability certificate, and wehad our lead inspection done
with the certificate, but it'svalid for four years.
(38:24):
Right.
So it's been four years, nowit's expired and we cannot renew
rental license until we have newcertificate or until we have new
test done.
And of course it happens rightat the time when tenant stops
paying and they will not let usinto the apartment or into the
property to do the test.
(38:46):
Is there any remedy for that orhow are we able to still do
something?
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Yes, theoretically.
Sometimes if you can prove allthat to the city, they'll give
you a waiver and they will giveyou a new license because you
had the old certificate.
The city will give you a waiver.
I believe it's a one year waiverto get your new lead certificate
based on this.
But you need to prove to themthat you've been trying to get
in there.
So you need to show attempts toget in.
(39:11):
You need something from yourlead inspector showing that.
And then once you get to court,then we need to show the judge
all that that hey we've beentrying they won't let us in you
know can we proceed anddepending on sometimes the judge
will order them to let you in todo the lead safe certificate
then they'll let you proceedsometimes they'll just let you
(39:32):
proceed at that point becauseit's not fair to the landlord
that the tenant is restrictingyou from doing what you're
supposed to do
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
where do you go to do that do you go to lni first
or do you If it
SPEAKER_02 (39:44):
was, so if it's the violations, you would need to go
to the inspector and talk tothem.
If it's for the lead safecertificate, you'd need to go to
where you renew your license andshow them and see if they'll
give you a
SPEAKER_00 (39:56):
waiver.
Okay.
Makes sense.
Let's switch the gears a littlebit and let's talk about utility
bills and specifically waterbills.
So what we often see is thatlandlords, especially for
multifamily buildings, wouldplate the bill between the
tenants.
So let's say we have athree-unit building and in the
city of Philadelphia, we alwayshave one meter water meter per
(40:19):
building.
So we have three units and thelandlord splits the bill between
the tenants for whicheveramount, 30-30 or whatever they
split it.
So if they do that, first, canthey legally do that?
And second, if they do that, canthey claim that in court?
SPEAKER_02 (40:38):
Theoretically, there's two, some of this
depends on the judge.
Legally, no.
In order to charge water, youneed separately metered units
for each unit.
But the lease is a contract andsome judges will find if they
agreed to it, then yeah, you cando it.
It's not a huge headache.
I generally say if it was mewatching everything, if you have
(41:04):
three units, rather thancharging each individually
water, why not just raise therent for the water and just
charge it as rent?
Some months you win, some monthsyou lose, but if you know the
unit is eats up$150 worth ofwater every month, just raise
everyone's rent$50 and don'teven bother with the water.
SPEAKER_01 (41:27):
That's the
SPEAKER_02 (41:27):
safer way to do it.
Or have them individuallymetered.
But I believe that's prettyexpensive.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
That is very expensive.
And you will have to have somecompany that will be doing sub
billing besides the submetering.
That is expensive.
It doesn't make sense to do on asmall scale unless you have some
kind of big apartment complexmaybe at that time.
The
SPEAKER_02 (41:50):
other problem with it is regardless of whether they
pay or not, order bills areliens against the property.
So even if the tenant doesn'tpay it, theoretically the owner
is still responsible for
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
it.
Yeah, which is a great segue tomy next question.
So that was multifamilybuildings, but now we have
single family and in singlefamily, there is no problem.
We can build it back to thetenants, which we usually do.
And what we usually recommendpeople never put water bill onto
the tenants or in the tenant'sname.
It always has to stay with thelandlord, but you can just build
(42:23):
back the tenant for the actualwater usage.
So let's say the landlord rentedthe property.
They told the tenants that theywill have to pay water bills.
And the tenants never did.
They just didn't pay waterbills.
And now the time comes whentenants move out and landlord
(42:45):
finds out that there is$1,500water bill that was unpaid with
late charges and all of that.
Can the landlord deduct thatfrom tenant
SPEAKER_02 (42:57):
security deposit?
100%.
As long as the tenant wasresponsible under the lease,
yes, you can take it out of thesecurity deposit.
SPEAKER_00 (43:04):
Does the lease have specifically say that it's
tenant's responsibility to payfor water?
SPEAKER_02 (43:10):
Well, it has to say, yeah, they're responsible for
water.
Normally on the standard leases,there's a little checkbox.
SPEAKER_00 (43:16):
Well, that makes sense.
It's a little bit easier forsome people.
But yeah, hopefully the way todo it, it's actually for the
landlords to pay the billthemselves.
I agree with
SPEAKER_02 (43:26):
that because that way you can monitor it and you
know if they're not paying you.
Yeah.
At least you can keep the waterbecause at least you can keep
the water on and you know ifit's getting too big and then
you can put them into court toget them to pay the water bill.
SPEAKER_00 (43:43):
Oh, that's another interesting topic that you just
touched.
Keep the water on.
So I've heard that many timesspeaking to landlords who's
having issues with tenants, thatthey would say things like, oh,
they stopped paying.
So I will just go and shut offgas or water to the building.
So they will move out or, Idon't know, take the front door
(44:05):
of the building off for therepair.
Can they do that?
SPEAKER_02 (44:08):
Totally illegal.
They can get sued for self-helpeviction.
They can get sued for lots ofthings.
I would not recommend doingthat.
If the tenant takes you to courtunder that scenario, there isn't
a judge around who isn't goingto hit you with a fine if they
sue you properly and let themright back in and order you to
(44:30):
turn the water on, turn the heaton.
Yeah, you don't want to do that.
They call it a constructive, Iwas looking for the term, it's
constructive eviction.
You're trying to kick them outby turning off their utilities.
And you're just not allowed todo that.
SPEAKER_00 (44:43):
Yeah.
If we were, everybody would goand do it.
Right.
There is, we were talking abouteviction all of this time, but
there are two different thingsthat we need to know, eviction
and ejection, right?
And can you tell us what is thedifference between eviction and
ejection and when we should useone or the other?
(45:05):
If you have a
SPEAKER_02 (45:05):
landlord tenant relationship and you have all
your documents, you shouldalways go to municipal court.
It's cheaper, it's quicker.
Ejectment actions are forsquatters, basically.
So that's for when you have avacant property, you go over
there and there's someone in theproperty and you need to get
them out.
(45:26):
Ejectment is how you get aperson out when you don't have a
landlord tenant relationshipwith them.
You didn't let them in, theyjust moved in on you or someone
else moved them in under a falselease or whatever.
That's the big difference.
But if you can go to landlordtenant court, 99.9% of the time
is the way to go.
Like I said, it's cheaper andit's quicker.
SPEAKER_00 (45:48):
Okay.
So when we actually go to thecourt, what should landlords
bring with them to evictioncourt?
Any documents, any proof ofthings?
As
SPEAKER_02 (46:01):
all the judges say, today's your day in court, bring
everything.
Oh, I didn't bring this with me.
And the judges look at you andgo, well, today was your day in
court.
Why didn't you bring it?
You should bring your completefile, regardless of whether you
think you need it or not.
You get in front of a judge.
Cases sometimes take weird turnsand you need to have proof that
(46:23):
you repaired, I don't know, awindow a year ago because
they're complaining about it.
And we didn't even think itmattered because it was done a
year ago.
But the tenant's like, well, Ihad a window, you know, and they
didn't repair it for six monthsa year ago.
And you can, you know, so youbring your whole file.
(46:44):
That way you have no problemsregardless of which way the case
gets.
You know, who knows if someonewants to see a rental license
from two years ago or which willstart coming up a lot more with
the four years of the leadcertificates.
I only need the current leadcertificate to file right now.
But what if they want to sue youor try and, you know, they want
(47:08):
to see an old lead certificate?
Well, if I don't have it in thefile and you don't have it, we
either need to continue it orit's going to be a problem.
So you bring your whole file.
That's best practice.
SPEAKER_00 (47:20):
Yeah.
So you have to have records.
You have to keep good records
SPEAKER_02 (47:25):
of everything.
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
Yeah.
and have that.
What are some of the most commonmistakes that you see landlords
make that hurt their case incourt?
SPEAKER_02 (47:36):
Well, obviously not having the proper documentation.
Trying to rent a propertywithout your rental license,
without your certificates,without everything.
That always comes back to burnyou in the long run.
The other big one is not doingrepairs timely.
If the tenant requests that yourheat know it's the middle of the
winter and they don't have heata it's not good for your
(47:57):
property but b you're not goingto get rent if if they don't pay
you and they come to court andsay your honor they didn't fix
my heat for three months that'snot going to look good for you
and then the other thing isleaking roofs you know all the
basic maintenance stuff is wherethe the the judges don't want to
see that what do they considertimely
SPEAKER_00 (48:18):
We don't have any
SPEAKER_02 (48:19):
specific law.
It depends on the repair.
You know, a heater being bad,well, you don't even need to
give them heat in the summer.
So if the heater went bad in thesummer, timely would be before
the winter.
But if the heat went bad andit's, you know, 20 degrees out,
timely will be, you know, YourHonor, I called my guy.
(48:40):
They called me at 9 o'clock atnight.
I called my guy first thing inthe morning, and he was booked
up.
He got over there in two days.
That's considered timely.
But if you go, yeah, I called myguy and he can't get out there
for a month, that isn't going tofly.
Call someone else.
You got to get someone overthere, even if it's just a
temporary repair to get the heatback on.
SPEAKER_00 (49:02):
Okay.
As long as you show your besteffort that you actually try to
do that.
SPEAKER_02 (49:07):
Correct.
Now cosmetic things, you know,if it's not affecting the
livability or the habitabilityof the property and it's just
cosmetic, You know, timely couldbe 30 days, 60.
A lot of it depends on what therepair is.
A leaking roof, you know, hey,you want to get that done
because it's damaging yourproperty.
But B, two months isn't going tocut it on a roof repair, you
(49:30):
know.
Under 30 days, normally 30 daysis a good cutoff for most
things.
Over 30, they're not going to behappy.
Under 30, as long as you can seethat you've been on top of it
and scheduling everything to getpeople over there.
Anything other than heat, Ithink you're at, or, you know,
something that would get themout of the house.
(49:50):
Like if there was a window thatwas broken out on the first
floor, that wasn't the tenant'sfault and you were responsible,
you know, that's, you got to getsomeone over there at least at a
minimum to board it up as quickas possible.
So you can get the window, youknow, fixed stair, you know, the
stairs, they can't use theupstairs because the stairs are
(50:12):
bad plumbing.
a plumbing leak in the basementwhere it's flooding or a toilet
that's not working, now you'redown into the under a week type
of thing as opposed to 30 days.
So each one is individual, butlet's put it this way.
If you were living in the house,how quick would you want it done
(50:33):
in your own house?
If it's the only bathroom in thehouse, I need that fixed ASAP.
I need my heat fixed.
If you have two or threebathrooms in the house and one
of them is bad, okay, 30 days isprobably reasonable.
SPEAKER_00 (50:46):
You try to fix it for the tenants much quicker
than what you do for yourself.
So Len, when does it make sensefor a landlord to bring in an
attorney instead of trying tohandle things on their own?
SPEAKER_02 (51:00):
10 years ago when we first met, you could probably do
it very easily as a landlord.
Nowadays, I'm not sure I wouldrecommend any landlord going
there without representation.
You can do it, but let's say yougo in as a landlord and you did
your own diversion and youdidn't do it properly.
(51:21):
If the other attorney finds youdidn't do it properly or the
judge finds you didn't do itproperly, they're going to
either dismiss your case or rulefor the defendant.
Now you've just wasted 60 days.
Those two months rent that youdidn't get, you could have
easily paid an attorney.
And hopefully if the attorneydoes what they're supposed to
(51:41):
do, you're not another 60 daysout.
So unless you know what you'redoing, I recommend getting an
attorney.
SPEAKER_00 (51:50):
And what would be your top piece of advice for new
or smaller landlords who may notbe familiar with the legal
process?
What would that be?
SPEAKER_02 (52:00):
First of all, you may want to get yourself a
property manager if you don'twant the headache because it's a
job.
You can't just buy a house, rentit out and think that, you know,
you're going to collect rentevery month.
As I had one client tell me onetime, because I thought about
buying and renting properties,he goes, he goes, if you're not
(52:21):
going to do it as a business,don't even bother.
He said, you can't own one ortwo houses and think you're just
going to collect rent on themand everything's going to be
happy.
There's maintenance, there'srequests, there's who knows what
you, your own house it'sconstant maintenance now you got
two or three houses you have aregular job and you're trying to
do this and you know propertymanagers and and bigger people
(52:45):
they have access to repairpeople like that all they do is
make a call if you don't haveaccess to that all of a sudden
you got a call you got to goover there and get estimates the
property managers don't need todo that the other big thing do
not rent to anyone without allyour documents in line before
you put them in it always comesback to bite you in the end and
(53:09):
the best thing is when they cometo sign the lease they're more
than willing to sign everythingbecause there's you know the
parties are still on good termsso you can get them to sign off
on everything and you have it inthe file and you're basically
good to go know if you wait sixmonths and all of a sudden
they're not happy and you heycan you sign this certificate of
(53:30):
rental suitability can you signthis lead safe certificate they
may look at it and you may emailit to them and they're just like
oh you get it you know so getall your paperwork in order you
shouldn't be running without itanyway so have it when at the
lease signing and it'll save youa lot of headaches in the long
run
SPEAKER_00 (53:49):
Yeah, that's a great advice.
And Len, thank you so much forjoining us today.
It's been a wealth ofinformation, I'm sure,
especially for newer landlords.
It's a headache and your headmay spin from learning all of
this, but it's not that scarywhen you go through this
multiple times.
And Len has been doing it for 25years and you have a lot of
(54:12):
experience.
So Len, remind me if you workwith regular landlords.
So if somebody is looking tostart an eviction, can they
reach out to you?
I do.
SPEAKER_02 (54:24):
Yeah, I work with individual landlords.
I'd recommend you get a propertymanager, but yes, I do work for
individual landlords.
They can contact me at 610-247-1299 is my office number.
SPEAKER_00 (54:37):
Okay.
And we'll also add your contactinformation in the show notes.
So if anybody is interested orwant to get in touch with Len,
call the number and I guess hewill take it from there.
Len, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Yeah, we're good to go at thistime.
Okay, let's wrap up on today'sshow.
So as Len mentioned, you have alot of different requirements
(54:59):
before you can go to court andbefore you can evict your
tenant.
Make sure that all of yourdocuments are in place.
Make sure to keep good records.
Property managers are always agreat help with that because
most of them will have goodrecords and will have a system
that can help them with that.
But at least, for the veryleast, make sure that you have
your rental license, rentalsuitability certificate, and the
(55:22):
LAT certificate if the propertywas built before 1978, which
most of the properties in our CAwere.
Before you can file foreviction, you will need to have
eviction diversion program.
And only after that is done,then you can file for eviction.
With this, let's wrap up ontoday's episode.
Big thanks to Len for sharingthis time and his legal insight.
(55:46):
So if you would like to get intouch with Len, his information
is in show notes.
And again, thank you for joiningin.
See you next time.
UNKNOWN (55:55):
Bye.
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