A Philadelphia project hopes to harness the legal system to put negligent landlords on notice

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The trouble started early last year with a leaky roof that sent water streaming down the living room walls of Debra Autrey’s apartment in Germantown.

A few months later, raw sewage and feces flooded the basement, a combination that became so noxious it forced the 67-year-old to rent an Airbnb for weeks at a time.

The two-story rowhome also lacked adequate heat, and soon became infested with mold, mice and cockroaches.

And yet, according to a recently filed lawsuit, Autrey’s landlord did next to nothing — even after repeated calls and emails requesting help, even when city inspectors later cited the property for multiple code violations.

“The problems were so severe and the refusal to fix them isn’t just unreasonable, but it was actually reckless, especially given the effect it was having on Mrs. Autrey’s health and welfare,” said her attorney Michael LiPuma, who directs the legal center at Face to Face Germantown, a human services nonprofit.

Autrey’s complaint, filed in May in Common Pleas Court, seeks damages in excess of $50,000. But there’s also a broader, more systemic goal: to drive landlords to make needed repairs to their rentals before they spark a costly court battle.

The details of the lawsuit are emblematic of Philadelphia’s affordable housing crisis.

The city has a limited supply of housing for low-income residents like Autrey, but it also has a dearth of affordable housing that’s safe and habitable — a persistent reality often compounded by a widespread fear among tenants that they’ll be displaced in retaliation for speaking out about their living conditions.

Enter the Repair and Deduct Project, an ambitious pilot program launched last year by Face to Face, Community Legal Services and Rebuilding Together Philadelphia, a nonprofit that revitalizes more than 100 homes each year with the help of private donations. With the help of a $60,000 grant, the organizations hope to protect low-income tenants while putting negligent landlords on notice.

“We’re really hoping the news of these court decisions filters out to the landlord community so that they are aware that there are consequences to not maintaining a safe and habitable home for your tenants,” said Rebuilding Together Philadelphia President Stefanie Seldin.

An underutilized remedy

The project is rooted in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision from nearly 50 years ago.

By law, every rental lease in the state has what’s known as an “implied warranty of habitability.” That means landlords must ensure their rental units are safe and habitable, which includes a requirement to make any noncosmetic repairs needed to maintain those conditions.

Examples include a leaking roof, lack of hot or cold running water, inadequate electrical wiring or unsafe floors and stairs, among other deficiencies.

If a landlord breaches the implied warranty, tenants can withhold rent, pay for the necessary repairs themselves and then deduct the cost from any future payments.

Under the measure, the cost of the repairs must be “reasonable” and cannot exceed one contract term of the lease. For example, if a tenant has a yearlong lease and is paying $1,000 a month, the law only covers repairs of up to $12,000.

Tenants must also notify their landlords that they are using this remedy.

“It is a legal right, and nobody uses it because there are too many barriers. And so, with this program, what I wanted to do is to take away those barriers,” said Osarugue Osa-Edoh, divisional supervising attorney in the housing unit at Community Legal Services.

When a case is selected for the pilot project, the repairs are carried out by Rebuilding Together Philadelphia.

After the work is completed, Osa-Edoh and LiPuma then file a complaint on behalf of the tenant, who by then has already started withholding their monthly rental payments. If the suit is successful, that money goes back to Rebuilding Together to put toward another tenant’s repairs.

The goal of these lawsuits, among other things, is to convince the judge to rule that the tenant was entitled to “repair and deduct” because their landlord failed to comply with state law — what’s called declaratory relief.

The hope is that getting that ruling in multiple cases will send a clear message to Philadelphia landlords who think they can refuse to make needed repairs.

“One thing you do in Philadelphia that is solid that the court agrees with, that the programs agree with, that everybody agrees with, that the landlords know, is that if I am delinquent on repairs, that tenant is going to make that repair and I’m not going to get the rent. Like that is known in Philadelphia,” Osa-Edoh said.

A risk worth taking?

The project has enough funding to file a total of six complaints, meaning the cases must be carefully selected to give the project the best chance to establish the legal record its architects hope will bring change.

These lawsuits are not without risk.

While filing a strong complaint can certainly help sway a ruling, there is no way to guarantee a judge will side with the tenant and deem the landlord has breached the implied warranty.

What’s more, tenants in these cases could still potentially face an eviction filing over unpaid rent — the payments the tenant is withholding to cover the repair work.

If that happens, attorneys with the project will also defend that tenant in the eviction case.

“We’d be arguing to the court hearing the eviction case, the Municipal Court, that this shouldn’t go ahead because of the other lawsuit that would be going on in the Court of Common Pleas to vindicate the cost of the repairs,” LiPuma said.

To date, LiPuma and Osa-Edoh have filed two lawsuits, including the complaint filed on behalf of Autrey, who is now living in a largely repaired apartment as she awaits the outcome of her case.

The roof over her porch has yet to be fixed. It has crevices so large that feral cats are living in the crevices, according to the suit.

LiPuma said his client, who suffers from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is feeling much better since the repairs were completed.

Medical records from March revealed there was mouse urine, cockroach residue and “dangerous levels” of mold in Autrey’s respiratory panel, which checks for pathogens in someone’s respiratory tract, according to the complaint.

“I feel like I can breathe again,” Autrey told LiPuma.

Her landlord, Exton-based RAD Diversified, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Paul Cohen, general counsel for HAPCO Philadelphia, the city’s largest advocacy group for landlords and property managers, has mixed feelings about the project. While he views the pilot as a good remedy for negligent landlords, he said he’d prefer to see the program’s grant dollars help landlords who aren’t making needed repairs because they can’t afford to.

“It’s very difficult to be a landlord in Philadelphia. It’s very expensive,” Cohen said. “Unfortunately, all the programs that are out there are for the tenants.”

He’s also not convinced the project will incentivize negligent landlords to make repairs.

“A bad landlord is gonna stay a bad landlord,” Cohen said. “The laws that are out there haven’t helped.”

The pilot’s organizers hope he’s wrong.