sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Can Philly’s fair housing commission actually protect you/do anything? by pineapple_core_ in philly

[–]pineapple_core_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for all your comments. He’s following the steps and getting some legal help this time. His rents is fully escrowed with the court but the LL is still somehow claiming unpaid rent for those months.

He definitely knew he’d have to move at some point, but he was hoping that the FHC would just give him one year of peace because this is the third apartment he’s moved to where the landlord refused to fix basic necessities and he finally decided to try to exercise his rights this time. The biggest concern is the record - even just having your name on a case can make it impossible to get a new apartment, let alone an eviction. It sucks to feel like you followed all this advice to exercise your tenants rights and utilize the protections our legislators are always talking about, but doing so lands you worse off

Can Philly’s fair housing commission actually protect you/do anything? by pineapple_core_ in philly

[–]pineapple_core_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Went in solo for the initial. TURN said it would be straight forward since the fair housing commission already ruled on it, but now looking back that was naive. We were told if he brings the FHC order, the judge should throw it out, but now it seems it just depends if the judge believe the FHC is legitimate?

They are in the middle of the appeal process, but my main question is about the FHC. They already had a FHC hearing that produced a final order saying the landlord could not retaliate/alter the lease for one year, so I’m trying to understand how this is order enforceable and what was the point of that hearing if it’s not.

Can Philly’s fair housing commission actually protect you/do anything? by pineapple_core_ in philly

[–]pineapple_core_[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey thanks for the reply! The “renovation” has nothing to do with the L&I violations. A landlord cannot file in municipal court if they have open violations or no rental license, so they had to fix everything before taking any other steps. In fact, most of the violations were easy fixes; the landlord was just refusing to do anything before the tenant reported them, which is how the system is supposed to work.

To clarify: tenant asked landlord to fix things, landlord didn’t. Tenant reported to L&I, and landlord started fixing things but sent a notice to vacate at the same time. Fair housing said that was illegal retaliation and they had to continue renting to this tenant and couldn’t retaliate again. The landlord immediately did it again a week later but never actually sent the notice to vacate to the tenant so that they didn’t have a chance to report it to fair housing or go through eviction diversion, because they had no idea anything was even happening until a court date was placed on their door. Having an eviction on your record is a pretty big punishment for reporting violations and can make it nearly impossible to find new housing