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READING — A group of activists wants Reading City Council to adopt a wide-ranging proposal aimed at protecting renters from being priced out of their homes or retaliated against for organizing.
Members of the Mayor Eddie Morán’s administration and City Council said they are open to the ideas in a proposed housing bill of rights, though they cautioned that some of them are beyond Reading’s control.
Even without any new ordinances, renters in Pennsylvania have rights they can assert regardless of the tenant protections in the municipality where they reside. Here’s what renters should know:
Basic rights in a lease
A decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1979 established that all tenants have a right to live in a safe and habitable home.
As a result, all Pennsylvania leases — whether oral or written — have to include an “implied warranty of habitability.” This means a landlord must provide a home that is safe, sanitary, and livable, and must keep it that way before move-in and throughout the tenancy by making the necessary repairs.
A rental unit is considered uninhabitable for reasons including a leaking roof, structurally unsafe spaces, lack of heat, faulty electrical wiring, a broken refrigeration system, insect or rodent infestations, lack of hot and cold running water, a non-functioning sewage system, and the inability to secure doors and windows with locks.
A landlord can’t compel a tenant to accept a rental unit “as is.” Even if a tenant signs a lease agreeing to accept serious defects at the time of move-in, the law still protects their right to a livable home.
The implied warranty of habitability allows tenants to take action if there is evidence that a landlord repeatedly refused to fix a serious issue. Actions include terminating a lease and moving out; withholding all or part of the rent; making repairs and deducting costs from rent payments; or suing the landlord.
With any of these remedies, it is crucial for tenants to gather sufficient documentation — such as photos, videos, emails, text messages, and code inspection reports — to show that a defect or issue made a rental unit uninhabitable. It is also important to document that a landlord has ignored or refused to ameliorate the bad living conditions at the property.
It may help to contact an attorney, legal aid, or a tenants rights organization before starting to withhold rent, according to these groups.
Before withholding rent, tenants must give the landlord written notice, which can be a letter, an email, or a text message. The notice should give the landlord reasonable time to respond and repair the problem.
What is considered “reasonable” depends on how serious the issue is, according to PALawHelp.org. For urgent issues, like a heat outage in the middle of winter or a burst pipe causing flooding, the landlord should respond within 24 hours. If a landlord does not respond or address the problem, tenants can begin withholding rent and placing it in an escrow account.
Riquan King, director of advocacy at the Philadelphia-based Tenant Union Representative Network, advises tenants to put withheld rent into a savings account because it is easier to pull bank statements and generate a clean paper trail proving that only rent money is being deposited into that account.
If that’s not possible, the next best option is to put the rent amount into money orders and save the receipts.
King usually advises tenants against keeping a cash escrow, because it is risky to carry around and difficult to document. If the only proof in court is an unverified photo of a pile of money on a table, a judge would not be able to reliably tell where the money came from, he said.
“No matter what is happening, if you show up to court without your rent properly set aside, the judge will not listen to you,” King said. “It doesn’t matter that you got a flat tire in your car. It doesn’t matter that you need to buy your diabetes medication. It doesn’t matter that you need to put your kid in daycare. If you spend a penny of this thing, your case becomes that much more harder.”
Renters also have the basic right to quiet enjoyment, which means they should be able to enjoy a home peacefully without the landlord regularly showing up unannounced or allowing disruptions that impact their quality of life.
In short, any protection, requirement, or process outlined in the Landlord and Tenant Act or in Pennsylvania common law can’t be waived with lease language.
>>>READ MORE: Legal barriers keep Reading from enacting some tenant protections advocates seek
‘Self-help’ evictions aren’t allowed
So-called “self-help eviction” is illegal in all 50 states. It usually involves a landlord showing up to take possession of a property when a tenant is not home, changing locks, throwing out or removing a tenant’s belongings, shutting off utilities, and blocking access to a property.
Tenants can respond by calling the police to report the illegal eviction. Proof of residence — such as a lease or rent receipts — may be required to get an officer to order the landlord to restore entry into the property. Attorneys or legal aid organizations can also advise tenants on how to regain access to the property and take legal action against the landlord.
Rules may differ for “rooming houses,” buildings where rooms are rented individually to unrelated tenants.
The Landlord and Tenant Act exempts hotel guests and boarders in boarding houses from its standard protections, which is why some guidance says that an owner may padlock a door to a room if rent is not paid. However, courts typically will pay more attention to the facts of the case and less to what the landlord calls the residence, asking questions such as, “How long has the resident lived there?” Or, “Is it the person’s sole residence and do they receive mail there?”
According to MidPenn Legal Services, a tenant living long-term in a motel room or renting out a single room may still qualify to only be evicted through a court process.
The right to legal counsel
Under the Pennsylvania Landlord and Tenant Act, leases can’t have clauses that strip an occupant’s legal rights. Both tenants and landlords have a right to seek representation in legal proceedings.
Similarly, a landlord can’t make a tenant give up the right to a hearing in court.
Berks County tenants who need legal advice can contact MidPenn Legal Services’ central intake system at (800) 326-9177 or fill out an application for legal aid online.
Normal maintenance and repairs
A landlord is responsible for keeping up with routine maintenance of a property, which includes fixing cracks in the wall, making sure utilities and smoke alarms work, and scheduling extermination if there are pest problems. That responsibility derives from the implied warranty of habitability.
However, landlords will sometimes argue that regular wear and tear or preexisting damage was caused by a tenant. That is why tenants need to take photos and thoroughly document the condition of an apartment as soon as they move in.
Tenants are required to pay for damages to a property beyond normal wear and tear, including broken windows, large holes in the walls, or serious clogs.
Here are some additional resources on tenant rights:
- Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania: Guide to tenant rights in Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network: PALawHelp.org
- Repair & Deduct – Tenant’s Right to a Safe and Decent Home
- Your Right to a Safe Home
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