(1) Self-Help Eviction Practices.
(a) Self-help eviction practices are actions by a landlord or landlords' agents taken without legal process to dispossess or attempt to dispossess a tenant from a dwelling unit or engaging or threatening to engage in any other conduct which prevents or is intended to prevent a tenant(s) from lawfully occupying their dwelling unit. Such self- help eviction practices include, but are not limited to, the following activity: plugging, changing, adding or removing any lock or latching device to a dwelling unit or otherwise blocking access to the unit; removing windows and doors from a dwelling unit; interfering with utility services to the unit, including, but not limited to, electricity, gas, hot or cold water, heat, or telephone service; forcing a tenant to vacate by the use of force or threat of violence or injury to a tenant's person or property; by engaging in any other activity or pattern of activity rendering a dwelling unit or any part thereof inaccessible.
(b) Self-help eviction practices include the failure to take reasonable and prompt remedial action to restore access and habitability to a dwelling unit following any incident of the landlord conduct described in subsection (1)(a) above.
(2) Landlord. The term "landlord" as used in this Chapter includes the lessor of any residential dwelling unit.
(3) Dwelling Unit. The term "dwelling unit" as used in this Chapter includes any building or structure, or part of a building or structure, which is used for living or sleeping by human occupants, subject to the licensing requirements of Chapter 7-500 1180 of The Philadelphia Code.
(4) Tenant. The term "tenant" as used in this Chapter shall include any person or persons in possession of a dwelling unit for a week-to-week term or any longer term by virtue of a written or oral agreement with a landlord. The term "tenant" shall include, for purposes of this ordinance, a purchaser under an installment land sales contract as defined in 68 P.S. § 903, 1965, June 8, P.L. No. 81, § 3. The term shall not include a traveler or transient guest in a hotel or motel.
Notes
| 1180 | Referenced material now appears in Title 4, Subcode PM, Chapter 1. |