Judge orders Gas Company liens on rental properties invalid!

[Max T.]

In Philadelphia the Gas Utility (PGW) is publicly owned, and therefore, able to place liens on real property.

In the past PGW has placed liens on rental properties due to gas charges in the tenants' name.

It looks like this is changing. See article below:

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Judge-declar...

[Alan Delfiner]

It is about time that Adolph Hitler stopped beating the landlord and blaming him for the deadbeat tenants.

[Max T.]

Alan Delfiner , I don't think its appropriate to relate Hitler to PGW. Doing so trivializes what Hitler actually did and is disrespectful to the victims and their families.

[Andy D.]

@Alan Delfiner Yeah, that was a really stupid comment! Could have very easily been worded differently and still would have brought your point across just fine. Not to mention that no one is blaming the owner: it's the owner's property. Guess who is responsible for one's property...? Yeah, the owner. Not the tenant.

One could, however, very easily argue that gas/utilities should not be considered tied to the property and therefore not the owner's responsibility but the user's (which it is, prima facie, anyway). Then again, if you get a ticket for speeding (from an automated system rather than from a cop pulling you over) then the bill is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle. That person will be held responsible if the actual driver can't be bothered. Same principle. Well, almost, they typically don't impound the car...

@Max T. I'm not so sure this is actually going to help for the future, really. Because there is one important sentence in that article: "The legality of the city’s practice of placing liens on properties for unpaid bills is not affected by the decision - only the method by which PGW dunned landlords for tenant bills."

The way I understand this is that it's not actually the fact of placing liens on the properties that is the problem. It's how PGW did it. Now, why the how is the actual problem I don't know (haven't read anything else besides the article). Maybe it's their automated approach. Since PGW will appeal this anyway we need to see the actual outcome. Furthermore, I doubt that this will affect other state with respect to it being a precedent for other courts.

[Max T.]

@Andy D.

All cities are able to place liens on real property. This is the primary enforcement for collection of unpaid property taxes.

Some cities also are able to do this with utilities if the utility company is a branch of the local government (like PGW). This is no problem in the case of owner-occupants, but is morally problematic when the utilities are in the name of someone other than the property owner (tenant). There is something "off" with the idea of charging someone for services they did not contract for or use.

Private utility companies cannot do this. For example, PECO is the electricity provider in our area. They are not able to place liens on property due to unpaid electric charges in a tenant's name. 

As for your analogy with the traffic ticket - I have heard of people successfully fighting these in court with the defense of, "That was not me driving."