Evicting a tenant without proper licenses

[Account Closed]

I am looking for help on a sensitive issue. I have a tenant that is not paying in a property for which I did not get all of the licenses. In Philadelphia, if you do not have all of the licenses on a specific property, you cannot legally evict someone. Anyone have any advice?

[Ethan Giller]

@Account Closed Yes, I self-manage (with my team) my rental properties which are all located in Philadelphia.  You can apply for a rental license and rental suitability cert same-day online in most cases.  You're correct that most of the time you won't be able to file for back rent for the time period where you didn't have the licenses but you can still obtain them now and use them to file for possession.  Just be careful because without the rental suitability cert then legally you're not entitled to any rent so we have seen judges reverse all rent previously paid to a landlord who didn't provide that to a tenant at move-in.  Email me directly (email in profile) if you want.  You can try cash for keys but there shouldn't be any reason in to operate without the correct licenses in Philly because you're just putting yourself at risk.