Tenant changed locks on roommate . Any legal issues for owner?

[Marie Kyle]

Hello BP family, here's the situation:

I have a tenant renting a single family property and a roomate who is not on the lease. Subletting is allowed by the tenants lease, but tenant never went through property steps with landlord to bring in a roommate (application, approval, etc). 

 The tenant claimed he lost the keys to his the property, got a locksmith to change locks and provided owner with a set of keys.  The issue? The true reason for the lock change was to lockout the roomate. Apparently the tenant recently had some issues with the roomate, including multiple month of non-payment of rent, so the tenant decided to "lockout" the roomate by putting the roomates items on the porch and not providing the roomate with a new set of keys. 

My understanding is that the roomate never signed a sublet lease with the tenant or a normal lease with the owner. My question is - could this lockout cause issues for the owner in anyway?

[Joe P.]

How long has this been going on? Did you know about the roommate?

While I'm not a lawyer, and I know that's the focus of your questions, but I have other concerns about this situation:

• How long it's been going on? And did you know about it?
• The tenant lied to you about the locks change - he/she should not be initiating this because there is a probably an alteration clause in your lease.
• He/she did not follow the appropriate steps to sublet, again, lying/misleading you.
• What is the situation between these two? In most states you cannot place someone's belongings on the porch even if they aren't on the lease. My very limited knowledge comes from TV - I've seen cases on LivePD where someone was living in a residence -- "making a home" and someone tried to kick them out. Even though they weren't officially on the lease, in that particular state/county, they couldn't be shut out. If this is Philadelphia, I would imagine that similar rules apply.

There may not be any apparent legal issues, other than the need to evict your non-compliant tenant for creating a seemingly large issue. But as always, you should consult an eviction lawyer and pay them for the 15-30 minute phone call this might be if the legality question even enters your mind. Most will give a free consultation.

If I'm a judge and I hear this case, I'm starting to point the finger at the landlord for not being aware, or being aware and not doing anything about it.