Housing
PLA's legal services help clients stay in their homes. We advise thousands of homeowners each year about what they need to do to avoid losing their homes to mortgage foreclosure or real estate tax foreclosure. In a limited number of cases, we defend mortgage foreclosure cases in court or represent clients in Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases.
Clients who rent from a private landlord, or live in public housing, or have problems with public utilities should contact Community Legal Services instead of PLA. (At PLA, only the Pennsylvania Farmworker Project helps with landlord-tenant matters.)
Categories Within Housing
How to get help with Housing
The following departments at PLA provide legal assistance with Housing:
Self-Help Resources
Community Legal Services offers legal information, advice and/or representation in the following areas:
- Foreclosure (when the bank or the city sells your home at sheriff sale because you did not make your mortgage or real estate tax payments)
- Forfeiture (when the government takes your home because the property was used for drug activity)
- Home Repair
- Inheritance
- Licenses and Inspections
- Mortgages
- Neighbor Disputes
- Property Taxes
- Rent-To-Own Agreements (when you agree with a landlord that you will own your property after renting it for a period of time, also known as installment sales agreements)
- Reverse Mortgages (mortgages for seniors that allow them to receive payments instead of making payments -- this is for seniors whose home is worth much more than they still owe)
- Landlord-Tenant Private Housing
- Subsidized Housing (Section 8, Philadelphia Housing Authority)
