The Philadelphia Sheriff is pushing to double the size of the eviction unit, and honestly, this is one of the more interesting pieces of news to come out of City Hall in a while. Why? Because while a lot of recent tenant rights legislation in Philadelphia has been adversely affecting landlords and property management companies like mine, the Sheriff’s Department is taking a totally different approach. They’re saying they can’t keep up — and they’re seeing firsthand the devastation done to landlords because of it.
I’ll be upfront: I doubt she gets what she’s asking for. Not every politician sees what her department sees. But she sees it. And so do I.
The Wait Time Problem for Philadelphia Landlords
Here’s how it works once you’ve won your case in Philadelphia Landlord Tenant Court. You get your judgment. The judge agrees — you have the right to remove this tenant from your property. Great. Except now you have to get on the Sheriff’s Department waiting list for the actual lockout.
And that list is long. You’ve done everything right. You went through court. You got a judge to rule in your favor. And now you’re waiting an incredible amount of time just to have the sheriff show up so you can actually take possession of your property.
That’s the bottleneck the Sheriff is trying to fix.
The Sheriff’s Department Is Actually Great to Work With
I’ll say this — when we engage with the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Department, they’re not like any other Philadelphia government entity. They’re compassionate. They’re professional. They’re helpful. They’re as gentle as they can be with the tenants, and they’re great with us. It’s a high-quality experience on every level.
And I think because they’re the ones physically showing up at these properties, they’re seeing exactly what landlords are dealing with on the back end of an eviction.
What Evictions Actually Cost Philadelphia Landlords
My property management company does about three evictions a month. That’s not a lot, and to be clear — we’re almost never evicting tenants we placed ourselves. Owners come to us in distress. They used another property management company, or a real estate agent placed the tenant, or they placed the tenant themselves, and it went sideways. They reach out to us to straighten it out, and that often means an eviction.
What I can tell you from doing this for years is that the cost of a Philadelphia eviction breaks down into three buckets, and they’re all roughly comparable:
- Lost rent while the tenant is non-paying and through the eviction process
- Legal fees to get the judgment and the lockout
- Repairs to the property after you finally get possession back
If you’re going through an eviction in Philadelphia, do not just budget for lost rent and legal fees. Budget for substantial repairs. The property damage piece is real, and it’s often as expensive as everything else combined. This is one of the big reasons I always tell owners that proper tenant screening is the single most valuable thing you can do as a landlord — because the alternative is brutal.
What the Sheriff Is Really Seeing
Here’s the part most people don’t talk about. When tenants get evicted — meaning they let it go all the way through court, took a judgment against their credit, and made the Sheriff come remove them — there are almost always mental health issues involved. This isn’t somebody being transactional. This isn’t somebody being greedy. Healthy people don’t typically destroy their lives over a rent payment.
What the sheriffs are walking into at these lockouts is genuinely heartbreaking. Filth everywhere. Cockroaches. Mice. Bedding on the floor. We’ve seen evidence of children sleeping in closets. And this is regardless of the quality of the property — these conditions show up in nice houses too. You could trash-pick better furniture than what’s inside some of these units.
That’s what the Sheriff’s Department is seeing every day. And I think that’s why she’s pushing for more resources. She sees the human cost on the tenant side and the financial devastation on the landlord side, and her department is stuck in the middle without the staff to move things along.
I’m Not Anti-Tenant Rights — But This One I Agree With
I want to be clear here. I’m not anti-tenant rights. I’m not even necessarily against the new Philadelphia tenant legislation — I’ll talk about that in a different episode. More often than not, I actually see bad property owners more than I see bad tenants. When I’m sitting in Philadelphia Landlord Tenant Court, I hear horrible owners say horrible things out loud and I’m thinking, you’re going to jail, you should not have said that.
But on this specific issue, I’m with the Sheriff. If you have a judgment — if a Philadelphia judge has ruled that a person no longer has the right to be in your property — it is law enforcement’s responsibility to enforce that ruling in a timely manner. That’s the deal.
The current Sheriff’s Department can only do so much. They have a finite budget and a finite number of officers. The officers they do have are stellar. They just need more of them.
What This Means for Philadelphia Rental Property Owners
If this proposal goes through, it could be one of the few recent moves in Philadelphia that actually helps landlords. Faster lockouts mean less lost rent, less time the property is being damaged, and a faster path to getting a new tenant in place.
If it doesn’t go through — which is what I expect — then plan accordingly. Avoiding evictions in the first place through real screening and proper management is still your best play. Once you’re in the eviction process in Philadelphia, you’re in for a long, expensive ride, and the Sheriff’s waiting list is part of that math.
I’m hopeful she gets the resources she’s asking for. I’m not holding my breath, but I’m rooting for her.
This is Joe White with Grow Property Management, just one humble Philadelphia property management company owner doing my best to answer your rental property investing questions. As always, happy rental property investing.
