State Specific Question About: PENNSYLVANIA (PA)

tenant appealed the DJ award of back rent. This was cut and dry - no question the money was due. Judge saw through this "professional" tenants poorly veiled excuses.

Tenant appeals the judgement. Never had a judgement appealed before and finding next steps to be unclear.

Is this something I can pursue myself in PA or, do I need professional help?

Thank you

never have had anyone file. I seem to remember it's different procedures - one for possession and one for monetary. I do know they need to e paying the prothonotary monthly and if not, you can get it dismissed. also you can petition the court monthly to release the rent to you.

Scott,

Depends. What letter/instructions did you receive from the court? I don't know YOUR system so I'll comment about mine.

-upset evictees like to do this. It's free here so we see it often.

-Judges HATE for their decisions to be questioned. So the appealler has an uphill climb. (I'll be back and judges never die so I do not appeal!)

-one format is to conduct another hearing. MY court/judge asks "No new info can be presented. Of the information presented in the original hearing, what was the court's error?"

-Sometimes the court asks the parties to respond by mail.

-Sometimes the court reviews their request and denies it. Done.

What letter/instructions did you receive from the court?

BRAD

Thanks Brad,

Sorry for the confusion; the district judge awarded in my favor. Tenant appealed.

Notice of appeal came to me with instructions to file a complaint with the County Prothonatary. I did so but,

This County Prothonatary) is the black hole of information/procedures to move forward.

I have had a couple of tenants file appeals from evictions. They are supposed to post a bond to prevent the Sheriff from proceeding with the eviction, but I have never had a tenant post an appeal bond. However, the Sheriff would not proceed even though there was no bond.

In my appeals, I did not have to file anything. The Court reviewed the appeal, and dismissed the appeal without requiring me to file any papers at all. It just delayed my eviction by about two or three weeks.

Scott - you already filed the Complaint? did it have the proper notice, verification, etc? Had the sheriff serve the defendants? you don't want to be thrown out for procedural errors.

I never thought about it but I just assumed the magistrate's order was appealed. Seems if you must file a new complaint that you're starting over.

So ... you file. they have 20 days to respond. if they don't, they get another 10 day notice. if they still don't answer, you can file for a default judgment. if they respond, I guess you put the case on the arbitration list. definitely need a lawyer to navigate you through this.

I've never had a tenant appeal a judgement either. I do know that they have to put the full amount of judgement in escrow with the court in order to appeal. I would check to make sure that has happened, someone in the court system will answer if they have put up the cash.

I don't know anything about PA.

Generally, an appeal involves more complex procedure, such as written briefs rather than simply making just another appearance for another judge to make a second opinion.

You may want to hand the matter over to a competent attorney.

I actually have had a couple appeals over the years. If you are in the game long enough, you will see how experienced tenants try and exercise gamesmanship.

You will know of an appeal because of the notice of appeal that will be sent to you. For the appeal to move forward the tenant will have to post the judgement amount with the county courthouse or claim to be indigent. Have they posted funds yet? In one of my cases, they never went any further than filing the appeal. The appeal was stuck in the system as a dead case for about 5 years before the courts threw it out. The tenants didn't have the funds so it just stayed stalled out. I could have speed it up by hiring an attorney, but there was no reason as I had possession already. The only thing I couldn't do was file the judgement at the courthouse during that time.

Most tenants screw up the appeal by only appealing the judgement and not the possession. If that is the case, you can kick them out as you normally would in part two and part three of the eviction process. You will not get the judgement amount, but you got the keys - that is what matters.

If they did not screw this up, seek legal council and push the court for release of funds based on current rent being due. You will slowly squeeze the tenant as the court will collect rent for the period that the case is in the system. It will normally take about six weeks to get pushed through if it is an active case.

I haven't had a tenant ever win a case using this strategy. As soon as they learn they have to pay the court, they bail out. The one case that did go forward, the tenant claimed how bad the place was.......our defense was - you were evicted and are choosing to still live there....how bad can it possibly be?

The bad news for you.....there is a 1/5 chance it will cost you $1,200 to can them. Unless they tenant can prove the first judge was exercising poor judgement - you have a 100% chance of winning, but the victory will be bitter sweet.

I had one appeal a few years back. Here they either have to post an appeal bond or file a paupers affidavit (guess which they chose?). Either way they're suppose to deposit the rent with the court, which they didn't. The property code is crystal clear on this so I thought I would educate the judge by bringing it to his attention. Not my finest moment as it seems Judges don't appreciate being lectured on the law.

Scott, please report back periodically ... I assume you'll win in the end because it's kind of cut & dried - rent is paid or it's not paid ... but maybe the rest of us in PA can learn at least the general procedure through your experience.

Interesting finding so far; many of us long time LLs have never had to deal with an appeal.

For now, looks like I need an attorney to maneuver through legal minutiae that is kept a guarded secrete in PA. This, when there is no question that rent is owed and remains unpaid. Pretty sad when a professional tenant is supported by the legal system that is supposed to be fair to both parties.

I could have certainly hired an attorney and moved the time line along in my case......but why. In the appeal, you become the defendant and the tenant needs to prove that you did something wrong that was mis-judged or misunderstood by the DJ. In a pay and you stay case, I can't think of an appeal ever working out.

The only reason why I would have had to hired an attorney is if I was betting that the judgement would be collectable. I already had possession when the appeal occurred (which after the writ of possession was issued but not before the 10 day waiting period - between steps 2 and 3).

Rarely will I ever throw good money toward bad money. I just cut my losses with that tenant and you fix the place up and rent it out again.

following up on progress for reference

Hired an attorney - should of done this sooner but, my stubborn nature said, "why hire an attorney when I have done nothing wrong". The answer - the appeal process is full of cryptic requirements, Latin jargon and other meaningless verses slanted in favor of the appeal that only an attorney could maneuver through and around.

Attorney was able to have the appeal dismissed as Tenant did not put up the required fees. Hate to think what would have happened if they did put up the fees but, another reason to hire an attorney sooner than later.

Now we are required to wait 10 more days before eviction can proceed.

Attorney tells me that this (after 10 days) is the end for tenant unless, they file for bankruptcy. Which (she says) is unlikely because bankruptcy attorneys will want cash up front before filing bankruptcy.

Hoping this is not a new trend with deadbeat tenants - after 25 years of land-lording this was our first appeal