Protecting Tenants in Allegheny County: Anti-Retaliation Ordinance Becomes Law in Advocacy Win for the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table.

A newly enacted bill in Allegheny County, the “Residential Tenant Protections for Retaliation Ordinance,” gives tenants who exercise their rights to safe and healthy housing important protections against landlord retaliation.

While Pennsylvania law gives tenants who are living in unsafe or unhealthy housing certain legal rights – such as the right to withhold their rent until the defective conditions are repaired – it also allows landlords to refuse to renew a lease for any reason or for no reason at all. As a result, tenants are often reluctant to exercise their legal rights out of fear of losing their home.

The new law protects tenants who exercise their legal rights to safe and healthy housing, including filing a complaint with code officials, forming or joining a tenant union, withholding their rent or speaking to the media about housing conditions. Under this legislation, if a landlord takes an adverse action against a tenant after the tenant’s exercise of legal rights, the landlord must provide evidence that the action is based on legitimate grounds and not retaliation. The law does not prevent eviction for good cause – unjustifiably failing to pay rent, causing significant property damage, and causing significant adverse impact on neighbors or to the financial or physical security of the property are still grounds for eviction - but landlords are no longer able to simply refuse to renew a lease or selectively enforce a lease provision in retaliation for a tenant asserting their legal rights.