Philadelphia is the only major market where you cannot go straight to court. City law requires every rent-arrears case through the Eviction Diversion Program first, and Municipal Court will not accept a filing without the completion notice — or without your rental license, signed lead certificate and Certificate of Rental Suitability. Here is what the process actually looks like, what it costs, and how long it really takes.
Eviction is sometimes unavoidable, but Philadelphia runs a longer and more document-heavy process than most cities. Before a case can be filed, the tenant has to be submitted to the City’s Eviction Diversion Program and that program has to run its course — a mandatory 30 days that does not exist in Bucks, Chester, Delaware or Montgomery Counties, or in any other market we serve.
Once diversion is complete, Philadelphia Municipal Court requires a specific set of documents before it will accept the filing. A missing rental license, an expired Certificate of Rental Suitability or a lapsed lead certificate will stop the case, and owners usually discover the problem at exactly the wrong moment. That is why BMG verifies compliance before an eviction is ever referred for filing.
This guide covers what Philadelphia owners can expect: the mandatory diversion step, the documents Municipal Court demands, realistic timelines, actual costs, and what BMG handles at each stage.
These are the three numbers that matter most before you start. All three are specific to Philadelphia — the suburban counties run faster because they have no diversion requirement
Mandatory diversion program before filing
A Philadelphia eviction runs through nine stages. The first two — notice and the Eviction Diversion Program — have to be completed before Municipal Court will even accept a filing, and together they account for the first month of the timeline.
Pennsylvania’s Landlord and Tenant Act sets a 10-day Notice to Quit for nonpayment of rent. The same statute lets a written lease shorten that period or waive it entirely, and most Pennsylvania residential leases do. BMG’s Philadelphia lease includes a waiver, so on a BMG-managed property the 10-day notice step does not apply and the case can move directly to the diversion program and then to filing.
If you use your own lease, this is the first thing to check. A waiver clause has to be in the signed lease. Without one, a 10-day Notice to Quit is required before a nonpayment case can proceed, and it has to be served correctly — the statute allows personal delivery to the tenant, leaving the notice at the principal building on the premises, or conspicuous posting at the property. Mail or email alone is not valid service under the statute. A defective notice is grounds for dismissal, and you lose the time the first case consumed.
What does not change either way is the Philadelphia layer. The tenant still has to be submitted to the Eviction Diversion Program, still receives hand-delivered notice of that submission, and delivery is still documented with photographs of the notice taped to the unit door and beneath the address number at the front door. No lease clause waives any of that.
This is where Philadelphia diverges from every other market. The resident’s information goes into the Eviction Diversion Program portal and the program runs for 30 days. There is no cost.
If the resident engages, EDP checks whether they qualify for the program’s Targeted Financial Assistance component. Where they do, the City makes a one-time payment directly to the owner to cover the resident’s rent arrears. EDP may also schedule a mediation call with the resident, the property manager and a housing counselor, held within 30 days, where the counselor works toward a payment plan.
TFA is worth understanding properly before you take it, because it changes the timeline far more than the 30-day program suggests. The payment itself can take 90 days or more to arrive. Once it is received, you cannot file for a further 60 days — and where the payment covers future months as well as arrears, that 60-day clock runs from after those future months have been applied. A case you expected to file a month after submission can end up five or six months out.
That is a real trade-off rather than a technicality. The assistance clears arrears you would likely never recover otherwise, and it arrives as money rather than a judgment you still have to enforce. What it costs is possession, for months. Which way that falls depends on whether the resident is likely to stay current once the balance is clear — if they are, TFA is the better outcome for everyone; if they are not, you have bought a delay.
If a plan is reached, the case ends there. If no plan is reached, or if the 30 days pass with no contact from the resident, EDP issues a Completion Notice. That notice is what unlocks the court filing. A resident only has to be submitted to the program once, so a Completion Notice can be kept on file if the eviction turns out not to be necessary.
With the Completion Notice in hand, the filing package goes to counsel. Philadelphia Municipal Court requires the lease, the tenant ledger, the rental license covering the whole period rent is being claimed for, the Certificate of Rental Suitability issued within 30 days of filing, the signed lead-safe certificate for any property built before 1978, and the EDP Completion Notice. Where the resident is responsible for utilities and has unpaid bills, those go in as well. The legal fee at filing is $650
The court schedules the hearing and the tenant is served with notice of the date. Philadelphia Municipal Court hears landlord-tenant cases, and current scheduling generally puts the first hearing about 30 days after filing.
BMG’s Director of Property Management attends every hearing alongside counsel, so the owner is represented without needing to appear. Four outcomes are possible, and the owner makes the final call on which route to take. These are covered in detail in the section below.
If the resident does not appear, the court enters a default judgment for possession. If the resident appears, the case most often resolves as a judgment by agreement — either a court-ordered payment plan or an agreed move-out date. If the resident contests, the judge decides possession.
A resident can appeal to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. In practice this is most often filed as a lockout approaches, and it is the single thing most likely to push a case past four months.
The writ of possession is filed 14 days after court. The legal fee for this stage is a further $650. The writ is the lockout order — without it, nothing happens.
The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Department carries out the lockout, typically 60 to 120 days after the writ is filed. This is the longest single stretch in the Philadelphia timeline and it is outside anyone’s control — it depends on the Sheriff’s schedule.
The reason for the eviction changes what has to happen before filing. In Philadelphia, one thing decides which route a case takes: whether it involves unpaid rent. Rent-arrears cases go through the Eviction Diversion Program before they can be filed. Purely non-monetary violations do not.”
The most common track, and in Philadelphia it starts earlier than owners expect. Rent is due on the first. Late fees apply on the sixth, and our office sends a delinquency notice the day after — that is an internal collection step, not a legal notice, and it exists because most balances get resolved at that stage without anything further happening.
If it does not resolve, the legal sequence begins. Pennsylvania’s default is a 10-day Notice to Quit, which BMG’s lease waives, so the next step on a BMG-managed property is submitting the resident to the Eviction Diversion Program. The 30-day program runs, and if it does not produce a payment plan or clear the balance, the Completion Notice allows a filing in Philadelphia Municipal Court.
One point worth understanding before you start: the 10-day notice period, where it applies, is not a cure period. Pennsylvania does not give a tenant the right to pay and stay during those ten days. The right to pay and remain comes later, and it is broader than most owners realize — see below.
The ledger carries a lot of weight in a nonpayment case. It goes to the court as part of the filing package and it needs to be accurate to the dollar: charges, payments, credits and dates.
Pennsylvania lets a tenant halt a nonpayment eviction by paying what is owed, and that right survives judgment. If the full amount due plus costs is paid at any point before the writ of possession is actually executed, the writ is superseded and the lockout does not happen.
The practical effect: an owner who has been through diversion, won at court, filed the writ and had a lockout date scheduled can still have the case end with a payment days beforehand. That is not a loophole, it is how the statute works, and it is worth knowing before you spend on the writ stage.
A breach of lease runs differently from nonpayment in two ways, and the second one is the more useful to know.
Pennsylvania’s default notice is 15 days where the lease is a year or less, including month-to-month, and 30 days where the lease runs longer. As with nonpayment, a written lease can shorten or waive those periods.
The bigger difference is the Eviction Diversion Program. Diversion is a rent-arrears process, so a genuinely non-monetary violation does not go through it — drugs, noise, unauthorised pets, unauthorised occupants and similar breaches go straight to a filing once the notice requirement is satisfied. That makes a violation case considerably faster than a nonpayment case, because the mandatory 30-day window simply does not apply.
Where a case involves unpaid rent as well as a breach, the money brings it back inside diversion. If you are pursuing both, expect the nonpayment timeline.
A holdover is a resident who stays after their legal right to occupy has ended — after a fixed-term lease expires, after a month-to-month tenancy is properly terminated, or after another lawful termination. Pennsylvania’s notice periods for ending a tenancy are the same as for lease violations: 15 days on a lease of a year or less, 30 days on a longer one, unless the lease provides otherwise.
The tenancy has to have been properly terminated and the required notice given before possession can be pursued.
What an owner must not do is handle it themselves. Changing locks, removing belongings or shutting off utilities is an unlawful self-help eviction. Philadelphia owners run into a version of this with squatters too — someone occupying a vacant unit is not a police matter, it is a court matter, and the removal still runs through the court process.
Philadelphia Municipal Court will not accept an eviction filing without a specific set of documents, and three of them are compliance documents rather than case documents. An owner who is behind on licensing cannot file at all — which means a compliance problem becomes an eviction problem at the worst possible moment.
A current, valid Philadelphia Rental License, held in the name of the correct legal owner. An eviction complaint cannot be filed without producing documentation of the Rental License and the Commercial Activity License. The Court asks for more than a current license — it wants the licenses covering the entire period for which rent is being claimed. A license that lapsed partway through a tenancy does not just create a compliance problem; it undercuts the arrears you are trying to recover for those months.
A Philadelphia Tax Account in the same legal entity as the license, and a Commercial Activity License — or an Activity License Number if you occupy the building and rent three units or fewer. If the tax account, the activity license and the rental license show different entities, the license itself is at risk, and so is the filing.
Two, and both have deadlines. The Certificate of Rental Suitability must be provided to the tenant and to the court, issued no more than 30 days before filing — and the 60-day version used at lease signing. And for any property built before 1978, a current signed lead-safe or lead-free certificate. Missing either one blocks the case and independently bars rent collection for the noncompliant period. Additionally, a missing or unsigned lead certificate allows the tenant to obtain a judgment for the rent paid during the period in which the certificate wasn't signed.
Two different things sit under this heading and they are easy to conflate. The first is the Pennsylvania Notice to Quit — 10 days for nonpayment, 15 or 30 days for a lease violation or end of term depending on lease length. BMG’s Philadelphia lease waives it, so it does not apply on our managed properties. If you are using your own lease and it has no waiver clause, the notice is required and must be served by personal delivery, by leaving it at the principal building on the premises, or by conspicuous posting. Email and regular mail do not satisfy the statute on their own. The second is the Notice of Diversion Rights — the bilingual English and Spanish notice explaining the tenant’s right to the Eviction Diversion Program. This is part of the standard Philadelphia tenant packet and should already have been provided at lease signing. Separately, the resident must receive the hand-delivered notice that they have been submitted to the program. Neither of these can be waived by a lease.
Philadelphia wants photographic proof. Delivery of the EDP notice is documented by uploading photographs of the notice taped to the unit door and beneath the front door address number. Keep those images — they are the evidence that the mandatory step was completed properly.
The EDP Completion Notice. This is the document that proves the mandatory diversion period ran, and without it the filing does not proceed. It is issued either when mediation fails to produce a plan, or when 30 days pass with no contact from the resident.
Missing any one of these delays the case or stops it outright. Requirements vary by property type, tenancy and reason for eviction, so every applicable item should be verified before filing rather than discovered at the counter.
A Philadelphia eviction that runs the full distance costs $1,200 to $1,600 all in. That is the whole thing — court, the writ, the Sheriff, and attending the lockout — not just the legal fees.
| Stage | Cost |
|---|---|
| Eviction Diversion Program | No cost |
| Court filing and hearing | $650 |
| Filing for the writ of possession | $400 |
| Sheriff’s cost for the writ of possession | $250 |
| Attending the lockout with the Sheriff | About $250 |
| Typical all-in | $1,200–$1,600 |
Two things sit outside that range. Lost rent, which in a case running four months will usually exceed every line above it combined. And clearing the unit afterwards — if the resident leaves belongings behind, disposal is the owner’s cost, though it can be charged to the tenant as damages and added to a judgment or pursued through collections.
The cost is also staged rather than paid up front. A case that resolves at or before the hearing stops at the first line. Roughly three quarters of our Philadelphia cases end without reaching a lockout, which means most owners never see the bottom of this table.
| Scenario | Timeline | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Best case | About 60 days | The resident vacates voluntarily rather than going through court |
| Typical | 120+ | 30 days diversion, 30 days waiting for court, 60 days to lockout |
| Worst case | 150 to 180 days | The resident appeals to the Court of Common Pleas as lockout approaches |
Two things, mostly. The Eviction Diversion Program can run past its 30 days when the payment assistance system is backed up — sometimes to 60. And residents request continuances: Philadelphia Municipal Court never reschedules sooner than 30 days out, and will often grant more than one.
The Sheriff’s lockout window is the other variable, at 60 to 120 days after the writ. Nothing an owner or a property manager does changes that.
Across BMG Philadelphia cases, about half end with the resident leaving voluntarily. A quarter end with the resident staying, through a judgment by agreement executed at the court appearance. A quarter reach a Sheriff lockout.
Three out of four cases therefore do not end in a lockout — but note where that quarter resolves. A judgment by agreement is reached at the hearing, not before it, so those cases have already been through diversion and already been filed. The court puts the resident on a payment plan covering regular rent plus an amount toward the balance, and if a payment is missed the lockout can be filed without returning to court.
That is a good outcome. The resident stays, the arrears get paid on an enforceable schedule, and you avoid the writ, the Sheriff and the turnover. It costs the filing stage to get there, which is why the cost of a Philadelphia eviction is staged rather than paid up front — a case ending in a judgment by agreement stops at the first $650 line.
Written notice must be given for abandoned personal property, giving the tenant 10 days to claim it. If the tenant responds within that window, the items must be stored for up to 30 days from the notice date. After 10 days with no response, or 30 days if stored, the property can be disposed of.
The final balance can be submitted to a collections agency. Be realistic about it — recovery rates on post-eviction balances are low, and a resident who could not pay rent generally cannot pay an old balance later either.
Yes. City law requires every case to go through the Eviction Diversion Program before it can be filed, for any case involving unpaid rent. Purely non-monetary violations — drugs, noise, unauthorized pets or occupants — are not subject to it and can be filed once the notice requirement is met. The program runs 30 days, costs nothing, and produces a Completion Notice that Philadelphia Municipal Court requires as part of the filing package. If you accept a Targeted Financial Assistance payment through the program, the timeline extends substantially: the payment can take 90 days or more to arrive, and you cannot file for 60 days after it is received. Properties outside Philadelphia are not subject to the program at all.
Yes. The two are unrelated. A lease waiver removes the Pennsylvania Notice to Quit; it does not affect Philadelphia’s requirement that any rent-arrears case go through the Eviction Diversion Program before filing. The program is City law and cannot be waived by agreement between a landlord and a tenant.
Pennsylvania’s default is a 10-day Notice to Quit for nonpayment, and 15 or 30 days for a lease violation or end of term depending on how long the lease runs. But the statute lets a written lease waive that notice, and most Pennsylvania leases do — including BMG’s. Where the notice does apply it must be hand-delivered, left at the principal building, or conspicuously posted; email and mail alone are not valid service.
About 120 days is typical, from first missed rent to having the unit back — roughly 30 days for diversion, 30 days waiting for a court date, and 60 days for the Sheriff to execute the lockout. Sixty days is realistic if the resident leaves voluntarily. An appeal to the Court of Common Pleas can push it to 150 or 180.
$1,200 to $1,600 all in for a case that runs to a lockout. That covers the court filing and hearing at $650, filing for the writ of possession at $400, the Sheriff’s cost for the writ at $250, and attending the lockout at around $250. The Eviction Diversion Program is free. Lost rent and clearing the unit afterwards are separate, and lost rent is usually the larger number.
No. An eviction complaint cannot be filed without producing documentation of both the Commercial Activity License and the Rental License. On top of that, you are not entitled to collect rent for any unlicensed period, and the City can fine you $300 per day. This is why we verify licensing before referring any case for filing.
The lease, the tenant ledger, the rental license covering the whole period rent is being claimed for, a Certificate of Rental Suitability issued within 30 days of filing, a signed lead-safe certificate for any property built before 1978, and the EDP Completion Notice. Unpaid utility bills that are the resident’s responsibility go in as well. Any one of them missing stops the filing.
No. BMG Philadelphia’s Director of Property Management attends every hearing alongside counsel so the owner is fully represented. Owners are not required to appear.
Most cases resolve without a contested hearing. If the resident does not appear, the court enters a default judgment. If they do appear, the common outcome is a judgment by agreement — either a court-ordered payment plan, where a missed payment allows a lockout filing without returning to court, or an agreed move-out date, typically 30 to 90 days out.
Yes, and later than most owners expect. If the tenant pays what is owed before the writ of possession is actually executed, the writ is superseded and the lockout does not go ahead. That means a case can end days before a scheduled lockout, after you have already paid for the court stage and the writ.
The Philadelphia Sheriff’s Department executes the lockout, 60 to 120 days after the writ is filed. For belongings left behind, written notice gives the tenant 10 days to claim them; if they respond, the items are stored up to 30 days from the notice date, after which they can be disposed of.
Screen consistently and keep compliance current. Most Philadelphia evictions trace back to one of two things: a resident who did not fully qualify at application, or an owner whose licensing lapsed and who then could not act when a problem started. Three quarters of our cases end without a lockout, and the ones that resolve fastest are the ones where the conversation started early.
We run the diversion submission and the notice posting with photographic proof, assemble the filing package, coordinate with counsel, attend every court hearing, and manage the Sheriff lockout scheduling and the post-lockout inspection. There is no BMG fee for eviction coordination — the only costs are legal fees and any maintenance technician charges to physically handle the lockout.
Three out of four Philadelphia cases we handle end without a lockout. The ones that resolve fastest are the ones where compliance was already in order and the conversation started early. Protect your rental investment with professional property management.