About & limits
What this is, and what it isn't.
This is information about your rights, not legal advice. Using CasaVault doesn't make us your lawyer. For advice about your own situation, call the Philly Tenant Hotline on (267) 443-2500 or visit PhillyTenant.org.
Why it exists
In Philadelphia eviction court, most landlords turn up with a lawyer and most renters don't. The city's free-lawyer programme only covers about ten zip codes, so nearly everyone else is on their own — usually with no record of the repairs they asked for, the notices they were sent, or what the place looked like when they moved in.
Landlords with one or two properties are often in the same position, with no lawyer and no paperwork.
Neither side usually loses because they're wrong. They lose because they can't prove it.
Who it's for
Renters and small landlords, equally. The same rules apply to both of you — a 30-day deadline is a renter's right and a landlord's obligation, and it's the same rule either way. You can switch between reading it from the renter's side or the landlord's side.
What it won't do
It won't give you legal advice
It tells you what the law says and where to read it. What to actually do about your situation is a question for a lawyer or a tenant advocate.
It only covers Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
Rental law is local. Everything here is built on Philadelphia and Pennsylvania rules and would be wrong somewhere else, so we don't pretend to cover anywhere else.
It won't guess
When you ask a question, the answer can only come from your own documents and the rules we check. If neither answers it, you get told so and given a phone number. That's on purpose. A confident wrong answer about your housing is worse than no answer.
It won't tell you whether you'll win
Predicting the outcome of a case is exactly the kind of thing this tool refuses to do. It can show you what your records say and what the rules say. A judge decides the rest.
It won't show you a rule we're unsure of
Some rules we know exist but haven't yet pinned to an exact source. Those stay switched off and never appear in your results, even when they'd have matched.
It can't look up your landlord's licence
Whether a landlord holds a current Philadelphia rental licence is one of the most useful things to know, but it lives in City records and never appears in a lease. We flag it as something to go and check, and tell you where.
Your records and who can see them
When you start, you get a private link. Anyone with that link can see and edit that record, so treat it like a key — and anyone you send the separate read-only link to can see the record but can't change it.
Signing in is optional. It doesn't lock anything down or open anything up; it just remembers which records you made so you can find them later without keeping the links.
Your documents are stored so you can download them again, and the computer that reads them only does so to pull out the facts listed on the rules page. Please don't upload anything you wouldn't want sitting on a web service — this is a young project, not a bank.
Getting real help
- Philly Tenant Hotline — (267) 443-2500. Free legal help if you're in a covered zip code and under the income limit. Your immigration status doesn't affect whether you qualify.
- PhillyTenant.org — guides and referrals for everyone else.
- Community Legal Services of Philadelphia — free civil legal help, including housing.