In recent years, there has been a growing concern regarding legal protections for property owners against squatters. “Squatters” are defined as individuals who occupy a living space without the owner’s approval. Pennsylvania law allows squatters to obtain the title to a property if they can prove that they have lived there openly, hostilely, and notoriously for an uninterrupted period of twenty-one years. This process is called “adverse possession.”
Despite the rarity of successful adverse possession cases, squatting has increased in Pennsylvania. Even before the adverse possession ripens, squatting causes property owners time and financial strains: because many law enforcement agencies in PA (like police in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) consider whether an occupant is a legal tenant with rights to remain in the property to be a “civil matter,” so those agencies won’t remove squatters as trespassers. Property owners cannot rent their properties to others, perform necessary maintenance, move into the property themselves, or even sell the property. Act 88 of 2024, amending the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 (68 P.S. §§ 250.101 et seq) (LTA), addresses these issues. Act 88 makes a clear distinction between a “tenant” and a “squatter”, frees landlords from eviction proceedings against those who are not tenants, and definitively excludes individuals not classified as tenants from the LTA’s protections.
Act 88 clarifies who is a “tenant” in Pennsylvania law, defining a “tenant” as an individual who occupies another person’s property and has the owner’s “express or implied consent” to live there (LTA § 102). The bill outlines that occupants can receive “consent” by written or oral leases from the owner. Alternatively, property owners can give “consent” for occupancy by accepting rent payment themselves or through an agent (LTA § 102). If a property owner or that owner’s agent cashes an occupant’s payment, this shows consent. This new definition effectively deems any individual occupying a property without the permission of the property’s owner—as granted by a lease or through accepted payments—as a “squatter” and not as a “tenant.” This is expected to allow owners to demand that law enforcement agencies treat squatters as trespassers and remove them without any civil eviction because they do not have a legal status as a “tenant” under the LTA.
Act 88 also makes clear that “notice to quit” (eviction) requirements do not apply to anyone “who is not, nor ever has been, a tenant” (LTA § 501). This means that landlords no longer need to provide a written eviction notice to squatters or proceed with an eviction.
Finally, Act 88 also adds a new section to the LTA that excludes any “person who is not, nor ever has been, a tenant” (LTA § 603) from the tenancy protections of the LTA. All of these provisions make the intent of the Act unambiguous: Anyone who is not a tenant, per the new definition (squatters!), will not have the same legal protections as actual tenants.
The bill was signed by Governor Shapiro on July 17, 2024, and will take effect sixty days from then on September 15, 2024. The clarification of squatters’ legal status combined with the establishment of clear and uniform guidelines for property owners to remove squatters will benefit property owners across the Commonwealth.
Our firm offers free consultations to review matters involving the removal of squatters and tenants from your property. Call or email today for a free consultation.
