A screen shot from the Philadelinquency map (see full map below).
Philadelphia has a lot of tax deadbeats. As West Philly-based journalist Patrick Kerkstra wrote, there is a “culture of non-payment” that has cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. One brand of delinquent is the landlord who allows tax bills to pile up while still charging tenants rent. Christopher Sawyer has created a helpful way to identify them.
Sawyer, an “anti-blight activist” in Kensington, has produced a very useful tool over at his site, Philadelinquency, that has taken delinquent tax records and matched them with rental property licenses to produce a database of delinquent landlords. To make this information more helpful, he has plotted all of the delinquencies on a clickable Google map. When you click on a pin you get the Office of Property Assessment account number, contact information, Licenses and Inspections history and amount owed.
As you might have guessed, no section of the city has more delinquent landlords than West Philadelphia.
Across the city more than 4,500 properties have a delinquent balance of more than $100 and 1,178 property owners owe enough in back taxes to be brought to sheriff’s sale. The total amount owed is about $13.36 million.
We’ve embedded the Philadelinquency map below. The map is movable and clickable. To see West Philly properties grab it and drag it to the right, then click the + in the upper left to zoom in to a specific area.
Be sure to keep an eye on Sawyer’s site for more future info and data crunching.
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Wow! This is incredible. Way to make people accountable! Love it.
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:25 pm
more than $100? we’re seriously going to villify people who owe the city a couple hundred dollars? i understand that it adds up, but the city is mismanaging our tax dollars so egregiously that i find it insulting and bizarre that we’re demonizing our fellow community members who owe the city some chump change in a hard economic time.
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:41 pm
We’re not talking about owner-occupied properties here. If you’re actively renting your property and making money from it, there’s little excuse to stiff the city.
October 23rd, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Awwww, rgl is ‘insulted’ that landlords who do not pay their property taxes are being called out publicly. Which building is yours, rgl?
I think delinquent landlords deserve to be more than just ‘vilified’. If they don’t pay their taxes within one month of the due date, their building should be seized and auctioned to the public. No exceptions. The money raised from the sale can go to, I don’t know, let’s say after-school programs for kids.
Good work, Mr. Sawyer.
October 23rd, 2012 at 4:48 pm
I didn’t know that there was a corporate slumlord operating on my block until I looked at this. Thanks!
October 23rd, 2012 at 5:25 pm
I wish they would make them pay up first then ‘adjusting’ (aka, increasing) our property taxes…
October 23rd, 2012 at 8:24 pm
rgl, there’s a location on this map that owes over $43k. I’m sure it started out as just a couple hundred dollars.
October 24th, 2012 at 10:22 am
I was prepared to be really angry at Neighborhood Restorations but then I read this:
http://planphilly.com/flawed-delinquency-records-abound
October 24th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
This makes perfect sense. My landlord still owes me last and security three months after I’ve moved out. Good to see that she owes around 3,000 to the city… Ughh disgusting
October 24th, 2012 at 10:01 pm
K- if your security deposit isn’t returned (or an itemized list of damages) to you within 30 days of moving out, your landlord is legally required to pay you twice the amount of it.
October 25th, 2012 at 4:18 am
Arden, where does one find that law? I’m in that situation with my security deposit, and wouldn’t mind holding my old landlord accountable.
October 25th, 2012 at 9:41 am
Oh, there are plenty of other reasons to be angry with Neighborhood Restorations…such as not screening tenants well and refusing to deal with problem tenants that are violating the terms of the lease with their criminal activity.