Philadelphia Law Firm Faces Claims of Improper Rent Collection, Eviction

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Attorney Glenn M. Ross and his law firm, Glenn M. Ross, P.C., are the defendants in a proposed class action that claims they violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by misrepresenting an alleged debt and attempting to illegally collect rent from and evict Philadelphia tenants. The plaintiff, which the case says lives with and cares for her teenage daughter and nine-year-old granddaughter, claims she received a collection notice from the defendants informing her that they represented her landlord and intended to evict her for non-payment of rent. Around the same time, the end of September 2016, she allegedly received a Certificate of Rental Suitability in the mail.

The suit argues that the defendants’ letter and demand for payment were unlawful because local law requires that Philadelphia landlords provide their tenants with a Certificate of Rental Suitability “at the inception of each tenancy,” guaranteeing that the property has “no outstanding notices of code violations” and is “fit and habitable.” The plaintiff claims she never received this certificate when she moved into the property and argues that she reported various problems with the home during her tenancy that were not properly addressed, such as a bedroom with no heat and a malfunctioning thermostat.

A failure to provide the Certificate prohibited the plaintiff’s landlord from “collecting rent during or for the period of noncompliance,” the suit claims, meaning she allegedly did not owe the purported debt and could not legally be evicted. The case argues that the defendants’ letter, therefore, violated the FDCPA in that it was a “false, deceptive, misleading representation” of the plaintiff’s alleged debt, included “a threat to take an action that cannot legally be taken,” and attempted to collect “an amount not permitted by law.”