Fighting Gentrification at Penn Law
Imagine that a house has been in your family for multiple generations. Your parents die and you inherit the house, but it’s old and needs a lot of work. The area that you live in is rapidly gentrifying, and you receive a couple of calls from developers asking to buy the house. You refuse and start to fix the house up, an expensive and slow–moving process. One day, you suddenly get a notice in the mail: A nonprofit has filed a petition to take conservatorship of your home. You look to fight this in court, but as a homeowner it is difficult to qualify for legal aid. Mere months later, the nonprofit wins the case and sells your house. Not only is this intergenerational property lost, but, after the mandated conservator’s fee, plus legal fees and other associated costs, you don’t receive any of the money from the sale. This situation has happened hundreds of times in Philadelphia—all due to a law called Act 135.