Lawsuit challenges rental inspections
Tenants and their landlord have joined forces with a non-profit Libertarian law firm from Virginia in a lawsuit seeking to prevent inspections of rental properties by the borough.
Specifically, the suit seeks to prevent regular inspections that occur every two years, instead of when a property is vacant in between tenants, which was the borough’s previous practice. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages of $1.
This all began in 2015 when the borough adopted a new rental ordinance which included, among other new provisions, biennial inspections of rental properties, whether they are occupied or not.
And that is the catch for Dottie and Omar Rivera, who object to having employees go through the home they rent from Camburn at 326 Jefferson Ave.
“We deeply value our family’s privacy and just want to be left alone. The borough should not be able to force its way into our home,” Dottie Rivera said in a press release issued by the Institute for Justice, a Libertarian non-profit law firm based in Virginia that has taken on the case.
Rivera did not respond to a Mercury message seeking further comment.
Neither did Sheryl Brown of Siana, Bellwoar and McAndrew, LLP, who is representing the borough in the lawsuit.
The Institute for Justice is not new to this kind of lawsuit.
According to its website, the Institute for Justice is fighting a property inspection ordinance in Indiana; a Baltimore ordinance restricting food trucks and has litigated more than a dozen school choice lawsuits across the country dating back to 1992.
Pottstown’s rental inspection program “makes it easier for the government to get into the homes of ordinary, law-abiding citizens than the homes of suspected criminals,” Meagan Forbes, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, said in a release from the Institute, which has previously challenged rental inspection ordinances in Arizona, Illinois and Minnesota.
Camburn, who has filed numerous Right to Know requests with the borough regarding its regulation of rental properties, said he put the Riveras in touch with the Institute for Justice.
“When this ordinance was adopted, I went around and spoke with my tenants and told them what was going to happen, and several of them asked me if it was legal,” Camburn told The Mercury.
“So I started researching it on the Internet, and I came across their site and started asking them questions. Finally I just put them into contact with Dottie and it kind of snowballed form there,” Camburn said.
Camburn, who joined the Riveras in their suit, said he has no personal agenda to undo the law, he simply believes that “the Constitution trumps Pottstown,” and the government should not be allowed to enter a home without the residents’ permission because he believes it violates the protection against “unreasonable search and seizure.”
Camburn owns 34 rental properties in the borough and said it has been his primary business since 2002.
He said “for the most part I think the borough does a good job when it inspects the properties between tenants, they do a very complete inspection, but I do not think they need to violate the privacy of my tenants to do it.”
After the Riveras declined to allow the borough inspectors into their home, the borough obtained something called an “administrative search warrant,” according to the lawsuit.
“The borough application for this warrant was not supported by individualized probable cause of a housing code violation,” the lawsuit charged.
It is for that reason, the lawsuit argues, that Pottstown’s ordinance “violates the Pennsylvania Constitution” which protects the rights of people to be secure in their “persons, houses, papers and possessions” under Article 1, Section 8.
Calling the inspections “deeply intrusive,” the lawsuit argues that being a rental property is not probable cause enough, and to obtain the search warrant, the borough must provide “individualized probable cause” which must show “individualized suspicion that the law has been violated within the targeted property.”
Other Pennsylvania cities such as Pittsburgh, Allentown,
“We deeply value our family’s privacy and just want to be left alone. The borough should not be able to force its way into our home.” Dottie Rivera, Jefferson Avenue tenant
“For the most part I think the borough does a good job when it inspects the properties between tenants, they do a very complete inspection, but I do not think they need to violate the privacy of my tenants to do it.” Steven Camburn, Pottstown landlord
Reading and WilkesBarre have also allowed city inspectors to obtain these “administrative warrants” to inspect rental properties when tenants and landlords object.
“Pottstown cannot use an administrative warrant to force its way into Dottie and Omar’s home without even suspicion anything is wrong,” said Forbes.
“Pottstown is a part of an unconstitutional trend across Pennsylvania and the country: More and more cities are forcing its way into innocent people’s homes without any evidence there is a problem with the property,” said Institute for Justice attorney Rob Peccola. “Laws like these are an endrun around constitutional protections for property rights. This has to stop, and we will start with ending Pottstown unconstitutional rental inspection scheme.”