A landlord can legally evict a tenant for not paying rent on time, breaching the terms of their lease or staying in the rented unit beyond the lease’s end date. The process usually starts with a notice to quit, provided by the landlord to the tenant, listing one or more of these reasons.

For unpaid rent, landlords must provide at least 10 days notice before filing a landlord-tenant complaint. For alleged breaches of lease terms or staying in a unit beyond the lease’s end date, landlords must give 15 days notice before filing a complaint. In all scenarios, renters who live in subsidized housing should receive at least 30 days notice.

One caveat: Without realizing it, many tenants waive their right to receive a notice to quit while signing a new lease. Pittsburgh’s Public Source previously compiled a guide on leases, which includes tips on what to look for before adding your signature to one of the rental agreements. If your lease does include such a waiver, your landlord could file a landlord-tenant complaint against you without prior warning.

The Allegheny Housing Stabilization Collaborative (AHSC) formed two years ago to consolidate the county’s various eviction prevention services under one program. Now, tenants can reach out to any organization under AHSC’s umbrella for support, regardless of the status of their eviction. 

Those organizations include RentHelpPGH, Neighborhood Legal Services, Just Mediation Pittsburgh, Community Justice Project, Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation and ACTION-Housing.

Because an eviction filing can have lasting effects on a tenant’s ability to find new employment or housing, these organizations advise tenants to act quickly once they receive a notice to quit.

If a formal complaint hasn’t been filed, AHSC’s network will likely refer tenants and their landlords to mediation. Tenants can also apply for mediation on Just Mediation Pittsburgh’s website.

There are additional options outside of contacting AHSC’s network that tenants can explore, such as moving out, negotiating with your landlord on your own or waiting out your notice and going to court.

Just Mediation Pittsburgh is a nonprofit organization that mediates landlord-tenant disputes for free. Either a landlord or tenant can apply for the service on the organization’s website.

After screening applicants, Just Mediation schedules a virtual, 90-minute conversation between the tenant and landlord. The nonprofit’s mediators sit in on the conversation. RentHelpPGH also collaborates with mediators to connect landlords and tenants to resources, such as rental assistance.

Organizations such as RentHelpPGH, however, aren’t able to provide rental assistance without an active mediation process or a complaint filed in court.

As RentHelpPGH’s mediation resource navigator manager, Mairead McCarthy said participants sometimes misunderstand the mediator’s purpose in the conversation and try to prove their case.

“The parties who are coming to mediation, they don’t need to worry about convincing a mediator of anything,” she said. “What they really can be focused on is reaching an agreement with the other person.”

That’s one of mediation’s benefits, she said: It enables landlords and tenants to create specific and nuanced agreements, without a third-party decision maker, such as a judge.

Of the 1,320 landlord-tenant mediations Just Mediation Pittsburgh conducted last fiscal year, roughly 95% resulted in an agreement. The few that don’t — as well as the thousands more that never make it to mediation — will likely result in a landlord-tenant complaint and eventual court hearing.

Just Mediation Pittsburgh only intervenes before a landlord-tenant complaint has been filed.

Neighborhood Legal Services, a legal aid organization that serves Allegheny County and surrounding areas, also suggests that tenants negotiate with their landlords before the matter is taken to court. It may be possible to work out a payment schedule, or at least an arrangement to move out within 20 days so long as the landlord agrees to forgive the overdue rent.

It’s best to keep the terms of that agreement in writing, according to the legal aid organization. Even if the landlord has already filed a complaint, a written agreement can be shared with the magisterial district judge with whom the complaint was filed.

For tenants who are facing a possible eviction due solely to unpaid rent, another option is to pay in full before the notice period expires. So long as the full amount listed on the notice to quit is paid off, said DiBuo of Neighborhood Legal Services, landlords should not file complaints against their tenants.

But if anything else is listed on the notice to quit along with unpaid rent, then landlords are still within their rights to file a complaint, he said.

Moving out is an option for any scenario included in a notice to quit.

Tenants can negotiate for their landlords to forgive their rent arrears so long as they move out. They can also negotiate for additional time to make the move. If the landlord agrees, then it’s best to make sure the agreement is written down.

Do not leave anything behind, according to the Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania, because landlords can charge a storage fee for left-behind belongings.

After the notice period expires, landlords can file landlord-tenant complaints with the local magisterial district court. Beyond that point, future employers and landlords can see the filing while conducting background checks. 

Landlord-tenant complaints include the name of the magisterial district judge who will preside over the case; the landlord’s name and address, as well as the tenant’s; the reason for the complaint and any requests for monetary judgments; and a date and time for a hearing on the matter.

Magisterial district courts serve defendants — who, in most cases, are tenants — with copies of the complaints by mail, in person or by posting them on defendants’ homes at least five days before the hearing. Hearings can take place between one and two weeks after defendants receive the complaints.

RentHelpPGH collects all landlord-tenant complaint dockets filed in Allegheny County, then uses any contact information they can find to reach out to tenants ahead of the court hearing.

RentHelpPGH and Neighborhood Legal Services work in tandem with tenants and their landlords with the goal of reaching a solution before the court hearing.

Tenants have the option of representing themselves, but legal help is available.

RentHelpPGH’s court resource navigators reach out to people facing eviction and ask if they’d like to participate in the Lawyer of the Day program, a partnership with Neighborhood Legal Services to provide tenants with pro-bono legal representation at hearings.

Neighborhood Legal Services pairs tenants with a Lawyer of the Day attorney. The attorney gathers facts about the complaint and explains to the tenant how they’ll approach the hearing, while RentHelpPGH helps the tenant and landlord explore rental assistance options.

The program operates in only five of Pittsburgh’s 12 magisterial district courts, and none in the suburbs. RentHelpPGH sends a general referral to Neighborhood Legal Services for tenants who live outside of those five districts. The number of districts served by the program is set to expand to 10 by next spring, according to RentHelpPGH’s Lawyer of the Day Resource Manager Angie Spess.

An increasing number of landlord-tenant complaints are being withdrawn or settled across the commonwealth, according to an analysis by the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. Eviction prevention work is likely the cause, according to the nonprofit advocacy group’s study.

If RentHelpPGH can’t get in contact before the first hearing, then Spess and the organization’s court resource navigators will make contact with tenants on the day of the hearing.

Court resource navigators also attend hearings, jotting down notes and gathering details about the case to determine what resources might be available for both tenants and landlords, said court resource navigator Katlin Jewell-Lucas.

An attorney will likely request a continuance from the magisterial court judge to postpone the date for a judgment.

The magisterial district court judges submit their judgments on cases within three days of court hearings.

In just 2% of cases across the state last year, judges ruled in favor of the tenants, allowing them to stay in their home.

A withdrawal usually means that the landlord and tenant managed to work out their own solution. The case gets withdrawn from court by whoever filed the complaint. A settlement, on the other hand, means that the tenant and landlord came to an agreement, put it in writing and submitted it to the magisterial district court judge.

In a “pay-and-stay” scenario, the judge rules in favor of the landlord while making it possible for the tenant to stay in the home so long as they pay off the judgment amount — which usually includes unpaid rent that the landlord filed for, plus court filing fees. The judgment becomes part of the tenant’s public record.

“Once that eviction is on your record, it’s almost impossible for folks to find new housing,” said Beth Sturman, the interim executive director of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. Because of this, she said the option for tenants to pay and stay is indispensable.

If the magisterial district court’s judgment favors the landlord, then tenants can appeal the decision within 10 days. The case then moves to the Court of Common Pleas.

If a tenant has already been working with Neighborhood Legal Services through the Lawyer of the Day program, then they could still be eligible for representation through the appeals process, DiBuo said.

And while Just Mediation Pittsburgh would no longer be an option, said McCarthy of RentHelpPGH, cases that make it to this stage have the option of going through the court’s mediation process — as well as going to trial or going before an arbitration panel. Often the tenant must pay rent into a court escrow fund while the case is proceeding.

An eviction filing itself “is not the end of it all for a tenant,” said Chris Michael of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. But “it’s such a big barrier to people finding safe and stable housing in the long term,” she said.

A landlord-tenant filing stays on the public record indefinitely. Employers and prospective landlords will be able to see it while conducting background checks, and most rental applications ask tenants whether they’ve ever been filed against.

DiBuo also acknowledged that searching for new housing after an eviction can be complicated. “A private landlord is certainly within their rights to deny someone tenancy for having been filed against just at all,” he said.

At the same time, he said there are ways to negotiate with potential landlords, such as explaining the cause of the eviction and making sure future landlords know if the tenant won the case.

A bill that would seal eviction filings for tenants, seven years after a given case’s filing date, is moving through the state legislature.