Ten years ago, Dennis Scott fulfilled his longtime wish for a bigger apartment. The former Philadelphia Water Department mailman celebrated his retirement with a new place at Upsal Garden Apartments, a 144-unit complex in West Mt. Airy.
He was drawn to the size of the apartment at 246 W. Upsal St. and its one-block proximity to the Upsal train station, which offers a direct trip to Center City. The U.S. Army veteran looked forward to spending his post-retirement days with a new place and neighbors.
“It seemed to be like a quiet, friendly neighborhood to me,” he said.
That bliss was disrupted within his first year at the apartment. Scott said he experienced water cutoffs multiple times a month due to leaky pipes. Large cracks formed in his doors, walls and ceilings. Mold and rust growth were painted over instead of eradicated. One day, his bathroom ceiling collapsed. The staff repaired the ceiling and painted over that mold, but the marks have returned. Scott sent letters and texts to the renter’s office asking to move to a newer, nicer apartment multiple times, but said he received no response for several years.
“I’d ask for repairs and transfers out of the apartment, but all I got was neglect,” he said.
These alleged conditions have motivated Scott to take legal action. He and two other tenants filed a lawsuit against Upsal Garden property owners in October in Common Pleas Court, and have requested that it be certified as a class action. (Two Chestnut Hill Local reporters reside at Upsal, but they played no role in writing this article.)
According to the lawsuit, 246 Associates LLC is listed as the owner of the property in city records and developer Alan Lieberman, a co-managing member of 246 Associates, is listed as the registered owner on rental licenses and a 2021 “mortgage recorded against the property.”
The plaintiffs — Scott, Carl Williams and Geraldine Brown — allege that the landlord unlawfully collected rent from tenants after city officials declared the apartment complex an “unsafe structure.”
Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) issued a notice of violation for Upsal Garden in late August, declaring there were conditions in all buildings that posed “immediate danger or hazard to health safety and welfare” and had to be addressed within a month. These hazards included deteriorated stone foundation, fractured exterior masonry walls and deteriorated interior floor joists that contained rotting wood, moisture damage and localized decay.
In Philadelphia, landlords cannot collect rent after a month until the property is compliant with city codes. Yet the owner continued to charge and collect rent from tenants without making the mandatory repairs, the plaintiffs allege. The lawsuit also alleges that the owner violated Philadelphia law by failing to give tenants a safe and habitable home.
Public records show the owner secured the necessary permits in early November to address the violation. L&I approved the repairs last month, a spokesperson for the department confirmed.
The tenants, who are represented by The Public Interest Law Center, Face to Face Legal Center and Youman & Caputo, are seeking rent refunds and injunctive relief requiring the owners to make Upsal Garden safe. A hearing is scheduled for March 16.
The defendants are Alan Lieberman, 246 Associates LLC, and Real Properties Management, which manages properties across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida, and maintains a business address at 246 W. Upsal St.
The defendants’ lawyers, Baritz KBK Law Group, said in a court filing that the owners’ permit application was delayed because the property floor plans were destroyed in a flood.
The lawyers told the Local that “all violations have been resolved” and their clients “expressly deny” the allegations in the lawsuit.
But Scott doubts these improvements will be sustainable, saying that the owners have a long history in failing to maintain the building.
The city has cited Upsal Garden Apartments for more than 80 code violations over the past five years, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit and multiple tenants told the Local that structural issues like cracks and leaks are common. The heat is stifling, forcing residents to open their windows even in the middle of winter. A manager on call declined to comment to the Local.
Scott said in an interview last week that the ceiling tiles by the manager’s office fall a few times a year and he often finds buckets catching leaks. The back parking lot has been closed for five years due to structural damage, he said.
Cincere Wilson, a member of the Upsal Garden Tenants Council, said in an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer that the unsafe violation is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
Last August, he and his wife temporarily moved out after their living room ceiling collapsed. They lived under their apartment’s exposed ceiling for two days before management began working on it. During their week living at the hotel, the manager kept demanding a rent payment, even though they promised to pay it at the end of the weekend, he told the Local.
A few months ago, there was a leak in his office that came from upstairs.
“They went in and so-called fixed the leak. Next thing you know, I had mushrooms growing out of my office ceiling. I couldn’t believe it,” Wilson said.
He said neighbors have shared similar experiences with him and at tenants’ council meetings. Wilson said he cannot afford to move out.
The lawsuit alleges that the property owners have failed to address the underlying root causes of these conditions.
The project’s engineer, Maher Abdelaal, of Glenwood Engineering, said the damaged joists on the first floor were replaced and the hallway by the laundry room was reconstructed using a concrete slab. Crews repaired the exterior wall’s foundation and improved the grading, he said.
The details of these improvements are outlined in the engineer report, which Abdelaal said he couldn’t share without receiving permission from the owner. Public records show the project closed in early February.
A spokesperson for L&I told the Local that there’s no list of repairs available and the department doesn’t have the final engineer’s report. That would be the property owners’ information to share, the spokesperson said. The defendants’ lawyers said they couldn’t share the report due to the lawsuit.
Madison Gray, an attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, said the next step is for the legal team to review the final engineer report for the project and determine if the repairs are sustainable. They have yet to receive the report.
“We took on this case because this is part of the pattern of what we’ve been seeing across the city, of landlords failing to keep their property safe for people who live in them and not even informing tenants of the issues that pop up in their building,” she said.
The Public Interest Center filed a similar lawsuit in March 2025 against Odin Properties, the landlord of Bentley Manor in West Oak Lane, where tenants alleged Odin ignored an unsafe violation for months and illegally collected rent.
City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke is working to pass legislation that would improve protections for renters in Philadelphia. The two bills through the Safe Healthy Homes Act are scheduled to be considered by the council’s housing committee on Wednesday.
The legislative package, which the Public Interest Law Center helped draft, includes measures to prevent landlords from retaliating against tenants who speak out about their living conditions, and would require the city to run a proactive rental inspection program for rental properties.
Another aspect of the proposal is allowing a tenant to sue if a landlord collected monthly rent without having an active license or certificate of rental suitability, which landlords lose if they don’t address an unsafe violation after a certain period. Right now, the law is unclear about whether tenants are allowed to recoup unlawfully collected rent from their landlords. O’Rourke’s proposal would also require the city to notify renters if the landlord’s rental license has been suspended.
“The concerns that the plaintiffs in this case shared, of a landlord seeking rent for a building that our own L&I Department deemed ‘unsafe,’ are exactly what the Safe Healthy Homes legislation seeks to end,” O’Rourke said in a statement to the Local. “The case will be decided in our judicial system, but legislators need to be proactive in preventing future situations like this one.”
Wilson and Scott are advocates for renters’ rights in Philadelphia. Wilson is part of the Safe Healthy Homes campaign and Scott is a member of Renters United Philadelphia, one of the groups that collaborated on the legislation.
“I am American,” Scott said, “and all Americans, not just me, every citizen should have a nice place to live, especially when you’re paying rent.”
Abby Weiss is an environmental reporter for the Local and a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at abby@chestnuthilllocal.com.
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