A free, independent tool that pulls Philadelphia's scattered public property records into one place — so a renter, a reporter, or a neighbor can read the full story of any address in under a minute.
In Philadelphia, the facts about a single rental property live in at least four different City systems that don't talk to each other. The rental-license record is in one portal, the Licenses & Inspections (L&I) code-violation history is in another, 311 service complaints are in a third, and building permits and certifications are in a fourth. In practice, that fragmentation means the complete picture of a building is available to almost no one — which is a problem when the picture is exactly what a prospective tenant, a current renter, or a reporter needs before making a decision.
4PHILLY closes that gap. You type an address, a building name, or an OPA account number (Philadelphia's unique parcel ID), and it returns a single unified record for that parcel:
It also computes a composite "4P Score" that summarizes a property's record at a glance, and includes a city-wide and ZIP-level scanner for finding the properties with the worst violation and license records in an area, plus a Right-to-Know (RTK) request-letter generator for formally requesting records from the City.
4PHILLY does not host its own copy of the City's records or guess at anything. It reads directly from Philadelphia's own authoritative data sources, live, at the moment you search:
| Source | What it provides |
|---|---|
| Eclipse (L&I) | The authoritative Licenses & Inspections backend that powers li.phila.gov — licenses, violations, permits. Read live for individual lookups. |
| Carto open data | The City's daily-refreshed open-data mirror (phl.carto.com), used for city-wide scans and historical records. |
| Atlas Philadelphia | The City's public parcel map (atlas.phila.gov), the recommended place to verify any single record. |
When two sources disagree about a property, 4PHILLY flags the discrepancy rather than hiding it, and treats the authoritative Eclipse record as controlling. This matters because the City's public map tools can lag up to 60 days behind on a lapsed rental license — publishing the later internal "Inactive" date instead of the expiration date that actually carries legal weight. Surfacing that gap is one of the main reasons 4PHILLY exists.
Housing accountability in a city like Philadelphia usually fails not because the information is secret, but because it is fragmented. If a public record is spread across four portals and a 60-day reporting lag, it is technically public and practically invisible. 4PHILLY is a small correction to that asymmetry — a way of saying that if the record is public, it should also be legible, for free, with no account required.
The tool is built for renters checking a prospective or current landlord, tenant advocates and organizers, reporters researching property owners, and neighbors trying to understand a problem building on their block.
4PHILLY requires no account and no login. It does not notify a property owner that their address was searched, and it does not keep a record of who looked up what. Every record it displays is already public information published by the City of Philadelphia. For full details on cookies, analytics, and advertising, see the Privacy Policy.
4PHILLY is maintained independently and is not funded by, affiliated with, or acting on behalf of the City of Philadelphia or any landlord, property manager, or government agency. It provides legal information, not legal advice. For advice about a specific situation, contact a housing attorney or a legal-aid organization such as Community Legal Services (215-981-3700).