Where does this ranking come from?

It's queried live, in your browser, against phl.carto.com — the same public L&I violations dataset 4PHILLY uses everywhere else. Nothing is hardcoded or pre-written; every page load re-runs the ranking against the City's current data.

Why two lists instead of one?

Total violation count rewards the biggest portfolios by volume alone — a landlord with 100 properties will out-rank one with 3, even if the smaller owner's buildings are in far worse shape. The second list ranks owners of 2-10 properties by violations per property, surfacing small landlords whose every building is a problem, not just landlords who own a lot of buildings.

Is this a government record?

No. 4PHILLY is independent and not affiliated with the City of Philadelphia. The underlying violations are real, public L&I records — verify any individual property against Atlas or the live Eclipse record before relying on it.

Why might an owner's name appear more than once or be missing?

L&I records the property owner's name as free text pulled from OPA records, not a fixed owner ID — the same person or company can appear as slightly different strings across different violations (with or without a co-owner listed, for example). This ranking makes a conservative attempt to merge obvious duplicates, but it isn't perfect, and government and institutional owners are filtered out.

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Philadelphia's Worst Landlords: 8 Years of L&I Violations, Ranked

Two live rankings, pulled straight from the City's own open data — no hardcoded list, re-queried every time this page loads.

Published September 22, 2026

Philadelphia's Department of Licenses & Inspections logs every code violation it issues, tied to the property's owner of record. That data is public. It's just never been assembled into a ranking — until now. Both lists below query phl.carto.com, the City's open-data mirror of the L&I violations dataset, live in your browser.

Read this before the lists load. Ownership on these records comes from free-text OPA owner names, not a stable owner ID — the same person or company can appear under more than one spelling, and this page makes only a conservative, limited attempt to merge obvious duplicates. Government, institutional, and utility owners are filtered out, but the filter is a keyword list and won't be perfect. Treat every entry as a lead to verify against the live L&I / Eclipse record and Atlas — not a finding of fact about any specific person.

List 1 — Worst by Total Violations (Last 8 Years)

Ranked by raw violation count across every property tied to the owner, city-wide, since —. This rewards scale — the biggest portfolio landlords will dominate this list by volume alone. For consistency among smaller owners, see List 2 below.

Loading live data from phl.carto.com…

Querying the City's violations dataset — this can take up to 15 seconds…

List 2 — Worst Individual/Small-Scale Landlords by Violation Rate

Owners of 2–10 properties, ranked by violations per property rather than total count — this surfaces small landlords whose every building has problems, not just owners who hold the most units. A single-property owner isn't included; this list is about a pattern across more than one building.

Loading live data from phl.carto.com…

Querying the City's violations dataset — this can take up to 15 seconds…

How This Is Built

Source: the violations table on phl.carto.com — the same L&I dataset behind every property lookup on 4philly.net, joined by opa_owner.
Window: violations dated within the last 8 years from today.
Filtered out: the City of Philadelphia, Redevelopment Authority, Housing Authority, school districts, universities, hospitals, churches, and other government/institutional/utility owners — this is a private-landlord ranking, not a list of public agencies.
List 1 sorts by total violation count, no property-count minimum.
List 2 restricts to owners of 2–10 distinct properties and sorts by violations ÷ properties.
Nothing is stored. Like the rest of 4PHILLY, this runs entirely client-side against the City's public API — no server, no database, no account.

What This Isn't

Not a court finding. A violation is an L&I citation, not a legal judgment — some are contested, resolved, or under appeal.
Not owner-verified. Names come from OPA records as L&I has them on file, which can lag ownership changes, sales, or corrective filings.
Not exhaustive. Carto is a mirror of L&I's live Eclipse system and can lag days to weeks behind.

Before relying on any entry, verify the owner and property directly against Atlas or a live 4PHILLY property lookup.

Check a specific address or landlord — free, no account required

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4PHILLY is an independent, non-governmental tool. It is not operated, affiliated with, or endorsed by the City of Philadelphia. This page presents public L&I violation data reorganized by owner — it is not legal advice and not a certified record. For advice about your specific situation, contact a housing attorney or a legal aid organization such as Community Legal Services (215-981-3700).

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