4PHILLY

v2.5β

Philadelphia property record

One unified property record from Philadelphia's L&I data — pulled live from Eclipse (authoritative for current state) and cross-checked against Carto (historical mirror). Flags drift between the two. Decodes status semantics. Resolves your council district and councilmember. Surfaces what the public data doesn't tell you.

build 1.0

pulled —

Check Philly

Scan the entire city for the worst properties, most 311 complaints, expired rental licenses, and repeat offender owners using Philadelphia open data.

Where do these numbers come from, and why?

These rankings are computed live from Philadelphia's open data on Carto (phl.carto.com) — the city's public historical mirror of L&I violations, 311 complaints, and business/rental licenses. Properties are grouped by their OPA account number (the exact parcel ID), not by address text, so the counts are aggregated cleanly per parcel.

Why it can differ from a single property lookup: the property lookup at the top of this app reads Eclipse, L&I's authoritative live backend. This scanner reads the Carto mirror, which lags Eclipse — sometimes by days or weeks. So a violation that was just resolved, or a license that was just renewed, may still show here. Treat the scanner as a city-wide triage view: use it to find candidates, then confirm any specific property with a lookup (which hits the live source).

Government, institutional, and hotel owners are filtered out so the list focuses on private landlords.

4P Zip Code Scanner

Scan a Philadelphia zip code for the worst properties, most 311 complaints, expired rental licenses, and repeat offender owners.

Where do these numbers come from, and why?

Same source as the city scanner: Philadelphia's open data on Carto (phl.carto.com), filtered to the ZIP you enter. Violations and licenses are matched by OPA account number; 311 complaints are matched by ZIP code on the complaint record (the 311 dataset has no OPA number, so it is joined by location, not parcel ID).

Why it can differ from a property lookup: this reads the Carto historical mirror, which lags L&I's live Eclipse backend that the property lookup uses. Numbers here can be days-to-weeks behind — use the ZIP scan to spot problem properties in an area, then confirm any one of them with a lookup against the live data. Government, institutional, and hotel owners are filtered out.

Zip code

Enter a property address or building name

Know the OPA number? Search by it instead (more precise — optional)

OPA account #

An OPA number (Office of Property Assessment account number) is the city's unique ID for a single parcel of land — like a fingerprint for the property. Every property in Philadelphia has one.

Why it can beat the address: one street address can cover several parcels (a corner lot, a subdivided building, a condo with many units), and the same address can be written many ways (“315 N 12th St” vs the city's official “315-23 N 12TH ST”). The OPA number points at exactly one parcel with no ambiguity, so if you have it, the lookup is guaranteed to hit the right record. Don't have it? Just use the address — that's what most people do, and this tool figures out the matching OPA for you. You can find a property's OPA number on Atlas or a tax bill.

try:

A lookup shows: Inspect · Drift · Brief · Records · Limits · Council

Business & trade licenses

Open violations

Violation history — status distribution

311 complaints (last 24 mo.)

Business license drift

Violation drift

Coverage gaps

See the Limits tab for full documentation of what this record cannot tell you and why.

Permits

Building certifications

What 4PHILLY can't tell you — and why.

This app queries data the city already publishes. Where it falls short, the limitation is a city data gap, a policy decision, or a technical constraint of running without a server. Future versions will try to address each of these.

Worst Properties — Open Violations

Most 311 Complaints (12 months)

Expired Rental Licenses

Repeat Offender Owners