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What happens if a City source is unavailable?
When a City source doesn't answer during a check, we label the affected item "City source didn't respond." We never turn a failed lookup into a passing result, because "we could not read the record" and "the record shows no problem" are entirely different statements.
Behind the label, monitoring keeps working: the record is retried on the next scheduled run, and where a previous reliable result exists, we preserve and show it with its own timestamp. So a temporary outage at the source does not erase what was last reliably known about your property, and it is not counted as a clean record either.
A license record we couldn't read the week before its expiration date shows as unread, not clear, so you know to check it in the City's own lookup.
The City of Philadelphia controls its own records, reviews, and processing times. We report what the City's public data shows; we cannot and do not guarantee City outcomes or timelines. If a record stays unavailable for an extended period, the official City tools linked from your report are the definitive place to confirm status, and support can re-run the City-record checks we offer on request.
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Philly Rental Compliance is an independent service, not the City of Philadelphia or a law firm. Answers about City rules summarize the City's published requirements as general information, not legal advice; requirements change, and future-effective provisions need a current check of implementation and litigation status. For legal questions about your situation, talk to a licensed Pennsylvania attorney.
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