OPINION OF THE COURT
Appellants Jeryline Ransom, James Willis, Cynthia Muse, Alicia Powell and Rose Tull appeal from the dismissal of their amended complaint, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the City of Philadelphia on behalf of the class of Philadelphia residents to whom water and sewer service was denied unless they paid the delinquent service charges incurred, but not paid, by the prior customers of water services at their residences. The district court refused the plaintiffs’ prayer for a declaration that the policy and practice of requiring water and sewer service applicants to satisfy pre-existing debts incurred for services rendered to their residences violate the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Instead, the district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on the ground that Philadelphia’s policy of “denying water and sewer service to subsequent property owners whose properties were subject to liens for delinquent charges until arrangement for payment of delinquent bills is made is not violative of constitutional constraints.” Order of the District Court at 1. As grounds for dismissing the plaintiffs’ state law claims the district court also held that: (1) the two remedies for nonpayment of water charges of liens and the denial of service are both authorized under state and local law, P.L. 207 § 3, as amended, Pa. Stat.Ann., tit. 53, § 7106 (Purdon 1972) (the “Commonwealth Municipal Claims and Liens Law”); Philadelphia Code §§ 19-1606(2)(c); (2) liens are enforceable against the properties in question; and (3) such liens, and the alternative remedy of denial of service until satisfaction of charges, “followed the property” through transfers subsequent to the charges being incurred. Id. at 1-2.
On appeal, the plaintiffs continue to press their federal claims that the policy of conditioning service to them on the payment of charges incurred by prior customers violates their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process and, further, that the city’s failure to promulgate standards adequate to provide notice to applicants of this condition on service also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They also dispute the district court’s characterization of the class of plaintiffs as all owners of the affected property, thereby challenging the court’s rationale that lien and denial of service remedies reached the class under state and local law simply by virtue of “following the property.”
I
Standard of Review
The test to be applied in deciding a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim requires this court to accept as true the factual allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from them, and to refrain from granting a dismissal unless it is certain that no relief could be granted under any set of facts which could be proved. D.P. Enterprises v. Bucks County Community College,
II
The Facts
The plaintiffs are all non-tenant
It is undisputed that James Willis, Cynthia Muse and Rose Tull are owners of the properties for which they seek water and sewer service. James Willis inherited his family’s home at 3236 North Sydenham Street when his mother died in April, 1982. James Willis lived with his mother in the family home until her death, at which time the water and sewer bills had been paid in full. After his mother’s death, in or about June 1983, James Willis went to live with his father and other relatives in Roanoke, Virginia, leaving the inherited property vacant until he returned, approximately three years later, in June 1983. Upon his return, he found that the water service had been terminated and several water bills, had accrued during the three year period of his absence. When Mr. Willis inquired, the Water Revenue Bureau of Philadelphia informed him that service would not be restored until the Bureau received approximately 50% of a delinquent balance of $870.12. Because Mr. Willis’ income is limited to a public assistance grant of $186.00 per month, he applied for and received a $300 grant from the federally-sponsored Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Plan which was accepted by the Water Revenue Bureau. However, the Bureau continued to refuse service to Mr. Willis because of the remaining balance of $570.72, and on the further ground that Mr. Willis had not demonstrated an allegedly necessary “ownership interest” in the property.
Like Mr. Willis, Cynthia Muse also inherited an ownership interest in her family’s home at 5439 Pine Street when her parents died in October, 1983. Ms. Muse remained with her brother at 5439 Pine Street after her parents died until July, 1985, when she was forced out by her brother’s physical abuse. Ms. Muse’s brother lived on alone in the house until he was sent to prison in November, 1986, at which time she returned to the property. Ms. Muse then discovered from the Water Revenue Bureau that the water service had been terminated in October, 1986 because of her brother’s failure to make payments, and that service would not be restored until the delinquency in the amount of approximately $1,000.00 was paid in full. Ms. Muse and her two children, including a baby, had to live without water at their house from November, 1986 to July, 1987.
Rose. Tull acquired the property at 2525 W. Firth Street pursuant to a real estate installment sales agreement, under which the seller agreed to pay the water and sewer bills up to the time of settlement. Prior to settlement, the seller failed to pay the bills and, consequently, the city terminated water service to 2525 W. Firth Street. Upon receiving Ms. Tull’s explanation of the installment sales agreement, the Water Revenue Bureau restored water service to the property and agreed to seek payment from the seller pursuant to its policy then represented to Ms. Tull of not terminating service to non-owner occupants. But when title passed to Ms. Tull, she received a bill for $6,147.65 for unpaid services received during the time covered by the seller’s agreement to pay. The Bureau has threatened to terminate service if payment is not made, but agreed to postpone termination pending the outcome of this litigation.
Alicia Powell, her infant daughter and older son lived with her husband, William Powell, the owner of record and customer of record for water and sewer service, at 155 E. Mayland Street until June 15, 1986. At that time, domestic abuse led Ms. Powell to move out of her home. She subsequently obtained a protection from abuse order from the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas prohibiting William Powell from visiting, living at, entering or attempting to enter the property at 155 E. Mayland Street until November 11, 1987. In November, 1986, after residing with her mother for a few months, Ms. Powell returned to the 155 E. Mayland Street property, where she found the water service terminated. Service has been restored, but the Bureau has threatened to terminate it unless she arranges for the payment of a delinquent bill in the amount of $1,532.39 incurred by her estranged husband. The defendant-appellees contend that Alicia
Jeryline Ransom is not the owner of the property at which she resides, 2530 Inger-soll Street, but is rather the guardian of the minor property owner, her cousin, Mark Cromartie. All of the assets of Mark’s mother’s estate, including 2530 In-gersoll Street, are being held in trust for Mark with a Mr. Melvin Brookman, Esquire named as Trustee. Mark was originally left in the custodial care of Jeryline Ransom’s mother, Helen Ransom. When Helen Ransom died in February, 1984, leaving care and custody of Mark to Jeryline, the latter moved to 2530 Ingersoll Street with Mark and her own four-year old son “because she and the children had no other place to live.” At the time Ms. Ransom and the children moved into the house it had no water service. When . Ms. Ransom applied to the Water Revenue Bureau for service, a customer service representative informed her that service would not be restored until the Bureau received a $300 deposit and a promise of the payment of a further $500 within 30 days towards the satisfaction of an outstanding water and sewer bill of approximately $1,800.00 incurred in Dorothy Cromartie’s name. Ms. Ransom asserts that she was unable to arrange for the payments to be made by Mark’s Trustee. Consequently, Ms. Ransom and children lived without water service to their house from May to November, 1986.
The Philadelphia Water Revenue Bureau is a subdivision of the City’s Department of Collections, established under Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter, 351 Pa. Code § 6.6-201(c). Under subsection 6.6-201(c) of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter it is the responsibility of the Department of Collections to “collect all water and sewer rents due to the City.” A separate Water Department is charged under section 5.5-800 et seq. of the Home Rule Charter with operating the City of Philadelphia’s water and sewer service systems, 351 Pa. Code § 5.5-800(a) and (b), and with setting standards for rates and service charges sufficient “to yield, to the City at least an amount equal to operating expenses and interest and sinking fund charges on any debt incurred or about to be incurred for water supply, sewage and sewage disposal purposes.” 351 Pa. Code § 5.5-801. Accordingly, the plaintiffs brought this suit against the City of Philadelphia both through the Water Department and its Commissioner, William Marrazzo, and through the Department of Collections (also referred to as the Revenue Department) and its Commissioner, M. Christine Murphy.
At the time of the incidents of service denial or threat of denial alleged in the amended complaint, the city’s standards of eligibility for customer service were not published. One day after the amended complaint was filed, however, on May 29, 1987, the City Water and Revenue Departments filed “Residential Customer Service Regulations,” a final version of which was promulgated on November. 18, 1987, effective December 18,1987. These regulations specify that an owner, tenant or occupant of a residential property may become a water/sewer service customer unless (a) the applicant is an agent of a customer to whom service has been properly denied because of payment delinquency, (b) the applicant is “legally responsible at this or another service address” for past due service charges, or (c) the applicant contracted to assume past due service charges as part of a rental or other agreement.
Ill
State and Local Law
There is no question that Pennsylvania state law authorizes the City of Philadelphia to impose liens against property benefited by unpaid water and sewer service. City of Philadelphia v. Northwood Textile Mills, Inc.,
In addition to the municipal lien remedy for uncollected charges authorized by Pennsylvania law, 53 P.S. § 7107, a Philadelphia ordinance authorizes the Philadelphia Water Department to deprive premises of service if any water and sewer rent charge remains unpaid for two cycles and 10 days after notice has been served to the delinquent property owner. Phil. Code § 19-1606(2)(C) (effective 1956). A precursor to section 1606(2)(C) of Title 19 of the Philadelphia Code, also authorizing the Water Department to deprive premises of service until delinquent charges are paid, was approved by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Northwood Textile Mills,
The plaintiffs claim that liens against the properties in question have not been perfected because of alleged errors in the indexing of the liens. Under Pennsylvania law, claims of the City of Philadelphia become liens only after being docketed by the prothonotary. 53 P.S. § 7106(b); see In re Aikens,
The plaintiffs aver by affidavit that liens for unpaid water and sewer bills on the properties in question are not located in the judgment index. Affidavit of Valeria Bullock. The defendants respond that the liens are recorded in the lien index of the pro-thonotary’s office. Affidavit of Pat Evangelista. As the record-keeping practice is described in In re Aikens,
water liens are contained in volumes which are located in the Prothonotary’s office in which each entry is given a court term and number. However, the court term and number is not established by the Prothonotary's office, as is the case in other court filings. Rather, the water department itself designates the numbers, assigning the same according to the department's own, street-related account numbers from its computer print-outs. A volume with such printouts is delivered to the Prothonotary once annually, usually in the fall. The names of the property owners on these print-outs are not in alphabetical order, as they are in the judgment index, but according to addresses. The Prothono-tary’s office does virtually nothing with the volumes except to act as their custodian and make them available to the public upon request.
In re Aikens, supra. As the plaintiffs’ affidavit confirms, and the defendants’ affidavits do not deny, the liens are not entered in the judgment index of the prothonotary, but rather in a separate lien index.
The question then becomes how the city’s failure to have the liens entered in the judgment index, as directed by 53 P.S. § 7106(b), affects the validity of the liens with respect to the properties in this case. The plaintiffs contend that the city’s failure to perfect the liens, by properly indexing them, renders them invalid. We find that the liens are not rendered invalid by the improper indexing as against any of the plaintiffs because under section 7432 of Title 53 of the Pennsylvania Statutes
Leaving aside plaintiff Rose Tull for the moment, we find that the liens on the properties inhabited by James Willis, Cynthia Muse, Alicia Powell and Jeryline Ransom are perfectible because none of these individuals are purchasers or mortgagees protected from the attachment of a lien against their property at any time under section 7432 and, alternatively, the three-year time limit established for filing municipal liens under section 7143 has not expired on some of the claims. James Willis and Cynthia Muse inherited 3236 North Sydenham and 5439 Pine Street respectively; hence, both are heirs, not purchasers or mortgagees. Jeryline Ransom is a mere occupant of 2530 Ingersoll Street, and hence cannot claim the protection against the city’s perfection of its lien under section 7432; nor could her ward, Mark Cro-martie, who acquired the property as an inheritance. Alicia Powell is either, like Ms. Ransom, a mere occupant, or if she does have an ownership interest, she acquired it not by purchase or mortgage subsequent to the city’s attempt to impose a lien as is necessary to trigger the protection against perfection extended by § 7432, but rather as marital property shared with her husband, William Powell, the owner of record.
In addition to the fact that none of these plaintiffs have the status of intervening purchaser or mortgagee protected under § 7432, at least some of the liens against 2530 Ingersoll Street (Ms. Ransom’s home), 5439 Pine Street (Ms. Muse’s home), 3236 North Sydenham Street (Mr. Willis’ home) and 155 Mayland Street (Ms. Powell’s home) were entered in the lien index within the last three years and hence presumably could now be refiled in the judgment index, properly, before the three-year time limit on filing liens, established in 53 P.S. § 7143, runs out.
Rose Tull, alone among the plaintiffs, obtained her property (2525 W. Firth Street) by purchase. Hence, we must consider whether she is protected against the liens as an intervening purchaser under section 7432. According to the facts alleged in the amended complaint, which we must accept for purposes of evaluating a motion to dismiss, Ms. Tull purchased 2525 W. Firth Street via an installment sales agreement which she entered into in March, 1973. Under the terms of the sales agreement, the seller was responsible for water and sewer bills until title passed to Ms. Tull. Title passed to Ms. Tull in May, 1986. Thus, by contract with Ms. Tull, the seller was responsible for paying the water and sewer bills from 1973 to July, 1976. Because the seller failed to. pay the bills, the Water Revenue Bureau terminated service in 1975. But upon receiving Ms. Tull’s explanation of the terms of her installment sales contract, the Bureau restored service in 1975 and agreed to seek payment from the seller. Not until September, 1986, elev
The question is whether Ms. Tull, who entered into an installment sales contract on, and moved into the property in 1973 but did not receive title until 1986, counts as an intervening purchaser under section 7432. To begin with, we note that for purposes of section 7143, which determines the liability for municipal improvements as between vendors and purchasers where real estate is “sold” before the claim is filed but after the improvement has begun, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania has held that real estate conveyed through an unconditional installment sales contract is “sold” at the time of the agreement, rather than at the time of settlement. Byrne v. Konig,
The fact that Ms. Tull and the vendor explicitly contracted for the latter to assume the obligation of paying for water and sewer service until settlement, while suggesting grounds for a possible suit in contract against the vendor, does not change the outcome in this case against the city. So long as Ms. Tull did not purchase the property subsequent to the filing of the municipal claims — as we. have determined that she did not under Pennsylvania law, see Byrne v. Konig, supra — the city is still entitled under section 7432 to perfect its liens against her property. If the city’s representations to Ms. Tull in 1975 that it would hold the. seller and not her responsible for the charges at that time, give rise to any claim against the city on Ms. Tull’s part, such a claim forms no part of the amended complaint under review and thus provides no argument here against finding that the city’s liens can be perfected and enforced against Ms. Tull’s property, as they can against all the other properties at issue in this case. We conclude, in sum, that all of the properties in this case are subject to perfectible and enforceable liens.
The plaintiffs contend that even if the liens are valid, as we have found, they are, there is no basis in state law for denying service to persons for past due charges incurred prior to their ownership or occupancy. Pennsylvania law, however, is clearly to the contrary. It is true that the denial of service, or shutoff, remedy is a creature of city ordinance, Phila. Code § 19-1606(2)(c), and thus is not specifically authorized by state statute. However, as we stated, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has explicitly recognized and approved Philadelphia’s shutoff ordinance. Northwood Textile, supra,
The fact that Phila. Code § 19-1606(2)(c), providing the shutoff remedy, is authorized under state law does not entirely dispose of the question of whether this remedy can be applied to premises in which the service customer or applicant did not personally incur the past due charges. The plaintiffs would have it that the shutoff remedy cannot be imposed except against one who is personally responsible for the payment delinquency. In addition to the lien remedy, Pennsylvania law, 53 P.S. § 7251, also provides the City of Philadelphia with an action in assumpsit against the owner of the property at the time the water or sewer rates became payable, thereby making the owner personally liable for the charges. Plaintiffs claim that none of them are personally liable for the charges, none having been owners at the time the charges became payable, and, therefore, service cannot be denied to them. With the exception of Rose Tull, who arguably was an “owner” at the time the charges became payable, see p. 406 supra, and is hence liable to an action in assumpsit under section 7251,
IV
Fourteenth Amendment Claims
The plaintiffs raise a combination of equal protection, and substantive and procedural due process challenges to Philadelphia’s policy and practice of conditioning
A. Procedural Due Process
The plaintiffs’ procedural due process contention focuses on the absence of regulations or standards which would have put water and sewer service customers and applicants on notice of the city’s policy of requiring payment of pre-existing debts as a condition of obtaining or maintaining water service, and the resulting arbitrary and capricidus ad hoc determinations of eligibility by the Water Revenue Bureau. It is well-settled that the expectation of utility service rises to the level, articulated in Board of Regents v. Roth,
We need not, however, engage in the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing analysis to determine if due process requires the publication of service denial standards, because the question has been mooted by the city’s publication of precisely that in the form of its Residential Customer Service Regulations, filed November 18, 1987, effective December 18, 1987. The issuance of new regulations during the pendency of a lawsuit will moot the controversy where the prayer for relief is answered by the promulgation. See, e.g., Associated Third Class Mail Users v. U.S. Postal Service,
Plaintiffs argue that the publication of the Residential Customer Service Regulations does not answer their prayer for re
The plaintiffs further attempt to avoid the mooting of their procedural due process claims by asserting that the publication of the new regulations, even if they now satisfy the due process notice requirements, does not answer their claim of damages due to a deprivation of notice prior to their publication and resulting from the imperfection of the liens. The plaintiffs are correct in their contention that the issuance of the new regulations does not moot this damage claim based on the alleged constitutional notice defect prior to their publication. Therefore, we must apply the Eldridge analysis to the pre-regulation situation to determine the constitutional adequacy of notice at that time. We conclude that even before the more detailed Regulations were promulgated, the authority of the city to deprive a property, as to which service payments were delinquent, of water/sewer services was publicized as municipal law.
B. Substantive Due Process
The plaintiffs’ chief complaint is not that notice or other procedural safeguards against the erroneous deprivation of water and sewer services are inadequate. It is rather that the deprivation of service, on the ground of payment delinquencies incurred by a party other than the applicant, is constitutionally erroneous per se. This claim represents a substantive due process challenge, seeking nothing less than a ruling that the practice and policy of conditioning water and sewer service on the satisfaction of pre-existing charges result in an unconstitutional deprivation of property regardless of the procedural safeguards installed. The plaintiffs claim, moreover, that such a ruling, with binding effect upon us, has already issued in Koger v. Guarino,
This argument is misguided on several counts. To begin with, as a district court decision affirmed without an opinion, Ko-ger is not binding on this court. Moreover, contrary to the plaintiffs’ characterization, Koger did not address the specific question at issue: whether the eligibility of a water/sewer service applicant can be conditioned on the satisfaction of past due service charges incurred by prior customers. Koger dealt rather with the particular question of whether tenants could be denied service because of service charge delinquencies for which their landlords were legally (contractually) responsible. Thus, the Koger court considered factors, not present in this case, characteristic of landlord-tenant relationships. Cf. Dunbar v. City of New York,
The critical point which causes us to reject reliance on the Koger opinion, however, is that we find its application of a substantive due process analysis to an applicant’s interest in receiving water and sewer service to be fundamentally misplaced. But see Chatham, supra (considering a substantive due process challenge to the denial of water service to a landlord); Davis, supra (considering, and conceding, a substantive due process challenge to the deprivation of a tenant’s interest in receiving water service). Substantive due process refers to and protects federal rights.
C. Equal Protection
The plaintiffs also rely on Roger v. Guarino,
Davis is the genesis of the line of precedent relied on by the plaintiffs. Davis involved a water service policy of the City of Atlanta similar to Philadelphia’s policy at issue here. In Davis, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the dual classification of water service applicants according to those whose contemplated service address is encumbered with a pre-existing debt, and those whose address is not so encumbered, violates the Equal Protection clause on two grounds: (1),
[a] collection scheme ... that divorces itself entirely from the reality of legal accountability for the debt involved, is devoid of logical relation to the collection of unpaid water bills from the defaulting debtor,
Davis,
[t]he City has no valid governmental interest in securing revenue from innocent applicants who are forced to honor the obligations of another or face constructive eviction from their homes for lack of an essential to existence — water.
Id. at 145 (footnote omitted). On these two asserted grounds — invalidity of the governmental interest, and the absence of a logical relationship between it and the classification scheme — the Davis court found that the shutoff policy failed to survive even the most minimal level of equal protection scrutiny, traditionally applied to economic legislation: the test of a rational relationship between the classification scheme and a legitimate governmental end. See, e.g., United States Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno,
Both grounds reflect faulty reasoning and mischaracterization. To begin with the legitimacy of the governmental interest involved, it cannot be maintained that a city does not have a valid interest in collecting
The Davis, Craft and Roger courts did not reach the question of whether a stricter standard of equal protection scrutiny was applicable to the denial of water service because they held that even deferential rational relation scrutiny required striking down the policies at issue. Davis,
We agree with the view of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit expressed in Chatham v. Jackson,
“the importance of a service performed by the state does not determine whether it must be regarded as fundamental” for equal protection purposes, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez,411 U.S. 1 , 30,93 S.Ct. 1278 , 1295,36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973), and because even the right to housing, Lindsey v. Normet,405 U.S. 56 ,92 S.Ct. 862 ,31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972), and to welfare benefits, Dandridge v. Williams,397 U.S. 471 ,90 S.Ct. 1153 ,25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970), while as crucial to existence as water service, are not so fundamental as to require the closest constitutional scrutiny, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, supra,411 U.S. at 32-33 ,93 S.Ct. at 1296 ....
Chatham,
V
We have concluded that the plaintiffs have failed to state an equal protection or due process claim. Therefore, the judg
Notes
. By "non-tenant” status, we mean to refer to the two categories, in addition to that of "tenant," specified for customer eligibility under the Philadelphia Water and Revenue Departments’ Customer Service Regulations: (1) “owner" defined as “[a] person who has title to a property or his agent, servant or employee acting on his behalf’; (2) "occupant," defined as “[a] person to whom an owner has yielded possession of a residential property or dwelling unit and who has a reasonable expectation of residing at such dwelling unit for six months.” Some of the appellants are owners, and others are or may he occupants. An occupant might conceivably be considered a tenant-at-will and, indeed, the regulations treat occupants and tenants similarly. But since the separate category of occupant is recognized in the regulations, and since none of the plaintiffs allege that they are tenants, we will consider the non-owner occupants as non-tenants. Thus, we do not reach the question of whether the asymmetries in the landlord-tenant relationship introduce an added constitutional dimension to the propriety of denying service to non-delinquent tenants, cf. Chatham v. Jackson,
. Other exceptions to eligibility to receive service, not relevant to the instant complaint, include circumstances where health code, safety and licensing require the denial of service.
. The precise language of section 7107 is:
The lien for ... water rates, lighting rates, or sewer rates, or rates for any other service furnished by a municipality, — shall exist in favor of, and the claim therefor may he filed against the property thereby benefited by, the municipality extending the benefit....
. The relevant text of section 7432 reads:
Whenever, heretofore or hereafter, any county, city, borough, incorporated town, township, school district, poor district, county institution district or municipal authority has failed to file in the office of the prothonotary of the county, any tax claim or municipal claim assessed against any property within the time limit required by law for such filing, whereby the lien of such tax or municipal claim is lost ...; then, in any such case heretofore or hereafter occurring, any such county, city, borough, incorporated town, township, school district, poor district, county institution district or municipal authority may, at any time after the effective date of this act, file such tax or municipal claim, or amend such claim ...; and such claim ... so entered or revived shall be a valid claim ... and be a lien upon the real estate upon which it was a lien at the time the claim was filed ... and said claim ... may be revived or further revived and collected as other claims ... are revived and collected: Provided, that the lien of any such claim ... shall not reattach against any real estate transferred to any purchaser before such claim is filed or during the time when the lien of any such ... municipal claim ... was lost, nor shall the lien of any such claim ... impair or affect the priority of the lien of any mortgage or other lien which gained priority because of the failure of the county, city, borough, incorporated town, township, school district, poor district, county institution district or municipal authority to file [or perfect] such claim ...; nor shall any such lien so revived impair or affect the priority of the lien of any mortgage or lien which was entered prior to the ... municipal claim or which gained priority during the time such lien was revived or effective.
S3 P.S. § 7432 (1959, P.L. 955 § 1; 1963, P.L. 177 § 1).
. We do not need here to decide whether the denial of service remedy would be authorized in the absence of a lien because we find that all of the properties in question are subject to perfectible and enforceable liens.
. We note again that there is no claim that the city is estopped from treating Ms. Tull as responsible for the charges at the time they were incurred because of its own alleged representations to Ms. Tull that it would treat the vendor as the party responsible for the charges.
. We do not reach the question of whether intervening purchasers and lienors, protected against the enforcement of unperfected liens under 53 P.S. § 7432, are also protected against the municipal shutoff remedy because we do not reach the question of whether the authority to apply the shutoff remedy is based on the existence of a lien. See supra n. 5. Some courts have held that because of the special features of the landlord-tenant relationship, substantive due process requires that tenants may not be deprived of water service on the basis of past due charges for which they are not personally liable. See Davis v. Weir,
. Section 19-1606(2)(c) of the Philadelphia Code, effective 1956, states:
If any water or sewer rent charge remains unpaid for two cycles after the bill has been rendered, the [Collections] Department shall serve a notice upon the delinquent property owner and if the charge, with penalties thereon, is not paid within 10 days after such service, the Department may, in its discretion, deprive the premises of water until the charge with penalties is paid.