Pennsylvania Statutes Title 53 P.S. Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations § 24138. Agreements as to damages;  procedure in case of failure to agree

The city shall attempt to agree with the owner of any property taken or to be taken, injured or destroyed as to the amount of damage done or likely to be done to him in the taking of such property and in the erection and construction of such waterworks, and, if no agreement can be reached, or if the owner cannot be found, or is not sui juris, the city or the owner or any person interested may apply by petition to the court of common pleas of the county where the property is located or to any law judge thereof in vacation, whereupon the court or judge shall appoint three viewers, from the county board of viewers, to view and ascertain the damages done by reason of said taking, use, occupancy, injury or destruction, and appoint a time not less than twenty nor more than thirty days thereafter when the viewers shall meet at or upon the premises affected.  Thereupon the same proceedings shall be had for the assessment of damages and the costs and expenses in connection therewith, with the same right of appeal and trial by jury as is provided by the act, approved the sixteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one (Pamphlet Laws, seventy-five), entitled “An act in relation to the laying out, opening, widening, straightening, extending or vacating streets and alleys, and the construction of bridges in the several municipalities of this Commonwealth, the grading, paving, macadamizing or otherwise improving streets and alleys, providing for ascertaining the damages to private property resulting therefrom, the assessment of the damages, costs and expenses thereof upon the property benefited, and the construction of sewers and payment of the damages, costs and expenses thereof, including damages to private property resulting therefrom,” and the amendments and supplements thereto.  1