Great news and a victory for Pennsylvania!! Governor Corbett signed into law today that private transfer fees are banned, which brings Pennsylvania as the 28th state to ban it.
Private transfer fees are part of a covenant attached to a property deed that forces the seller to pay 1 percent of the purchase price to a private third-party entity every time the property sells over the next 99 years. These fees cost unsuspecting homeowners thousands of dollars in additional closing costs.
How can anyone allow a third party with no interest in the property continue to collect fees?
These private transfer fees would have made it very difficult for Pennsylvanians to purchase or sell a home. These fees are totally unfair to the homebuyer and the homeseller. If this had passed, it would have hurt the real estate industry even more, while it is trying to recover.
The Pennsylvania Association of REALTORS. the Pennsylvania Land Title Association, the National Association of REALTORS, American Land Title Association, Consumers Union, and Consumer Federation of America all fought to ban the private transfer fees.
