Part 8 of 9 in Philadelphia Code: Accidental Anthropology

If you have ever bought a house in Philadelphia, you have paid a $15 fee called the Philadelphia County Demolition Fund fee. It is in § 19-1403 of the Philadelphia Code, tucked into the same section that imposes the Realty Transfer Tax. The transfer tax is the number you negotiated over. The $15 is the number you didn't. The transfer tax itself — the highest real estate transfer tax in America, at 3.578% as of mid-2025 — is the subject of The Highest Real Estate Transfer Tax in America.

The fee was added to § 19-1403 by Bill No. 220288, approved June 27, 2022. The theory was the one reformers have been pitching: real estate transactions create a need for the City to demolish vacant properties, and the people doing the transactions should pay. The fee is small. The aggregate revenue, in a city that does thousands of transactions a year, is modest: roughly $2 million. The Demolition Fund supports a few hundred demolitions a year, in the neighborhoods where the blight is most acute.

The fee has a death date, and the City wrote it in. The City's authority to collect the fee does not come from the 2022 ordinance itself. It comes from a Pennsylvania state act — the Recorder of Deeds Fee Law (Act of April 8, 1982, P.L. 310, No. 87, as amended) — which the 2022 bill invokes. That state act is, by its current terms, scheduled to expire January 3, 2027. When the state act expires, the City's authority to collect the fee expires with it. The City has known this since the day the fee was passed.

In June 2025, Bill No. 250211 raised the Realty Transfer Tax from 3.278% to 3.578%, effective July 1. The bill amended § 19-1403 — the same section that contains the $15 demolition fee. The same Council could have, in the same bill, asked the state to extend the demolition fee's underlying authority. They did not. The bill text revises the RTT rate and nothing else. There is no mention of the demolition fee, no mention of the 1982 state act, no extension of the demolition fee's authority. The City had a legislative moment, and used it to raise one fee. The other fee was sitting right there in the same section. It was left to die on schedule.

The fee brings in roughly $2 million a year. The City does 200-300 demolitions a year, at $30,000-$50,000 per demolition. Total annual cost: on the order of $10 million. The fee funds 20% of the program. The other 80% comes from the general fund. After January 3, 2027, the $2 million earmark goes away. The demolitions do not. The City will keep doing 200-300 demolitions a year. The City will pay for them out of the general fund, or out of some other revenue source. The fee was a label, not a fund. The label is set to expire. The demolitions are not.

The City is not repealing the fee. The City is letting the state act expire. The City is not asking the state to extend the authority. By omission. The City created a fee with a death date. The City had two legislative moments to ask the state to extend it. The City has not asked at either. On January 3, 2027, the fee will expire. The demolitions will continue. The fee will not.

Sources: Philadelphia Code § 19-1403; Bill No. 220288 (2022); Bill No. 250211 (2025); phila.gov, Important changes to recording fees and transfer tax starting July 1, 2025; PA Recorder of Deeds Fee Law (Act 87 of 1982).