We buy houses in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

Franklin County is the Cumberland Valley between the mountains: Chambersburg in the middle, Waynesboro and Greencastle along the Maryland line, Shippensburg straddling the Cumberland County border, and Mercersburg, Fayetteville, and Mont Alto in between. Every one of those markets carries its own paperwork: a two percent transfer tax, a seller disclosure statute, borough rental licenses in Chambersburg, Waynesboro, and Shippensburg, and a Tax Claim Bureau calendar that puts a real deadline on houses with unpaid taxes. We buy Franklin County houses for cash, as is, and we work inside all of it, so none of it is something you have to solve before you sell.

Realty transfer tax: one percent to the Commonwealth, one percent local

Pennsylvania charges a one percent realty transfer tax on the value of real estate conveyed by deed, and the Department of Revenue holds the grantor and grantee jointly liable for it. Franklin County municipalities add their own local transfer tax on top. In Chambersburg that is one half of one percent to the borough and one half of one percent to the Chambersburg Area School District, so the total in the borough is two percent of the sale price. Waynesboro, Greencastle, and Shippensburg each levy a local transfer tax too, and the usual total across the county is two percent. Custom in Pennsylvania is a 50/50 split between buyer and seller, but that is a contract term, not a law, and it gets negotiated in every retail sale.

Both taxes are collected by the Franklin County Recorder of Deeds at 272 North Second Street in Chambersburg when the deed is recorded, along with the recording fee itself: $92.75 for a deed of up to four pages and four names under the fee schedule that took effect November 17, 2025, plus two dollars per extra page and fifty cents per extra name. A deed that crosses into two taxing districts, which happens in Shippensburg, needs a Statement of Value that allocates the price. When you sell to us, the seller side of the transfer tax is handled inside the closing statement by the title company, not written as a check from your pocket, and we tell you the exact figure in the written offer.

The Pennsylvania Seller Disclosure Law, and what a cash sale changes

The Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law, 68 Pa.C.S. Section 7301 through 7315, requires the seller of a residential property to give the buyer a completed property disclosure statement before an agreement of sale is signed. Selling as is does not waive it. As is means the buyer will not ask for repairs; you still have to disclose the material defects you know about, on the Commonwealth form, whether the buyer is a family on a mortgage or a cash buyer like us.

There is one exemption that matters in Franklin County: transfers by a fiduciary in the course of administering a decedent’s estate, a guardianship, a conservatorship, or a trust are exempt from the form. An executor or administrator selling a parent’s house does not fill out the statement, though a defect the executor actually knows about still has to be disclosed. We buy from estates routinely and walk personal representatives through exactly which box applies.

What changes with us is the pressure. We are not going to use a disclosure to renegotiate. Tell us the roof leaks and the basement floods and that is priced into the number you see, and the number does not move at closing.

Inherited a Franklin County house? The Register of Wills and Orphans’ Court

Estate administration in Franklin County runs through the Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds, one combined office at 272 North Second Street, Chambersburg, PA 17201 (717-261-3872), open Monday through Friday 8:30 to 4:30, with probate by appointment. The Register opens the estate and issues the short certificate that lets an executor or administrator sign a deed. The probate fee starts at $30 for an estate under $1,000 and rises $35 for each additional $100,000 of value, plus surcharges. The Clerk of Orphans’ Court handles the disputes, the accountings, and the sales that need a judge’s approval.

Pennsylvania also charges an inheritance tax that Maryland, twenty minutes south, does not: zero for a surviving spouse, 4.5 percent for children and other lineal heirs, 12 percent for siblings, and 15 percent for everyone else, with a five percent discount for paying within three months of death and the REV-1500 return due within nine months. Selling the house is usually what closes the estate, and it is usually what raises the cash to pay that bill. We buy houses still in administration, coordinate with the personal representative and the estate’s attorney on timing, and buy with the contents still in place. Our article on selling an inherited house in Franklin County walks the whole sequence, including the $92.75 deed of distribution.

Behind on property taxes: the Tax Claim Bureau calendar

Unpaid county, municipal, and school taxes in Franklin County end up with the Franklin County Tax Claim Bureau, also at 272 North Second Street (717-261-3884), which sells delinquent parcels at an upset sale each September and at a judicial sale for anything that did not sell, usually two to three months later. The list is advertised in the Public Opinion, the Record Herald, and the Franklin County Law Journal, and the Bureau keeps a current version on the county website. A house on the upset list has roughly a year of runway from the time the taxes go delinquent to the sale, and much less by the time the certified notices arrive.

A cash sale can close before the list is published or before the sale date, and the delinquent taxes get paid off from the proceeds at closing. That preserves the equity an upset sale would hand to a bidder. The timeline, with the notices you will receive along the way, is in our article on the Franklin County tax sale timeline.

Renting it out? Chambersburg, Waynesboro, and Shippensburg each license landlords

Chambersburg Borough regulates every rental unit under Chapter 236 of its code: an annual program fee of $25 per unit, and an inspection by the Pennsylvania Municipal Code Alliance about every 36 months. Selling a licensed rental to us does not require you to bring the inspection current first.

Waynesboro Borough licenses rentals under Chapter 213 and Ordinance 1197: every rental parcel is registered, the borough issues the license within 30 days of a complete application and fee, an inspection can come before the license, and putting a tenant in before the license issues is a violation. Shippensburg Borough runs its program under Ordinance 848: a rental operating license of $15 per unit per year, due December 31, a Code Alliance inspection every three years, a per room registration fee for student rentals, and a designated local agent for out of area owners. Greencastle and Mercersburg had no rental licensing ordinance we could locate at the time of writing; confirm with the borough office before assuming either way.

We buy tenant occupied houses in all of them, licensed or lapsed. The tenant, the lease, and the next inspection become ours at closing. The full landlord exit, including what a countywide reassessment would do to a rental’s tax bill, is in our article on selling a rental in Chambersburg or Waynesboro.

Foreclosure in Pennsylvania is judicial, and the sheriff sale is the deadline

Pennsylvania mortgage foreclosures go through the Court of Common Pleas. Before filing, the lender has to send the Act 91 notice, which gives you at least 30 days and tells you about the Homeowners’ Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program. After judgment, the Franklin County Sheriff schedules the sale and publishes the list. A cash sale that closes before the sheriff sale date pays off the lender from the proceeds and leaves you the equity that a sale on the courthouse steps would not.

Town by town, from Greencastle to Shippensburg

• Greencastle. Antrim Township and the borough sit ten minutes from the Maryland line, and half the buyers we compete with are Hagerstown outfits with a 301 number. The borough levies its own transfer tax and no rental license we could find.
• Mercersburg. Small borough, Montgomery Township farmhouses, and the academy. Older houses with older systems. We buy them as they sit.
• Fayetteville and Mont Alto. Guilford and Quincy Township ranchers along Route 30 and Route 997. Most of our calls here are estates and relocations, not distressed houses.
• Shippensburg. The borough line runs between Franklin and Cumberland counties, so a deed may need a Statement of Value that splits the price between two taxing districts. University rentals fall under Ordinance 848 in the borough and the township’s own license outside it.
• Chambersburg and Waynesboro each have their own page: sell my house fast in Chambersburg and cash home buyers in Waynesboro.