Transaction Coordinator in Allegheny County, PA.

What we handle on an Allegheny County file

Allegheny County runs on different vocabulary than southeastern Pennsylvania. There is no Recorder of Deeds, the deed recording fee is a flat $200, and the item that actually controls the closing timeline is the dye test, which comes from federal and state consent orders rather than a county ordinance. Pittsburgh carries the highest transfer tax in the state and, contrary to most closing checklists, requires no resale occupancy permit. Once your deal is ratified, PLS builds and manages the file in KW Command, tracks every deadline and contingency, routes documents for signature, and coordinates with lender, title, attorneys, and the co-op agent. See the full transaction coordination service for the complete scope, and the Pennsylvania overview for statewide notes.

Realty transfer tax in Allegheny County: 2.0% to 5.0% depending on municipality and school district

Allegheny publishes a full municipal and school district rate table, which most counties do not. The City of Pittsburgh is 3 percent city plus 1 percent Pittsburgh School District plus 1 percent Commonwealth for a 5 percent total, the highest combined realty transfer tax in Pennsylvania. One edge case is missed almost everywhere: a small slice of the City of Pittsburgh sits in the Baldwin-Whitehall School District, where the school rate is one half of one percent and the total is 4.5 percent, so verify the school district and not just the municipality. McKeesport City, Penn Hills, and Mount Oliver Borough are 3 percent. Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, Monroeville, McCandless, Upper St. Clair, and Whitehall are 2.5 percent. Wilkinsburg, Munhall, Swissvale, Dormont, Carnegie, and most others are 2 percent.

Recording a deed in Allegheny County

The Allegheny County Department of Real Estate sits at County Office Building, Room 101, 542 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 412-350-4226. The current recording fee is $200.00 flat for a deed, effective January 1, 2026. The county states there are no additional charges unless a document includes more than 30 names, at $5.00 per name, or over 30 parcels requiring deed certification, at $10.00 per parcel. That flat structure is unusual in Pennsylvania and removes the page and name arithmetic that drives fees in the southeast. E-recording is available through CSC, ePN, ERX, and Simplifile. Personal checks are not accepted in person. The office is open 8:30 to 4:30 and publishes no turnaround commitment. Note that the office is not called the Recorder of Deeds.

Several document types cannot be e-recorded in Allegheny and must be presented on paper: subdivision plans, corrective deeds, sheriff deeds, deeds in lieu of foreclosure, deeds transferring property into a trust, and deeds taxable in more than one jurisdiction. A trust vesting deed or a parcel straddling two municipalities has to be walked into Room 101, so decide the vesting early. Realty transfer tax is paid by a check separate from the recording fees.

What actually holds up a closing here

The dye test is the biggest Allegheny closing item and it is not a county rule

There is no countywide Allegheny County Health Department dye test requirement and no county ordinance. ACHD licences the plumbers who perform the tests, it does not mandate them. The real driver is a consent order chain: Mt. Lebanon Ordinance 3099, enacted September 27, 2004, states in its recitals that the municipality entered an Administrative Consent Order requiring it to institute and enforce, prior to property transfers, an ordinance prohibiting illegal storm water connections to the sanitary sewer. All 83 ALCOSAN service area communities signed municipal consent orders in early 2004, with Phase II orders following in 2021, which means roughly 83 separate ordinances each with its own fee, validity period, and procedure. Fees range from $20 in the City of Pittsburgh through $50 in Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, Ross, and Shaler, $110 in Green Tree, and $425 in Fox Chapel, and lead times range from 10 business days to 30 days.

The dye test gates the lien letter, not the closing table

The certificate is rarely presented at the table. It is a precondition to the municipal lien letter or tax certification letter, which is what the title company actually needs, and that is stated explicitly by Mt. Lebanon, Ross, Fox Chapel, O'Hara, Carnegie, Munhall, and Wilkinsburg. Bethel Park goes further and states that a deed cannot be transferred until all repairs are completed and passed inspection. Two operational facts make this worse than it looks. Seasonal suspension is real and documented: Fox Chapel states that dye testing generally resumes in late March or April depending on weather, and municipalities publish weather escrow amounts including $200 in Mt. Lebanon, Dormont, and Wilkinsburg and $1,000 in Fox Chapel. And in Munhall, West Mifflin, McCandless, Franklin Park, Moon, Robinson, and Plum the test is run by a separate sanitary authority rather than the borough or township, so calling the municipality wastes a day.

Pittsburgh has no resale occupancy permit, and the appeal window is a separate exposure

The City of Pittsburgh's Permits, Licenses and Inspections page, last updated April 23, 2025, states that single family dwellings and townhouses do not require Certificates of Occupancy. Three separate things get conflated with a point-of-sale requirement: rental registration, which is a real but annual landlord obligation at $16 per property plus inspection fees; occupancy permits arising from new construction or change of use at a $130 residential certificate fee, which is permit-triggered rather than deed-triggered; and the PWSA dye test Evidence of Compliance Certificate at $20, valid three years, which is the item Pittsburgh actually requires at sale. Separately, buyers throughout the county should underwrite taxes on the assumption of a post-sale appeal: assessments may be appealed by the owner, the school district, or the municipality with no filing fee.

Pricing

Transaction coordination in Pennsylvania is billed per file, not as a monthly retainer. Contract to close is $400 per transaction, and the full rate card including dual agency, transaction licensee, FSBO, and listing management is published on our pricing page. No fixed overhead, no minimum volume.

Where these figures come from

The county-level figures on this page come from the official sources listed below. Municipal fees and deadlines come from each municipality's own published schedules and ordinances, which are revised more often than they are archived. We publish what we could verify and leave out what we could not. Fees and ordinances change; if you are relying on a figure here for a live file, confirm it with the issuing office, and tell us if you find a discrepancy so we can correct the page.

• Allegheny County, realty transfer taxes local rates
• Allegheny County Department of Real Estate, recording documents
• Allegheny County real estate fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026
• City of Pittsburgh, permits, licenses and inspections
• Mt. Lebanon Ordinance No. 3099, dye test
• Allegheny County, annual assessment appeals