Act 29 puts your rented unit on a county list
Act 29 puts your rented unit on a county list
2026-09-15 · Pennsylvania · Compliance
What happened. Governor Shapiro signed Act 29 of 2026 on 20 July 2026, creating a county-by-county register of property contacts. It takes effect on 18 September 2026 — three days from now — and it reaches every Pennsylvania property that is not its owner's own home, which includes rented condominium units, investor-held townhomes, and land an association itself owns.1
What the act does
Act 29 adds a new Chapter 25 to Title 68, §§ 2501-2508, headed "County Property Contact Information List." Section 2502 requires every county chief assessor to "establish and maintain a list for the real properties located within the county." Section 2503 supplies two routes onto that list: the owner submits contact information "within 30 days of purchase of a real property within the county," or the owner "is cited for a violation of a municipal ordinance or code," in which case the municipality collects the information and relays it.2
Who is exempt, and who is not
There is exactly one carve-out. Section 2504 provides that "This chapter shall not apply to an owner-occupant real property," defined as "A real property that is owned and occupied by an individual as the individual's principal residence and domicile."2 Everything else is in. And the definition of a covered owner is deliberately wide: "'Real property owner.' Includes a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, business trust, other association, estate, trust, foundation or individual."
Read those two together and the association itself is a covered owner as to any parcel it holds — a clubhouse lot, a detention-basin parcel, a private road, an unsold unit taken back for non-payment. An association is not an individual and does not occupy a parcel as a principal residence, so the exemption cannot reach it.
The bill passed the House 132-71 on 3 June 2025 and the Senate 44-6 on 12 July 2026, and was approved on 20 July.3
What must actually be supplied
This is the provision that makes the act more than a paperwork exercise. Section 2505 does not accept a registered-agent address and stop. Where the owner is a business or an LLC, the filing must include "the contact information of an individual, representative or employee who has the authority and ability to repair, maintain or otherwise remedy a problem or municipal code violation for the real property."2 A named human with actual authority to fix things, in other words — not a lawyer, not a mailbox.
Section 2505(b) requires changes to be reported within 30 days. For an association whose board turns over annually and whose management company changes every few years, that is a recurring obligation, not a one-time filing. The realistic answer is to attach it to the same calendar entry as the annual report to the Department of State, and to make the named contact a role rather than a person who may resign in March.
The penalty, and what triggers it
Section 2507 provides that "A county may levy a fine of up to $500 against a real property owner or the owner's representative that intentionally or knowingly provides false or incorrect contact information or intentionally or knowingly fails to update contact information."2
Two features of that wording matter. The standard is intentionally or knowingly, so an honest error is not the target — stale information the owner knows is stale is. And the fine reaches "the owner's representative" as well as the owner, which on a plain reading can mean the management company that filed the information.
Who can see it
Access is not open. Section 2506 lets a municipality request the information on a showing of "a reasonable need and use for the contact information, which shall include a discussion with the real property owner regarding real property maintenance and upkeep," together with "an affirmation that the requested information will not be used for commercial purposes."2 Section 2508 excuses participants in the address-confidentiality program under 23 Pa.C.S. § 6703, which is the protection for victims of domestic violence and stalking — worth knowing if an owner in your community raises it.
Why this landed on associations at all
It did not start out aimed at them. The sponsor's co-sponsorship memo was titled "Eliminating Blight and Revitalizing Communities," and the target was the absentee owner a code officer cannot reach. Associations are caught because the drafting defines the exempt class by owner-occupancy rather than by property type, and an association is by definition not an occupant.
The practical consequence is the one worth acting on: a township code officer chasing an unmaintained detention basin or an overgrown common area now has a statutory route to a named person with authority to fix it, and a $500 lever if that person turns out not to exist. Boards that have relied on correspondence disappearing into a management company's general mailbox should assume that changes.
What to do in the next 30 days
Three things. Identify every parcel the association holds title to — boards are routinely wrong about this, particularly for stormwater and open-space parcels conveyed at turnover. Contact the county chief assessor's office to find out what submission route they have built, since the act tells counties to maintain a list but does not prescribe a form. And decide now who the named authorised individual is, because that name is the part of the filing with a penalty attached to it.
What to watch next
Counties are implementing this on their own, and 67 of them will not implement it identically. Expect wide variation in whether there is an online form, whether the 30-day clock is enforced for existing owners or only on new purchases, and how quickly municipalities start using § 2506 requests. Nothing in the act requires a county to notify an owner that the duty exists.
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