Conshohocken turned itself from a mill town into one of the Philadelphia region’s busiest small markets, riverfront offices, a restaurant row on Fayette Street, two train stations, and rowhomes that sell in days. The borough’s use and occupancy process is correspondingly businesslike: $100 for a single-family home with one reinspection included, a published checklist to rehearse against, and a 30-day issuance duty the borough imposes on itself.
The Conshohocken seller picture
Buyers are young professionals working the borough’s own office market or commuting on the Manayunk/Norristown line, plus move-up buyers who want walkability without city taxes. Sellers skew two ways: longtime borough families in the rowhome grid, and the first generation of 2000s-era townhome owners trading up or out. For the older stock, the checklist items, handrails, GFCIs, detectors, egress, are the age of the house talking, and an hour’s walk-through beats a reinspection every time.
The U&O: $100 with a reinspection included
The licenses and inspections department requires the permit on changes of use, occupancy, and tenancy, with sales handled through the same process. The structure:
- Fee: $100 for a single-family dwelling, $75 per unit multifamily, paid before the application is processed. Per the 2026 fee schedule, that covers the initial inspection plus one reinspection, with additional visits at $50.
- The form: completed in ink and signed by the owner or acting agent, per borough ordinance.
- The refusal path: a noncompliant property gets the permit refused with written remedial instructions, and temporary permits are case-by-case only.
The checklist and the 30-day duty
The borough publishes its real estate inspection checklist, built on the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code, which makes this one of the rehearsable inspections: the same document the inspector carries is the one you can walk the house with beforehand. On timing, the ordinance gives officials a duty to issue the permit within 30 days of the application’s receipt date once compliance is determined. Most sales clear far faster, but 30 days is the honest planning number in a borough this busy.
The Pennsylvania money
Pennsylvania’s realty transfer tax runs 2% in the borough, split by custom between buyer and seller: on a $450,000 sale, the seller’s customary half is $4,500. There is no Pennsylvania equivalent of New Jersey’s exit withholding, and the federal home-sale exclusion covers up to $250,000 of gain, or $500,000 for couples, for longtime owners. The home-sale tax guide and the cost-to-sell guide carry the full arithmetic.
Where downsizers here go
Borough downsizers rarely go far: one-floor condos in Plymouth Meeting and Whitemarsh, the 55+ communities along the Ridge Pike corridor toward Lower Providence, and the broader options in the Montgomery County downsizing guide. The sequencing guide settles whether to sell or buy first in a market this quick.
Getting started
The Conshohocken order: a free valuation that prices the house for a competitive-offer market rather than under it, the U&O application inked, signed, and filed at contract, the published checklist walked room by room beforehand, and the included reinspection held in reserve rather than planned on. The complete downsizing guide handles everything past the closing table.