East Goshen sellers had a brief holiday from municipal inspections: the township stopped point-of-sale inspections in April 2024, then brought them back on February 1, 2025 with a clean rulebook. Three separate checks, a fifteen-business-day clock, and a published inspection list that tells you exactly what the inspector will look at. For a township that includes Hershey’s Mill, one of Chester County’s largest 55+ communities, the details matter to a lot of downsizers at once.
The inspection that came back
The Suburban Realtors Alliance tracked the reversal: inspections paused in April 2024 and reinstated as of February 1, 2025. Anyone whose last East Goshen sale fell in that window remembers a process that no longer exists. The current rules live on the township’s use and occupancy page.
The three-check process
- 01File the Residential Property Transfer Application with three separate checks to East Goshen Township: $150 for the application and inspection, $15 for the sewer or septic certification, $15 for the trash certification.
- 02Wait out the clock. Processing is 15 business days from receipt of a complete application, and incomplete applications are returned without processing, which restarts the clock.
- 03Pass the inspection. The township reviews for open permits, open violations, and change of use, and inspects the house against the published list below.
The published inspection list
The application prints the checklist, which is rare candor for a Chester County municipality:
- Alarms: smoke and CO detectors per the township’s alarm sheet, which references NFPA 72 and the 2018 International Residential Code.
- Address identification: numbers on the front door and the mailbox, both.
- Plumbing details: sewer vent and clean-out caps installed; sump pump and condensate lines discharging to daylight outside, not into the sewer.
- Garage doors: electronic openers must auto-reverse.
- GFI outlets: kitchen counters, bathrooms, powder rooms, garages, unfinished basements, laundry areas, and anything within six feet of a sink.
Every item on that list is a hardware-store fix except the GFI work, and even that is a short electrician visit in most houses. A seller who walks the list before filing passes on the first visit.
The Hershey's Mill exception
Hershey’s Mill runs its own sewer and trash through the association, so the township’s $15 certifications are not available for those addresses; the application carries the street list. The $150 transfer application still applies. Sellers inside the gates coordinate two offices instead of one, the township for the inspection and the association for utilities and its own resale paperwork, which is one more reason the timeline starts at listing, not at contract.
The Pennsylvania money
East Goshen sits at the standard 2% total realty transfer tax, customarily split, so the seller’s half on a $600,000 sale is $6,000. Real estate tax certification runs through the Chester County Treasurer, not the township. Pennsylvania withholds nothing at settlement, and the federal exclusion math, $250,000 single, $500,000 married, is covered in the home-sale tax guide. The full ledger lives in the cost-to-sell guide.
Getting started
The East Goshen order: a free valuation, the transfer application filed complete with all three checks the week you list, the published checklist walked room by room, and Hershey’s Mill sellers looping in the association early. Downsizers weighing where to land can start with the Chester County downsizing guide and the neighboring West Chester and Malvern and Willistown guides; the sequencing guide settles the buy-or-sell-first question.