The Commonwealth Court held that a school district’s new access drive did not constitute land development and that substantial evidence supported the zoning board’s traffic-safety finding.
The Commonwealth Court held that the high bidder at a disapproved upset tax sale lacked a legally enforceable interest supporting intervention and could not appeal orders entered before he became a party.
The Commonwealth Court reversed an upset tax sale because the bureau failed to send required first-class notice after certified delivery was unacknowledged, even though the owner learned of the sale.
The Commonwealth Court held that a premature civil appeal ripened when judgment was entered, but the homeowners waived all merits issues by filing post-trial motions after Rule 227.1’s deadline.
The Commonwealth Court set aside an upset tax sale because the bureau failed to use readily available county records to locate the owner after certified notice was returned.
The Commonwealth Court vacated four Williamsport property-maintenance convictions because the citations charged violations of a code edition the city had never adopted.
The Commonwealth Court held that a quitclaim deed did not let a railroad transfer its statutory crossing-maintenance responsibilities without PUC approval.
The Commonwealth Court required the zoning board to decide whether the property itself created unnecessary hardship or whether the developer’s chosen 64-home plan created the need for steep-slope relief.
The Commonwealth Court held that every Phase I homeowner was indispensable to an action seeking to void a deed governing shared common areas because the requested relief would alter their property rights.
The Commonwealth Court held that minor wording changes to an advertised zoning amendment did not require a new hearing and could not support a challenge filed almost four years after enactment.
The Commonwealth Court held that Wayne County could not apply Pennsylvania’s charitable-exemption tests parcel by parcel to the Salvation Army’s integrated 1,200-acre camp and retreat facility.
The Commonwealth Court held that an order striking a consent order and reopening a property-assessment case is not final or immediately appealable.
Court issues a substantive appellate ruling IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Academy House Condominium : Association, : Appellant : : No. 250 C.D. 2025 v. : : Submitted: June 16, 2026 Brian S.
The Commonwealth Court affirmed the quashing of a land use appeal challenging a Fayette County wind power facility development plan, holding that the MPC’s 30-day appeal period ran from the date of the written approval decision — not from the objector’s internet discovery that construction had begun — and that the due process exception to the time limit must be affirmatively pleaded in the appeal.
The Commonwealth Court reversed a trial court order striking a de facto condemnation claim from a condemnee’s petition for appointment of viewers. PennDOT’s plot plan showed the condemnee’s home excluded from a County Line Road right-of-way expansion, but a subsequent survey revealed the taking included part of the house’s porch. The court held that a misleading plot plan tolls the Eminent Domain Code’s 30-day filing deadline and permits the condemnee to pursue both de jure and de facto taking claims in a single viewer proceeding.
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania vacated a Beaver County trial court’s denial of a real estate tax exemption for a land conservation trust, holding that the trial court misapplied the HUP purely-public-charity test by merging the “charitable purpose” and “indefinite public benefit” factors, improperly requiring evidence of significant public visitation, and ignoring the Environmental Rights Amendment and the Charitable Purposes Act in the charitable-purpose analysis.
The Commonwealth Court vacated a permanent injunction granted in a decade-long Chester County land development dispute, holding that the trial court wrongly applied collateral estoppel: because the prior declaratory judgment action was dismissed for lack of standing, the issues were never actually litigated, and the identity-of-issues element was independently unsatisfied because the prior case turned on the Prevailing Wage Act while the injunction proceeding did not.
The Commonwealth Court held that Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Tax Sale Law exceptions procedure does not permit constitutional challenges to the validity of a tax levy, affirming dismissal of a pro se taxpayer’s Uniformity Clause attack on Delaware County school taxes as beyond the scope of the RETSL exceptions process.