Real Estate Transfer Fee: Legislation

The Real Estate Transfer Fee bill would be local option enabling legislation. This would give individual cities and towns the ability to decide for themselves whether to enact a Real Estate Transfer Fee (between 0.5%-2.0%) for the exclusive purpose of creating and supporting local affordable housing.

Senator Comerford filed SD 1982 in January 2023 to implement the municipal option transfer fee. In the House, Representative Connolly has filed a similar bill (HD 2857) . The bills were developed in discussions with the Transfer Fee Coalition and reflect refinements in bills filed in previous years .

Local Home Rule Petitions have passed and implementing legislation has been filed or is pending for the Massachusetts communities shown below. The links will take you to the Legislative web site showing the text of the bills.

• Amherst

• Aquinnah

• Arlington

• Brookline

• Boston   

• Cambridge

• Chatham

• Chilmark

• Concord   

• Edgartown

• Nantucket   

• Oak Bluffs

• Provincetown

• Somerville

• Tisbury

• Truro

• West Tisbury

• Wellfleet