# Sabatine v. Commonwealth

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · September 24, 1981 · 497 Pa. 453

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9695361

## Case

- **Full name:** Anthony A. and Victoria SABATINE and William A. and Mary L. Madden, Appellants, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** September 24, 1981
- **Citations:** 497 Pa. 453; 442 A.2d 210; 1981 Pa. LEXIS 964
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Roberts
- **Judges:** Flaherty, Kauffman, Larsen, Nix, O'Brien, Roberts, Wilkinson
- **Cited by:** 27 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9695361

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a consent decree may be modified due to fraud, accident, or mistake

## Opinion text

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring.
As this Court stated in Baehr Bros. v. Commonwealth, 487 Pa. 233, 237 , 409 A.2d 326, 328 (1979), “[t]he Realty Transfer Tax Act . .. imposes a tax on the recordation of any document which effects a transfer of an interest in land.” (Emphasis in original). Here, real estate was conveyed by *460 deed to appellants Anthony and Victoria Sabatine, the deed was recorded, the realty transfer tax was paid to the Commonwealth, and the Sabatines assumed ownership of the property. Although I agree completely with the result reached by the majority, I am of the view that no amount of subsequent evidence that the conveyance was “void ab initio ” could change the fact that the transfer tax was properly payable at the time the deed was presented for recordation. Where, as here, a party who has properly paid a realty transfer tax at the time of recordation wishes later to recoup the amount paid, his recourse, if any, lies not against the Commonwealth but in his contractual rights.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9695361. Public record. Not legal advice.