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ENROLLED ORIGINAL
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A RESOLUTION
26-356
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
March 3, 2026
To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to amend Chapter 10 of Title
47 of the District of Columbia Official Code to provide real property, deed recordation,
and deed transfer tax exemptions for properties held under the ownership of the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Washington and his successors in office, a corporation sole, or
the respective parishes of the Archdiocese of Washington.
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this
resolution may be cited as the “Archdiocese of Washington Parish Real Property, Deed
Recordation, and Transfer Tax Exemption Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2026”.
Sec. 2. (a) For more than a century, Catholic parish properties in the District of Columbia
have been acquired, occupied, operated, maintained, and funded by individual parishes for
exclusively religious, charitable, and related nonprofit purposes.
(b) At the time many of these properties were acquired, District law did not permit
Catholic parishes to incorporate or to hold legal title to real property in their own names. As a
result, record title to approximately 92 parish properties across all 8 Wards of the District was
placed in the name of the Archbishop of Washington, acting as a corporation sole, for the use
and benefit of the respective parishes. While the Archbishop of Washington held the record title,
the individual parishes remained the equitable and beneficial owners of their respective
properties, as was consistent with the longstanding legal practice of the time.
(c) Modern nonprofit incorporation laws now allow Catholic parishes to be recognized as
civil-law entities capable of owning property in their own names. District parishes have formally
incorporated and initiated efforts to retitle parish properties to reflect parish ownership, as
required under nonprofit law when a property is held for the benefit of a nonprofit entity.
(d) The retitling of these properties does not involve the sale or exchange of property for
consideration, does not alter the use of the properties, and does not result in any change in
beneficial ownership. The transfers are intended solely to confirm record title in the name of the
existing beneficial owners—the parishes—and to ensure legal clarity and continuity of parish
operations.
(e) District law provides exemptions for deeds that supplement or confirm prior recorded
deeds without additional consideration from transfer taxes under D.C. Official Code § 47-902(8)
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and from recordation taxes under section 302(8) of the District of Columbia Deed Recordation
Tax Act, approved March 2, 1962 (76 Stat. 11; D.C. Official Code § 42-1102(6)).
(f) Despite these longstanding exemptions, efforts by District Catholic parishes to record
supplemental confirmatory deeds have been rejected, resulting in uncertainty regarding tax
liability and placing parish properties at risk of incurring substantial real property, transfer, and
recordation taxes while time-consuming and costly administrative processes are pending.
(g) Immediate legislative action is necessary to clarify the tax-exempt status and nature of
these parish property transfers. Emergency legislation will prevent the accrual of unwarranted
tax liabilities and avoid unnecessary administrative actions that are costly and time-consuming.
Moreover, as long as the properties are not retitled, the parishes are unable to transact property
matters in their own name, and their ownership interests are unnecessarily denied and go
unrecognized when interacting with third parties.
Sec. 3. The Council of the District of Columbia determines that the circumstances
enumerated in section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the
Archdiocese of Washington Parish Real Property, Deed Recordation, and Transfer Tax
Exemption Emergency Amendment Act of 2026 be adopted after a single reading.
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.