To begin
Someone is put in charge
The county Register of Wills grants letters. Until that happens nobody can sell or transfer anything.
Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania
Someone has died. We can help you work out what happens next.
Pennsylvania has its own inheritance tax, its own probate rules, and a different office in every county. We explain what applies to you in plain language, and tell you honestly when you need a lawyer instead of us.
- Free
- first conversation, however long it takes
- No obligation
- afterwards, and no pressure to decide
- 6 counties
- across the Lehigh Valley and beyond
Where would you like to start?
Pick whichever is closest to your situation.
Inheritance tax
Find out what rate applies to you
Pennsylvania is one of only five states that still taxes an inheritance, and there is no exempt amount. What you pay depends on your relationship to the person who died, not on the size of the estate.
Checked against PA Department of Revenue and brochure REV-584 on .
What happens, and when
The six things that have to happen
Every estate in Pennsylvania follows the same sequence. Two of these steps have deadlines that cost real money if they slip.
6 steps in total
2 deadlines that cost money if missed
Within about three weeks
A notice is published
Advertising the grant is what starts the clock for anyone the estate owes money to.
20 Pa.C.S. § 3162
By three months
DeadlineBeneficiaries are notified, and the discount closes
The last day to take 5% off the inheritance tax. This is the deadline worth real money.
By nine months
DeadlineThe inheritance tax is due
Form REV-1500 goes to the Register of Wills. After this it is late, and 2026 interest runs at 7%.
After one year
The window for creditors closes
Counted from the first published notice, not from the date of death.
20 Pa.C.S. § 3532(b.1)
Finally
What is left is distributed
The remainder goes to the people entitled to it.
After that the estate is closed.
Your county office
Find the office that handles your estate
Probate is filed county by county, and every county does it slightly differently. Here is what each office actually requires.
Lehigh County
Register of Wills Division, Clerk of Judicial Records
- Address
- 455 W. Hamilton St, Room 122, Allentown, PA 18101
- Phone
- 610-782-3170
- Short certificate
- $10.00
- Filing
- E-filing requiredTyler File & Serve, mandatory for Register of Wills filings since Feb 2023.
Worth knowing. Lehigh is unusual: the Register of Wills sits in Room 122 under the Clerk of Judicial Records, while the Clerk of Orphans’ Court is a separate office in Room 123 with its own website. Most guides list one address for both.
How we help
Four ways we can help
Most people need one of these. If you are not sure which, tell us what happened and we will point you to the right one.
Being straight with you
What we do, and what we do not
This industry has a poor reputation and it earned it. So here is the boundary, stated plainly rather than buried in the small print.
We explain what Pennsylvania requires
We do not give legal advice, and we cannot tell you what to do about your particular estate.
We buy inherited property directly, as the purchaser
We are not a broker. We do not list your property or represent you in a sale to anyone else.
We research records and document who the heirs appear to be
We do not decide who legally inherits. Only a court can do that.
We can search for unclaimed property on your behalf
We never hold estate funds. Money goes from the Treasury to you, never through us.
The kind of thing we see
Three situations that come up constantly
These are composite descriptions of the kind of work we do. They are not client statements, and they are not descriptions of specific past engagements or outcomes.
A house in Bethlehem, three siblings
Two wanted to sell and one wanted to keep it. The estate had not been opened yet, so nobody could legally sell anything. The first useful step was not getting a valuation. It was getting someone appointed so there was authority to act at all.
A tax bill nobody expected
An estate passing to a brother. The family had checked the federal rules, found nothing was owed, and assumed that settled it. Pennsylvania taxes a sibling at 12% from the first dollar, and by then the three-month discount had already passed.
An account written off years ago
A closed savings account at a bank that had since been bought twice. It had gone to the state Treasury years earlier and was sitting in the database under a misspelled surname, which is why the family had never found it.
Common questions
Questions people ask us first
Do I need a lawyer?
Often, yes, and we will tell you when. Pennsylvania does not require an attorney to probate an estate, but if the will is contested, the family disagrees, the estate is large, or a business or farm is involved, you want one.
We are not a law firm and we do not take that work. If you need a probate attorney we will say so plainly, and it costs you nothing to find that out.
How long does probate take in Pennsylvania?
Nobody can honestly give you a number. No Pennsylvania court publishes average timelines, so any site quoting a tidy range is guessing. What is knowable is the sequence of deadlines set out above. The one that costs money is the three-month mark.
Do I have to pay inheritance tax on a house I inherited?
Usually yes. Pennsylvania taxes what each person receives, including real estate, and there is no exempt amount. The rate depends on your relationship to the person who died: 4.5% for a child, 12% for a sibling, 15% for anyone else. A surviving spouse pays nothing.
What happens if there was no will?
The estate still goes through the Register of Wills, but the law decides who inherits rather than the deceased. A surviving spouse does not automatically receive everything. Where there are children from an earlier relationship, the spouse may receive only half.
What does it cost to talk to you?
Nothing. A first conversation is free and there is no obligation afterwards. If we can help, we will explain exactly what we would do and what it would cost before you agree to anything.
Do I have to decide anything quickly?
No. Apart from the statutory deadlines above, which are set by the Commonwealth rather than by us, there is no rush and we will never create one. If you want to think about it for a month, that is completely fine.
Start with a conversation, not a contract
Tell us who died, which county they lived in, and what is worrying you most. If the answer is that you need a probate attorney rather than us, we will say so.
Free, and there is no obligation afterwards.