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County offices

Register of Wills offices, county by county

Probate is filed in the county where the person lived, and no two offices run the same way. Here is what each one charges for a short certificate, when its fee schedule took effect, and whether it accepts filings electronically.

The six counties we cover

Every figure here comes from the county’s own page or its published fee schedule. Offices change their fees, so treat this as a starting point and call before you travel.

What the Register of Wills does

The Register of Wills is the county office that opens an estate. You apply there, in the county where the person lived, and the office grants letters: letters testamentary if there is a will, letters of administration if there is not. Until those letters are granted, nobody has the authority to sell or transfer anything the person owned.

The same office handles several things people expect to happen elsewhere:

  • It advertises the grant, once a week for three successive weeks, in a newspaper of general circulation and in the county legal journal (20 Pa.C.S. § 3162).
  • It receives the Pennsylvania inheritance tax return, form REV-1500, which is filed in duplicate with the county Register of Wills.
  • It issues short certificates. A short certificate is the office’s certified statement that letters have been granted, and it is priced per copy, which is why the fee is worth knowing before you go.

A small estate is different. Pennsylvania handles estates of $50,000 or less by petition to the Orphans’ Court under Pa. O.C. Rule 5.50, not by the affidavit that out-of-state templates describe.

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.

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