Probate
Probate is how somebody is given the legal authority to deal with an estate, and how what is left is settled and passed on. Pennsylvania runs it county by county, through the Register of Wills.
When someone dies, their property does not move on its own. Somebody has to be given authority to deal with it. Probate is how Pennsylvania grants that authority, and how the estate is settled afterwards.
Until the Register of Wills grants letters, nobody may sell or transfer estate property. Banks will not release funds. Title companies will not close. The car cannot be transferred.
This is the most common avoidable delay we see: a family agrees what to do with the house long before anyone has the authority to do it. Getting someone appointed comes first, before valuations and before clearing the property.
You apply to the Register of Wills in the county where the person lived, not where the property sits and not where you live. Each office runs slightly differently: some require electronic filing, some take paper, and the fees are not the same. Our county pages set out what each one needs.
What happens, and when
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
To begin
You apply to the Register of Wills in the county where they lived. If there is a will you are given letters testamentary; if there is not, letters of administration. Until this happens, nobody has the authority to sell or transfer anything.
Within about three weeks
The grant is advertised once a week for three weeks in a local newspaper and the county legal journal. This is what starts the clock for anyone owed money by the estate.
20 Pa.C.S. § 3162
By three months
DeadlineEveryone named has to be told, with confirmation filed within ten days after. This is also the last day to pay the inheritance tax at a 5% discount.
Pa. O.C. Rule 10.5
By nine months
DeadlineForm REV-1500 is filed in duplicate with the Register of Wills. After this the tax is late, and interest for 2026 runs at 7%.
After one year
Measured from the first published notice, not from the date of death. This is the point people most often get wrong.
20 Pa.C.S. § 3532(b.1)
Finally
The remainder goes to the people entitled to it, with a formal accounting if the estate or the court requires one.
After that the estate is closed.
The document that gives you authority is called letters. Which kind you receive depends on whether there is a will.
Either way you are the personal representative, and the powers are broadly the same. What differs is where the instructions come from: a will, or the intestate rules in 20 Pa.C.S. § 2102 and § 2103.
Everyone you deal with will ask for a short certificate, the certified extract of the grant that the Register of Wills issues. Get several at the outset. Each bank, insurer and title company tends to want its own.
The Register of Wills is an administrative office. It takes the application, admits the will, grants letters, issues short certificates and receives the inheritance tax return.
The Orphans’ Court is a division of the county Court of Common Pleas. It decides things rather than processing them: whether a will is valid, who inherits when that is disputed, whether an accounting is correct, and petitions such as the small estate petition under Pa. O.C. Rule 5.50.
In some counties the two share an office and a phone number. In others they are separate, with different rooms and different websites. Lehigh County is one of the split ones.
Claims against the estate close one year from the first complete advertisement of the grant, not one year from the date of death (20 Pa.C.S. § 3532(b.1)). The advertisement runs once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation and in the county legal journal (20 Pa.C.S. § 3162).
People conflate those two dates in both directions: distributing too early, or holding an estate open far longer than they need to.
No Pennsylvania court publishes an average duration for probate. There is no official figure, which means any site quoting one has made it up. We would rather tell you that than invent a range to sound reassuring.
What is knowable is the sequence above and the dates the statute sets. Two of them cost money: three months from the date of death, when the 5% inheritance tax discount closes, and nine months, when the tax becomes delinquent at 7% interest for 2026.
Everything else depends on the estate, the county and the people involved.
Pennsylvania does not require an attorney to probate an estate. You can apply at the Register of Wills yourself, file the inheritance tax return yourself, and settle a straightforward estate without paying anyone. Plenty of people do.
Get a probate attorney if the will is contested, if the family disagrees, if the estate is large, or if a business or a farm is involved. We are not a law firm and we do not take that work. When you need a lawyer rather than us, we will say so plainly.
Checked against 20 Pa.C.S. Ch. 31, Ch. 33, Ch. 35, PA Department of Revenue and brochure REV-584 on .
Common questions
Nobody can honestly give you a number. No Pennsylvania court publishes average timelines, so any site quoting a tidy range has invented it.
What is knowable is the sequence of deadlines above. The one that costs money is the three-month mark, when the 5% inheritance tax discount closes.
Pennsylvania does not require one. You can apply to the Register of Wills yourself, and many people do. Get a lawyer if the will is contested, if the family disagrees, or if a business or a farm is involved.
It is the certified proof that letters were granted to you. Banks, title companies and transfer agents ask for one before they let you do anything, and most want an original rather than a photocopy. The Register of Wills issues them and charges a fee for each.
The estate still goes through the Register of Wills, but you ask for letters of administration and the law decides who inherits. A surviving spouse does not automatically receive everything. Where any of the children are not also the spouse’s, the spouse receives one half (20 Pa.C.S. § 2102).
Usually yes, once letters have been granted. A personal representative may sell real property that was not specifically devised without court approval, unless the will says otherwise (20 Pa.C.S. § 3351). If the will leaves a named property to a named person, that person has to join in the sale.
Not always. Where the gross estate is $50,000 or less, excluding real estate and property released under 20 Pa.C.S. § 3101, it can be settled by petition to the Orphans’ Court under Pa. O.C. Rule 5.50 (20 Pa.C.S. § 3102). Owning real estate does not disqualify an estate from that route, whatever it is worth. Note that Pennsylvania uses a petition, not the affidavit out-of-state templates describe.
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.