2010 Pennsylvania Code
Title 20 - DECEDENTS, ESTATES AND FIDUCIARIES
Chapter 35 - Accounts and Distribution
3546 - Determination of title to decedent's interest in real estate.

     § 3546.  Determination of title to decedent's interest in real
                estate.
        When a person shall die leaving an interest in real estate
     within the Commonwealth and no letters testamentary or of
     administration have been granted on the estate of the decedent
     in the Commonwealth, and one year has expired since the
     decedent's death, or if a personal representative has been
     appointed and has not filed his account within six years of the
     death of the decedent, any person claiming an interest in the
     real estate as or through an heir or devisee of the decedent may
     present a petition to establish title thereto in the orphans'
     court division of the county where the letters testamentary or
     of administration have been granted, or should no letters have
     been granted, then in the orphans' court division of the county
     within which was the family or principal residence of the
     decedent. If the decedent was a nonresident of the Commonwealth,
     the petition may be presented in the orphans' court division of
     any county wherein any of the real estate shall lie. The court,
     aided if necessary by the report of a master, may enter its
     decree nisi adjudging that the title to the decedent's interest
     in the real estate is in such person or persons as the court
     shall determine. Notice of the decree nisi shall be given to
     creditors and other parties in interest, by advertisement and
     otherwise, as the court shall direct. If no exception to the
     decree is filed within three months, it shall be confirmed
     absolutely, free of all decedent's debts not then liens of
     record, and regardless of the provisions of any testamentary
     writing of the decedent thereafter probated. A certified copy of
     the decree shall be recorded in the office of the recorder of
     deeds of each county where real estate included in the decree
     shall lie, shall be indexed by the recorder in the grantor's
     index under the name of the decedent and in the grantee's index
     under the name of each distributee, and shall be registered in
     the survey bureau or with the proper authorities empowered to
     keep a register of real estate in the county.