Does Pennsylvania Have a Transfer on Death Deed? What We Found and What Works Instead

By Rozsa Gyene, California estate planning attorney, State Bar of California #208356. Published October 1, 2026. Last reviewed October 1, 2026.

This guide reports what was searched, what was found, how the pending bills stood on the review date, and how the alternatives work. Every rule is cited to its section. Nothing here is advice about a particular Pennsylvania property.

Where Pennsylvania law stands

Three sources settle the question as of October 1, 2026. First, the table of contents and full text of Title 20 on the General Assembly's statutes site: the only chapter with transfer on death in its name is chapter 64, Transfer on Death Security Registration, and the only sections whose text uses the phrase are in that chapter; no chapter of Title 20 provides a beneficiary deed or a transfer on death deed for real property. Second, Title 21 of the consolidated statutes, where a deeds code would sit: the page is marked reserved, and its editorial note says the title has not been implemented by any legislative enactment, so Pennsylvania's deed statutes remain in uncodified form. Third, the 2025-2026 bills on the General Assembly's site. Two were found. House Bill 2124, an act amending Title 20 providing for uniform real property transfer on death, was referred to the House Judiciary Committee on January 9, 2026, reported as committed on February 4, 2026, laid on the table the same day, removed from the table on September 29, 2026, given second consideration on September 30, 2026 and re-committed to the House Appropriations Committee that day. Senate Bill 890, an act amending Title 20 providing for uniform partition of heirs property and for uniform real property transfer on death, was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2025, reported as amended on June 23, 2026, and given first consideration on June 23 and second consideration on June 25, 2026. Neither bill had reached a final vote in either chamber, and the General Assembly's list of 2026 acts, 51 acts on general legislation, includes no act amending Title 20. This guide therefore does not describe a Pennsylvania transfer on death deed. If either bill is enacted, the Last reviewed date above will change.

Transfer on death registration of securities (chapter 64)

What Pennsylvania does provide is beneficiary registration for securities. A security includes a share, a certificated or uncertificated security and a security account, which takes in a brokerage account and its cash balance (section 6401). Only an individual whose registration shows sole ownership, or multiple ownership with right of survivorship rather than as tenants in common, may register in beneficiary form; multiple owners registered that way hold as joint tenants with right of survivorship, as tenants by the entireties or as owners of community property in survivorship form (section 6402). A security is registered in beneficiary form when the registration names a beneficiary, who may be the trustee of a trust, to take ownership at the death of the owner or of all multiple owners (section 6404), shown by the words transfer on death or pay on death, or their acronyms, after the owner's name and before the beneficiary's (section 6405). The designation has no effect on ownership until the owner's death and may be cancelled or changed at any time by the sole owner or all surviving owners without the beneficiary's consent (section 6406). On the death of the sole owner or the last of the multiple owners, ownership passes to the beneficiaries who survive all owners, and if none survives the security belongs to the deceased owner's estate (section 6407). The transfer is effective by reason of the registration contract and the chapter and is not testamentary (section 6409(a)), though the chapter does not limit creditors' rights against beneficiaries under other Pennsylvania law (section 6409(b)). Before reregistering a resident decedent's security, the issuer or broker needs proof that inheritance tax has been paid, the Department of Revenue's consent, an affidavit that the joint survivor was the decedent's spouse and the ownership was not created within one year before death, or notice of the transfer to the Secretary of Revenue within ten days (section 6411).

Joint ownership with a right of survivorship

Title 20 recognizes co-ownership that passes to the survivor without probate, and its sections show the forms it takes. When real or personal estate passes by intestacy to two or more persons, they take as tenants in common, except that a husband and wife take as tenants by the entireties (section 2104(7)). The elective share chapter refers to real property owned by the decedent and his spouse by the entireties or jointly with right of survivorship (section 2204(a)(8)), and treats property the decedent conveyed during the marriage to himself and others with right of survivorship as subject to the surviving spouse's election to the extent the decedent could have conveyed his interest alone (section 2203(a)(4)). For bank accounts, a sum remaining on deposit at the death of a party to a joint account belongs to the surviving party as against the estate unless there is clear and convincing evidence of a different intent when the account was created, and that right of survivorship cannot be changed by will (section 6304(a) and (d)). For the inheritance tax, where property passes to a husband and wife with right of survivorship and one is taxable at a lower rate, the lower rate applies to the entire interest (Tax Reform Code section 2116(a)(3)). Whether a particular Pennsylvania deed creates a survivorship interest depends on its words and on the uncodified deed law, which this guide does not cover; the recorder of deeds of the county where the land lies is the office that records real estate instruments (section 3123(d)).

The living trust (chapter 77)

Subchapters A through I of chapter 77 are the Uniform Trust Act (section 7701). A trust is revocable to the extent the settlor, immediately before the determination, had the power, without the consent of the trustee or anyone with an adverse interest, to prevent the transfer of the trust property at the settlor's death by revoking or amending the trust or withdrawing property (section 7703). A trust may be created by transferring property under a written instrument to another person as trustee during the settlor's lifetime, or by a written declaration, signed by the owner, that the owner holds identifiable property as trustee (section 7731). It is created only if the settlor has capacity, signs a writing that indicates an intention to create the trust and contains its provisions, the trust has a definite beneficiary, the trustee has duties to perform, and the same person is not the sole trustee and sole beneficiary (section 7732(a)). The settlor may revoke or amend the trust unless its terms expressly provide that it is irrevocable, by substantial compliance with a method in the trust or, if none is made exclusive, by a later signed writing other than a will that expressly refers to the trust; on revocation the trustee delivers the property as the settlor directs (section 7752(a), (c) and (d), as amended by Act 64 of 2024). While the trust is revocable, the trustee's duties are owed exclusively to the settlor (section 7753(a)). A house goes into the trust by a deed to the trustee recorded with the county recorder of deeds; the orphans' court division has jurisdiction over inter vivos trusts if a dispute arises (section 711(3)).

The surviving spouse's election reaches both methods

Neither a survivorship title nor a revocable trust defeats a surviving spouse's elective share. The share is one third of, among other things, property conveyed by the decedent during his lifetime to the extent he had a power at death to revoke the conveyance or to consume, invade or dispose of the principal for his own benefit (section 2203(a)(3)), and property conveyed during the marriage to himself and others with right of survivorship to the extent he could convey his interest alone (section 2203(a)(4)). The Pennsylvania spouse's rights guide explains the election and its six month deadline.

If nothing was done

A home titled in the owner's sole name with no survivorship co-owner and no trust passes under the will or the intestate law through the Register of Wills and the Orphans' Court Division, as the Pennsylvania probate process guide describes. The small estate petition under section 3102 does not reach real estate; the small estate guide explains the petition under section 3546 for title to a decedent's real estate when no letters are taken out.