A will signed in Pennsylvania can leave a house in New Jersey. A will signed in New Jersey can leave a house in Pennsylvania. The state where you signed does not move the land records. If the house is in your name alone, the family usually has a second step in the county where that house sits.
This is general information for someone who owns real estate in both states and is still planning. It is not legal advice. It is not the packet for opening an estate after a death. Ravenell Law handles Pennsylvania and New Jersey only, from Elkins Park. William Ravenell reviews planning documents before they go out the door.
Start with the deeds
Write one line per parcel before you come in. Street address, state, county, and the names printed on the recorded deed. A tax bill does not show how title is held. The mortgage statement does not either. If you cannot find the deed, say so. Do not guess the names.
The questionnaire this office uses has a slot for deeds to real property, a slot for the current will, and a slot for existing trust documents. Bring those if you have them. A meeting about two states stalls when the deed is missing and the will is a story from memory. The rest of the meeting list is on the page about what to bring. This page is only the property problem.
The second county office
The main estate is usually opened where the person lived. The house in the other state does not follow that file by itself.
If the person lived in New Jersey and died owning Pennsylvania real estate, the Pennsylvania piece goes to a Register of Wills in a county where that property is located. Under 20 Pa.C.S. § 3151, letters may be granted by the register of a county where the Pennsylvania property is located, and that grant covers the Pennsylvania property. Under 20 Pa.C.S. § 3136, a duly authenticated copy of a will already proved outside Pennsylvania may be offered to that register, and letters may be granted on it. File where the property actually sits. That filing does not cover the New Jersey house.
If the person lived in Pennsylvania and died owning New Jersey real estate in their own name, the New Jersey step is at the Surrogate in the county where that property sits. Mercer County's Surrogate describes ancillary probate as the extra proceeding when real estate is outside the state of legal residence. The person already appointed at home is the one who applies, with an exemplified copy of the home probate, a certified death certificate, and a copy of the deed.
New Jersey also has a recording path. N.J.S.A. 3B:3-27 lets an authenticated copy of a nonresident's will, already admitted to probate elsewhere, be recorded with a county surrogate. If the will is valid under New Jersey law, that recording can have the same effect on New Jersey real estate as a local probate. If title depends on a deed from the executor, the record of the letters has to be recorded too. The recording path does not cover a file with no will, a will that was never probated at home, or a house that already passed to a survivor.
Read the names on the deed
One name on the deed is the parcel most likely to need a proceeding in the state where it sits.
If you are married and both names are on the deed, ask whether the survivor takes that house without probating that parcel. In both states, a tenancy by the entirety between spouses often does that. A deed that only says the two of you own it together often does not. Bring the paper. A summary from memory is how this gets missed.
A trust that was signed, and never received a recorded deed, leaves the house in the individual's name. The questionnaire asks for the trust and the deeds separately because people bring one and assume the other followed. It followed only if the county recorder has a deed into the trustee.
Do not plan on naming a death beneficiary on the house the way a bank lets you name one on an account. Pennsylvania has not enacted a transfer-on-death deed for real estate. A bill to create one passed the House on October 5, 2026 and went to the Senate Judiciary on October 13. It is not law. Do not import a beneficiary deed from another state and expect a recorder here to accept it for a house.
Tax follows the house that sits in that state
Living in Pennsylvania does not pull a New Jersey house out of New Jersey's tax. Living in New Jersey does not pull a Pennsylvania house out of Pennsylvania's. Pennsylvania publishes a nonresident inheritance tax return, REV-1737-A, for a decedent who did not live in Pennsylvania. New Jersey's inheritance tax turns on who inherits, including when the owner lived in Pennsylvania and the house is in New Jersey. Rates and deadlines are on the linked pages. They change. This page does not quote them.
A power of attorney from the other state
Title companies and banks in the state where the house sits often question a power of attorney signed for the other state. Bring the one you already have. Do not sign a new form off the internet the night before the meeting. Whether that paper will be accepted at a closing is a facts question.
What this page will not pretend
A will signed in one state does not mean the family will never see the other state's county office. A signed trust does not clear a house that was never deeded into it. There is no single filing fee to quote, because counties set their own. Adding a child to a deed to skip the second office can be treated as a gift. It can also give that child's creditors a claim on the house. It can complicate a later Medicaid application. That is a question for counsel, not a step to take from this page.
If someone has already died, this page will not walk you through the filing. Open the estate where the person lived, then deal with the other house as its own file. Ravenell Law does not handle estates outside Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
