Register of Wills

The Register of Wills processes all resident descendants estate and Inheritance Tax receipting/documentation for individuals that are domiciled in Elk County at the time of their death. The primary function of the Register is to determine whether a document offered for Probate should be admitted to the official record. The Register of Wills has the authority to appoint personal representatives for estate administration. With quasi-judicial powers, the Register can conduct evidentiary hearings, take testimony and render decisions on disputable estate matters prior to opening the official record. Those decisions once rendered, may only be appealed for specific reasons to the Orphans’ Court division of the Common Pleas Court. The Register also is an agent for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the collection of state Inheritance Tax.

We’ve recently added the ability to remotely search our register of wills database so that you can see information received for a decedent. Please follow this link to access that data: ONLINE WILLS AND ORPHANS COURT You can create an account or “Login as Guest”. You can then click on “Search Case Records” and specify your search criteria.

PLEASE NOTE, that if you are searching by name, please input the last name first, followed by the first name – no punctuation is needed.

There are several methods to handling an estate of your loved one. If they did not own real estate, and the total value of their estate is $10,000 or less; you may want to consider obtaining an Affidavit of Non-Probate from our office that should be useful in closing out your loved ones’ accounts. If your loved one’s assets are $50,000 or less, you may want to consider petitioning the Orphans Court to settle a small estate. If assets are greater than $50,000 then the estate will need to go through probate.

While we highly recommend you engage the services of an estate attorney to handle the probating of an estate, it is possible to do this yourself (Pro Se). If you decide to open an estate Pro Se, here are some guidelines and links to various documents you’ll need to complete.