Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Pennsylvania T&E solo who knows its own Probate, Estates and Fiduciaries (PEF) Code, Title 20 Pa.C.S. (Pennsylvania has not adopted the UPC) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Medical Assistance / Community HealthChoices (DHS) slot posture, whether the latest PBA/Philadelphia Bar joint opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Pennsylvania Superior Court decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Pennsylvania lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last several weeks that I think actually matter to a Pennsylvania T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
SB 730 (codifying POLST into Title 20, the PEF Code) passed the Senate 49-0 on June 23 and is in the House Health Committee; SB 890 was amended in Senate Judiciary (14-0) to carry both the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act and a uniform real-property transfer-on-death act, reaching second consideration June 25; and HB 2675 would make PA-529-to-Roth rollovers free of Pennsylvania personal income tax, with a House Finance hearing June 30. None is enacted — the client answer is unchanged.
Nothing to act on yet, but two of these would change your standing advice: Pennsylvania still has no real-property TOD deed, and POLST still lives in regulation — watch SB 890 and SB 730, because if either passes your titling and end-of-life-document playbooks move.
Pa. SB 730 (Senate-passed June 23) · SB 890, PN 1837 (Sen. Judiciary A03763, June 23) · HB 2675 (House Finance hearing June 30) — 2025-26 Sess., none enacted · palegis.us
HB 2124, adopting the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, passed the House Judiciary Committee 26-0 on February 4, 2026 and was laid on the table. Pennsylvania still has no enacted TOD deed as of June 2026.
Until HB 2124 passes both chambers and is signed, the correct client answer remains that Pennsylvania does not allow transfer-on-death deeds for real estate — non-probate real-estate transfer must still run through trusts, joint title, or tenancy by the entirety. If enacted, it would also exempt those transfers from realty transfer tax, so it is worth tracking for clients planning real-estate succession.
Pa. HB 2124 (2025–26 Sess.) · palegis.us
Pennsylvania continues to impose its inheritance tax with no exemption threshold: 0% to a spouse, 4.5% to lineal descendants/ancestors, 12% to siblings, 15% to others, with a 5% discount for payment within three months of death.
Because the tax hits from the first dollar and is keyed to the heir’s relationship to the decedent, the relationship structure of a plan — not just its size — drives the tax. For a Pennsylvania solo, that makes beneficiary selection and the use of spousal and lineal transfers a live tax-planning lever on essentially every estate, however modest.
Pa. inheritance tax · PA Dept. of Revenue · pa.gov/revenue
Decisions that bind a Pennsylvania practitioner — Pennsylvania’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Pennsylvania, including the U.S. Third Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
A $2.28 million estate — roughly $1.9 million of it securities, plus real estate with mineral rights — paid its executor $114,044.36 in commissions and estate counsel $136,853.24 in fees. Two of the ten beneficiaries objected. Before any evidence came in, the Washington County Orphans’ Court announced the fees “fall squarely within” the local flat-percentage guidelines adopted in In re Estate of Donofrio — six percent for counsel, five percent for the executor — treated that as satisfying the fiduciary’s burden, and told the objectors it was inclined to overrule them unless they proved the fees unreasonable. It confirmed the account. The Superior Court vacated and remanded for a new hearing. Common Pleas decisions do not bind the appellate courts, and Donofrio’s premise that local guidelines establish reasonableness “unless a question is raised” conflicts with binding authority: the true test is always what the services were actually worth, and In re Estate of Preston already condemned exactly this practice as “egregious error.” The court also held the burden was improperly shifted onto the objectors to overcome a presumption that should never have existed.
This is the fee opinion to have in the file, on either side of the table. If you object to an account in Pennsylvania, you are not required to disprove reasonableness — the fiduciary and estate counsel carry the burden of showing what the services were actually worth, and a county fee schedule does not discharge it. If you are the fiduciary or the drafting firm, build the record before you take the commission: contemporaneous time, the LaRocca factors, the actual complexity, the length of administration. The court was careful about what it did not hold — a flat percentage can still be found reasonable on a fact-sensitive record, as in In re Estate of Harrison, and local guidelines may be considered as one factor. What is dead is the presumption. Note too where the expert testimony failed: it rested on the guidelines rather than on the LaRocca factors or the services actually rendered, which is a lesson for anyone retained to bless a fee.
Estate of Clea Andrews, Deceased (Appeal of Janice Winsor and Robert Ely), 2026 PA Super 168, No. 849 WDA 2025 (Pa. Super. Ct. July 31, 2026) — decree vacated, remanded for a new hearing. · PACOURTS.US · official opinion
Beneficiaries objected to a Montgomery County estate’s amended accounting, then tried to raise additional claims orally during the three-day hearing. The Orphans’ Court overruled their objections and affirmed the accounting, and the Superior Court affirmed — holding that under Pennsylvania Rule of Orphans’ Court Procedure 2.7 an objector must include all objections to an estate accounting in the written objections or risk waiver, and may not raise a novel claim orally at the hearing where the executor had no notice or opportunity to prepare.
For Pennsylvania estate litigation, written objections define the entire field of dispute at an accounting audit. Anything left out is waived — a claim first voiced from the podium comes too late, because the fiduciary is entitled to notice and a chance to prepare. Draft objections to an account comprehensively and in writing, and assume you will not get to add to them live.
Estate of Fellman, 2026 PA Super 121 (Pa. Super. Ct. June 12, 2026) — Pennsylvania Superior Court opinion.
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from Pennsylvania’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering Pennsylvania. The lane reads each opinion before it lands here, and reads-and-discards matters that aren’t trusts-and-estates — criminal, family, commercial/LLC fiduciary, tax, and cases where an estate or trust is only a party. When the trailing window has no further ruling, this row says so plainly rather than inventing one.
Nothing further to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is otherwise unchanged.
This week in Pennsylvania for the T&E solo with Pennsylvania Medical Assistance clients: the developments from the Pennsylvania Bar Association (Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section) and the PA Department of Human Services (Medical Assistance) that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.