§ 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.
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