Pennsylvania · ProbatePennsylvania probate home sale: the personal representative's power to sell, and when the orphans' court steps in

In Pennsylvania, except as the will provides otherwise, the personal representative may sell, at public or private sale, any real property not specifically devised, and with the joinder of the specific devisee real property that was specifically devised (20 Pa.C.S. §3351). If the representative was required to give a bond, no proceeds of the real estate are paid to the representative until the court has excused or required additional security, and in the latter case only after it is entered (§3351). A sale under order of the orphans' court division of the county where letters were granted is used when the representative lacks the power, the will denies it, or the sale should have the effect of a judicial sale (§3353). A bonded representative's sale passes the decedent's full title, discharged from legacies and the decedent's debts, subject to the protection of certain earlier recorded buyers and lenders (§3357). A contract not requiring court approval is not set aside because a higher offer arrives later, except for fraud, accident or mistake (§3360(a)).