Quiet Title Actions

When a Quiet Title Action Is the Right Tool

Most title problems are not lawsuits. A scrivener's error, a missing marital status, a misspelled name, or a wrong parcel number can usually be handled with a corrective or confirmatory deed signed by the original parties. That is faster and cheaper, and it should always be the first question.

A quiet title action becomes necessary when the person whose signature would fix it will not sign, cannot be found, or no longer exists. Typical situations:

• A break in the chain of title. A transfer somewhere in the history was never recorded, or was recorded defectively, and the current owner cannot show an unbroken line back through the record.
• Property that passed informally through an estate. Someone died, the family divided the property by agreement, and no estate was ever opened. Title still stands in the name of a person who died decades ago, and the heirs, including ones nobody has spoken to in years, technically own it as tenants in common.
• An old mortgage or judgment never satisfied of record. The debt was paid, the lender is long gone, merged, or dissolved, and there is nobody left to execute a satisfaction piece.
• A deed signed without authority. An agent acting under a power of attorney that had expired, an executor who had not yet been appointed, or a corporate officer who lacked the authority to convey.
• Boundary and encroachment disputes. A fence, driveway, or building that has sat in one place for decades while the deed describes something else.
• Tax sale titles. Property acquired at a judicial or upset sale frequently needs an action before it is marketable, because purchasers and lenders will not rely on the sale alone.
• Severed oil, gas, and mineral interests. Western Pennsylvania has a great deal of subsurface ownership severed generations ago and never tracked since, and the surface owner often does not know who owns what below.

How the Action Works

Pennsylvania actions to quiet title are governed by the Rules of Civil Procedure at Pa.R.C.P. 1061 through 1068, and they are brought in the Court of Common Pleas of the county where the land is located. The shape of the case is consistent even when the facts are not:

• A full title examination first. Before anything is filed, the chain has to be traced far enough back to identify every person or entity with a possible interest. This is the step that decides whether the case is simple or difficult, and skipping it produces a decree that does not bind the person who later appears.
• Identifying and naming defendants. Everyone with a potential claim, including unknown heirs, successors, and assigns where the record leaves them undefined.
• Service, including by publication when necessary. Defendants who cannot be located can be served by publication, but only after the court is satisfied that a genuine and documented search was made. Courts take this seriously, and rightly so, because the decree will extinguish real property rights.
• Judgment and recording. If nobody appears, judgment can be taken. The decree is then recorded with the Recorder of Deeds, and it becomes part of the chain going forward.

The Estate Connection

A large share of the quiet title work we do begins as an estate question, and that overlap is the reason we handle both. A family comes in because they cannot sell a property, and the reason they cannot sell is that title has stood in a grandmother's name since 1978 and no estate was ever opened.

The right sequence in that situation is often not a quiet title action at all. It may be opening the estate now, decades late, which Pennsylvania permits, and passing title properly through administration. Sometimes it is a combination: administer the estate to establish the heirs, then quiet title to deal with an interest the estate cannot reach. Occasionally the real issue is that several heirs own it together and one will not cooperate, which is a partition question rather than a title question.

Which of those applies is not a matter of preference. It depends on how the record reads, and that is answerable before you spend anything.

Adverse Possession

Pennsylvania recognizes adverse possession, and claims are sometimes resolved through a quiet title action. The traditional requirement is possession that is actual, continuous, exclusive, visible, notorious, distinct, and hostile for twenty-one years. A narrower and much shorter period is available for certain small residential parcels under a more recent statute, with conditions that exclude most claims.

Adverse possession is harder to establish than most people expect, and the twenty-one year period is unforgiving of gaps. It is worth an honest assessment early, because a claim that will not survive the elements is expensive to discover late.

What We Do First

The first meeting is usually about determining what problem you actually have, and the answer is frequently smaller than feared. Bring your deed, your title policy if you have one, and any correspondence from a title company or a lender describing the objection.

From there we examine the chain, identify who else may have an interest, and tell you plainly whether this needs a lawsuit, a corrective deed, an estate administration, or a phone call to a title underwriter who may be willing to insure over it. If it is the last of those, we will say so, and it will have cost you an afternoon.

Frequently Asked Questions