Ament Law Group has handled Westmoreland County real estate from Murrysville for decades: residential and commercial closings, deed preparation, title defects, boundary and right of way disputes, farm and rural property, severed oil, gas and mineral interests, and assessment appeals. Deeds record with the Recorder of Deeds at the county courthouse in Greensburg, in the same building as the Register of Wills. We are in the county we practice in, which matters less for filing than people assume and more for knowing the ground than they expect.
What Is Different About Westmoreland County
Practice here looks different from practice across the Allegheny County line, and the differences are not cosmetic:
- Severed subsurface rights are everywhere. Coal, oil, gas and other minerals were separated from surface ownership across much of this county generations ago, and those reservations run with the land forever. A title search turns them up constantly. What matters is not whether they exist but what they permit: whether anyone retains a right of surface entry, what a recorded lease allows, and whether royalty interests were ever divided among heirs and left untracked. See our page on oil, gas and mineral rights.
- Rural parcels and old descriptions. Outside the boroughs, a great many properties are described by metes and bounds written long before modern surveying, referencing monuments that have not existed in living memory. Acreage on the deed and acreage on the ground routinely disagree. That is manageable when it is identified before closing and expensive when it surfaces during a subdivision or a sale years later.
- Farms, family land, and generational transfers. Land here is frequently held in the same family across several generations, transferred informally, divided among children, or left in the name of a grandparent who died decades ago. The legal problem is rarely the sale. It is establishing who actually owns it first.
- A low common level ratio. Westmoreland's assessments rest on a very old base year, so the ratio the county uses in appeals is small and assessed values look nothing like market values. Anyone applying an Allegheny County intuition to a Westmoreland assessment will reach the wrong answer.
The Offices You Will Deal With
- Recorder of Deeds, Westmoreland County Courthouse, Main Street, Greensburg. Deeds, mortgages, easements, and the transfer tax paid at recording.
- Register of Wills and Orphans' Court, in the same courthouse, for property passing through an estate.
- Assessment Office, for assessment records and the annual appeal window.
- Court of Common Pleas, Westmoreland County, for quiet title, partition, ejectment, and lien enforcement.
- Magisterial District Courts across the county for landlord and tenant matters.
What We Handle Here
- Residential closings and buyer representation, including reviewing the agreement of sale before signing. See closings and buyer representation.
- For sale by owner sales, common on rural and family property where no agent is involved. See FSBO.
- Farm and acreage transfers, including subdivision questions, agricultural preservation, and access rights to landlocked parcels.
- Boundary, easement and right of way disputes, and quiet title actions where the record cannot be fixed by agreement.
- Inherited and co-owned property, through buyout, agreement or partition.
- Commercial property and leases. See commercial real estate.
- Construction payment disputes, filing and defending mechanics liens.
- Investment property, entity structure, 1031 exchanges and landlord and tenant matters.
- Assessment appeals. Our assessment appeal tool gives a first read on whether an appeal is worth filing.
Estates and Westmoreland County Real Estate
The single most common real estate question we get in this county begins as an estate question: a family wants to sell a property, and title still stands in the name of someone who died years ago. Sometimes decades ago, and sometimes through two generations who each divided it informally.
Real estate held solely by a person who has died generally cannot pass clear title without administration, and a buyer's title company will require it. Pennsylvania allows an estate to be opened long after the death, which is frequently the cleanest route. Where the heirs are too many or too scattered for that, or where an interest cannot be reached through the estate, the answer may be a quiet title action or a partition instead. Because we handle Westmoreland County probate as well as the real estate, the order of operations gets settled at the first meeting.
Communities We Serve in Westmoreland County
Our office is in Murrysville, and we work throughout the county: Greensburg, Export, Delmont, Irwin, Jeannette, Latrobe, Ligonier, Penn Township and Hempfield Township.
Start With the Documents
Bring the deed. For rural or inherited property especially, the deed usually answers questions the family has been guessing at for years: what was actually conveyed, what was reserved, and who owns it now.
For a purchase or sale, bring the agreement of sale, ideally before you sign it. That is the document that decides the transaction, and it is much easier to shape than to undo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where are deeds recorded in Westmoreland County?
With the Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds at the courthouse in Greensburg, which is also where the Register of Wills sits. For a property passing through an estate, that means the estate filing and the deed recording happen in the same building.
Why do so many Westmoreland County deeds mention coal or mineral rights?
Because a great deal of this county had its subsurface rights severed from the surface generations ago, often in the early twentieth century, and those severances stay in the chain of title permanently. A deed may convey the surface only, with coal, oil, gas or other minerals reserved to someone else entirely. It is not a defect and it is extremely common here, but a buyer should understand what is and is not being conveyed, and whether anyone retains the right to disturb the surface.
How are property assessments handled in Westmoreland County?
Westmoreland County assessments are based on a very old base year, which is why the county's common level ratio is low and why assessed values bear little resemblance to market values. Appeals are heard on an annual schedule. Because of how the ratio works here, the analysis is different from Allegheny County's, and a rule of thumb carried over from across the county line will mislead you.
Do I need an attorney for a Westmoreland County closing?
Pennsylvania does not require one, and a title company can close a straightforward sale. It is worth considering for rural and larger parcels, where the deed description may be metes and bounds that has not been surveyed in decades, where a right of way crosses to a back parcel, where subsurface rights were severed, or where the property is coming out of an estate or a farm.
Can you handle a closing if I live out of state?
Yes. Out of state owners selling inherited Westmoreland County property are a regular part of our work. Documents can be signed remotely with proper notarization, and we coordinate with the title company and the recorder so nobody has to travel for a signing.