Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax Payment for a sheriff sale property

[Kalman G Szabo]

Dear Fellow BPers,

Here is the gist of a recent sheriff sale acquisition that I would need some help with and it might be educational to some of you.

I acquired the property at a PA Sheriff sale through a mortgage foreclosure. During the foreclosure process (that took years as it was stopped, writ reissued, etc.) the defendant passed away. 

I wasn't aware of this (mental note: always check for obituaries), neither was the foreclosing bank, so they did not open an Estate for the deceased. Neither did the heirs but as an investor you should not rely on that anyhow. Now of course I need to pay off the PA Inheritance tax to transfer ownership. 

It's not a large amount, however I cannot find the correct way to do it: there are forms available for heirs and mortgagees (banks) to file a return, however I could not find any that would fit my situation. Especially considering I don't have some necessary information, such as the SSN of the deceased.

Called up the Allegheny County Register of Wills where to rep told me to call the Department of Revenue in Harrisburg to ask for a so-called Commonwealth Release of Lien. Well, they haven't been overly responsive so far...

I'm pretty sure many of you have encountered situations such as this since errors in foreclosures are a dime-a-dozen, especially hoping if PA foreclosure experts, such as @David Krulac and @Steve Babiak could chime in!

Thank You in advance,

Kalman

[David Krulac]

@Kalman G Szabo  The Recorder of Deeds in all 67 Pennsylvania counties act as the agent for the State Department of Revenue, has the forms, and can collects the inheritance tax.  Since you are non-linear the tax rate will be 15% of the value of the property as determined by the assessed value of the property times the Common Level Ratio (CLR) at the time of the transfer.  The CLR is different for every county and the CLR is good for a Fiscal Year from July 1 until June 30 the following year.  So July 1, 2020, the county where the property is located may have a different CLR than it has between now and June 30, 2020.  The CLR is a calculation made by the state, for each county comparing the assessed value of deed transfers for the year to the actual deed price.  They exclude foreclosures, bank owned, tax sales, sheriff sales and $1 dollar deeds as not being "arms length transactions."