Introduced, but not enacted
A bill to adopt the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act in Pennsylvania — amending Title 20 to provide for a real estate TOD deed — has been introduced in the state legislature. It hasn't become law. As things stand, Pennsylvania simply doesn't authorize a transfer-on-death or beneficiary deed for real property, and a deed labeled that way recorded on Pennsylvania land has no legal effect.
Securities get their own version, since 1997
Pennsylvania does allow a transfer-on-death mechanism — just not for real estate. Under Title 20, Chapter 64, the Uniform Transfer on Death Security Registration Act, effective since February 1997, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other securities can be registered in beneficiary form, passing directly to a named beneficiary when the owner dies.
Tied directly to the inheritance tax
Here's the distinctive Pennsylvania wrinkle: a TOD security can't actually be handed over to the beneficiary the moment the owner dies. Under Pennsylvania's version of the act, the security cannot be transferred to the beneficiary until Pennsylvania inheritance tax on it has been paid — or until ten days' advance notice of the transfer has been given to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. This gives the state a built-in checkpoint to make sure its inheritance tax gets collected before the asset actually changes hands, even though the transfer itself skips probate.
Bank accounts get a simpler payable-on-death option
For ordinary bank accounts and certificates of deposit, Pennsylvania permits payable-on-death (P.O.D.) designations without that same tax-notice mechanism attached. The named beneficiary receives the funds directly at the owner's death, outside probate, the same way a P.O.D. account works in most other states.
What Pennsylvania homeowners actually use
Without a real-estate TOD deed, Pennsylvania owners rely on a handful of established alternatives instead: a deed that clearly creates a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, tenancy by the entirety for a married couple, or transferring the property into a revocable living trust during life. Each of these avoids probate for the real estate, but none of them works quite like the simple beneficiary-designation model available for securities and bank accounts.
Watch for future legislative sessions
Because a bill to enact this kind of law has already been introduced once, it's reasonable to expect the question could come back up in a future Pennsylvania legislative session. Until any such bill actually passes, though, real estate remains the one major asset category in Pennsylvania without a simple, statutory beneficiary-designation option.