For many years, Registers of Wills and Clerks of the Orphans’ Courts have been collecting fees usually designated as “JCP” fees for the Judicial Computerization Project (funded by the “Judicial Computer System Augmentation Account” established by Subchapter C of 42 Pa.C.S. Ch. 37), but sometimes designated “JCP/ATJ” because part of the fees are deposited to the “Access to Justice Account” established by the Access to Justice Act, 42 Pa.C.S. Ch. 49. These fees have been collected by the Register with the other fees for the filing of a petition for the probate of a will or the grant of letters, and by the Clerks of Orphans’ Courts for the initiation of any “civil action or legal proceeding.”

Section 35 of the Act of July 11, 2022, P.L. 540, No. 54, amended the Fiscal Code (Act of April 9, 1929, P.L. 343, No. 176) to add surcharges of $10.00 and $11.25 to the fees of $19.00 that had previously been collected, so that the total JCP fees were $40.25. See subsections (b)(3) and (c)(1)(iv) of section 1795.1-E of the Fiscal Code, as amended.

However, those new fees were expressly temporary, and expired on July 31, 2023.

Because the temporary surcharge of $21.25 has expired, the correct JCP fee should be $19.00 and not $40.25. However, it is not yet clear that Registers or Clerks have changed their filing fee practices, perhaps out of fear that the legislature has not yet completed its budget and the temporary surcharges might be reimposed retroactively.

A search of pending legislation failed to turn up any bill that would amend the relevant section of the Fiscal Code to reimpose a surcharge on filing fees. House Bill 611, PN 1811, which has passed both houses and has been signed in the House but not the Senate, makes an appropriation from the Judicial Computer System Augmentation Account but makes no changes to the funding of that account.