Pennsylvania Court Records Search Guide

Pennsylvania court records search is one of the most popular tools to run the background check on potential employees or tenants.

There are multiple possibilities to run the Pennsylvania court records search depending on the type of Pennsylvania court records: paper-based or electronic.

This article will cover all aspects of running the Pennsylvania court records search both off- and online and provide the necessary tools. Additionally, after finishing this article, you can tell whether you are eligible to perform the Pennsylvania court records search yourself.

Who is eligible to run a Pennsylvania court records search?

Being the party in the case allows you to run the Pennsylvania court records search with access to confidential and public information. In all other cases, to perform the Pennsylvania court records search, you must belong to either of the following groups:

* A person authorized by a party

* A party in the case can authorize another party to help them search for Pennsylvania court information and help them run the Pennsylvania court search in particular.

* Legal Aid and Government Staff

* People who represent legal aid and the government can access Pennsylvania civil court records remotely.

* Court-appointed people

* People appointed by the Pennsylvania court are eligible to execute the Pennsylvania court records search.

However, all parties mentioned above (except for the party themselves) will have no access to electronic Pennsylvania court records of criminal, juvenile justice, child welfare cases, or confidential electronic records unless stated otherwise by the court.

Where to run the Pennsylvania court records search? 

Depending on the type of Pennsylvania court records available for the case of your interest, you would have a few options to run the Pennsylvania court records search.

If the paper records are paper-based, then the only option would be arriving at the courthouse and asking the judge for permission.

The details of the paper-based Pennsylvania court records search will be examined further in this paragraph. However, suppose the Pennsylvania civil court records of your interest are stored electronically.

In that case, you will have the possibility to run the Pennsylvania court records search on both official government websites and independent search engines.

Official government websites, such as the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania website, help you find all the case information.

Whereas the private search engine allows you to back up, your Pennsylvania court records search with additional background information about the parties involved in the case.

The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania Website (www.pacourts.us)

The United Judicial System of Pennsylvania website provides the information necessary to perform the Pennsylvania court records search. It is worth mentioning that most state websites offer the court information for a small fee- sometimes for as little as $1 per page of the Pennsylvania court records.

However, Pennsylvania court records search is free of charge. As it is stated on the website, you can look up the following Pennsylvania court information:

* appellate court case information (Supreme, Superior, and Commonwealth);

* criminal Common Pleas court case information

* magisterial district court case information including:

* Pennsylvania civil court records

* Pennsylvania criminal court records

* Pennsylvania court information on traffic- and non-traffic cases

* Pennsylvania court information landlord/tenant cases

However, there is another option, in case the Pennsylvania court records of your interest are kept on paper at the courthouse. In this case, can request paper case records from Pennsylvania's magisterial district courts. Nonetheless, there are two things you need to keep in mind before running this kind of Pennsylvania court records search:

1. You would need to run the Pennsylvania court search

Before physically arriving at the courthouse, you need to know the court where the case was held. To do this, you must run the Pennsylvania court search on the official Pennsylvania courts website. You only need to know the county or the ZIP code of the city where the case was held to run the search.

2. You need to check whether you are eligible to run the Pennsylvania court records search

Make sure you comply with the abovementioned requirements to ask permission to run the Pennsylvania court records search.

Independent search engine (backgroundcheck.co)

Backgroundcheck.co allows you to find the information on the parties involved in the case.

Once you hit the "search" button, you can look up the following information:

* Background Records

* Phone Number

* Public Records

* Address Information

* Police & Court Records

* Social Media Accounts & Information

* Marriage & Divorce Records

* Unclaimed Money Database

*  Sex Offenders & Their Locations

* Privacy Program

* Mugshots

* Pennsylvania Criminal Court Records

* Pennsylvania Civil Court Records

However, if some aspects of the Pennsylvania court records search are still unclear to you, make sure to browse the official website or get in touch with the court by phone or email to get more details.