click for larger versionIn July, we wrote about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in the Proctor "title washing" case and got an earful from landowners who told us the story was more complicated than it looked (see Revisiting the 2025 PA Supreme Court Decision on “Title Washing”). They were right. Since then, the General Assembly has passed Act 27 of 2026, which effectively reverses that decision, and the fight has moved from the courtroom to the Capitol and back to the courtroom again. There is real money on the table — an estimated $1 billion in natural gas — and, more to the point for our readers, there are Pennsylvania landowners on both sides of this. Below we lay out how title washing works, what the Court actually decided, what Act 27 actually says, and the strongest arguments each side is making. We're not picking a winner in this one. We're going to explain it.
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