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Washington Ancillary Probate
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Washington Ancillary Probate

Washington ancillary probate runs on RCW 11.20.090. A will probated elsewhere is admitted on a certified copy, and the case can skip a personal representative.

By Settled Editorial

Washington opens a second case when someone who lived elsewhere dies owning Washington real estate. RCW 11.20.090 admits a will already probated in another state or country on a certified copy of the will and of the record of probate. RCW 11.20.100 then treats that will like any Washington will.

Families usually reach this question the same way. A closing agent, a title examiner or a lender in Spokane, Chelan or Jefferson County stops a sale because record title still stands in a dead person's name, and the probate finished two years ago in Oregon or Arizona. The Washington step is often smaller than it sounds, and one route in the statute skips a personal representative entirely. Read this next to the full Washington probate process, which covers a resident estate.

Washington Has No Ancillary Probate Chapter

The word most search results use is not the word the statute uses. The chapter list of Title 11 RCW, read on 2026-08-08, runs from descent and distribution through trusts and carries no ancillary administration chapter at all. RCW 11.02.005(15) defines a personal representative as an "executor, administrator, special administrator, and conservator or limited conservator and special representative," with no domiciliary or ancillary variant of the office.

Two sections in chapter 11.20 RCW carry the whole subject. RCW 11.20.090 says wills probated in any other state or territory, or in any foreign country or state, "shall be admitted to probate in this state on the production of a copy of such will and of the original record of probate," certified as the section goes on to describe. RCW 11.20.100 then says all provisions of law relating to carrying domestic wills into effect apply, so far as applicable, to foreign wills admitted here.

That pairing is the answer to the whole question. Washington does not run a parallel ancillary track. It admits the out-of-state will and then treats the case as a Washington probate.

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What Actually Triggers a Washington Filing

Washington real estate held in the decedent's own name is the trigger. Land does not follow a person's domicile, and a court in another state cannot pass title to a parcel here.

RCW 11.04.250 explains why the title problem shows up years later. Title vests immediately in the heirs or devisees at death, and the section says no administration, decree of distribution, or other finding or order "shall be necessary in any case to vest such title." Then comes the sentence that creates the gap: "PROVIDED, That no person shall be deemed a devisee until the will has been probated." An heir at law already holds title. A beneficiary under a will held in another state's court file does not, until the will is admitted somewhere.

Property with its own survivorship or beneficiary path never gets here. A parcel in a revocable trust, a parcel held by joint tenants with right of survivorship, and a parcel covered by a recorded transfer on death deed all move without a Washington case. More of those sit on keeping Washington property out of court.

Which County Superior Court Takes It

Washington is unusually relaxed about venue. RCW 11.96A.050(4) puts venue for the probate of wills and the administration and disposition of a decedent's property "in any county in the state of Washington that the petitioner selects." The single exception covers a petitioner seeking appointment under RCW 11.28.120(3), the any-suitable-person route that opens 90 days after death, and there venue must be the decedent's county of residence or, for a nonresident, a county in which any part of the probate estate might be.

Selection is not the end of it. A party may ask to change venue within four months of the mailing of the notice of appointment required by RCW 11.28.237, and except for good cause the court must move it. For a decedent who was not a Washington resident, subsection (4)(b) sends the case to any county where part of the probate estate might be, or where a nonprobate asset might be if there are no probate assets, or the county where the decedent died. Once letters issue, RCW 11.96A.050(5) keeps everything in that county unless venue moves.

The practical reading is short. File in the county where the parcel sits, and the motion never happens. Use the Washington probate courts by county directory to find the right Superior Court and County Clerk.

What the Court Needs From the Home State

RCW 11.20.090 lists four things and no more:

  1. A copy of the will.
  2. A copy of the original record of probate of that will.
  3. Certification by the attestation of the clerk of the court in which the probate was made, or by the attestation of the judge if that court has no clerk.
  4. The seal of those officers, if they have a seal.

Nobody re-proves the signing. The attesting-witness machinery in RCW 11.20.020 exists for a will offered in Washington first, and a will the home court already established comes in on the record instead. RCW 11.20.050 then has the County Clerk note the filed will in the record kept under RCW 36.23.030(7).

Order the certified packet from the home-state clerk before anything else. It is the item that takes weeks, and every later step waits on it.

The Route That Skips a Personal Representative

This is the part of Washington law that out-of-state families miss, and it can turn a probate into a single hearing.

RCW 11.20.020(1) ends with a sentence written for exactly this situation: "If the application for probate of a will does not request the appointment of a personal representative and the court enters an adjudication of testacy establishing such will no further administration shall be required except as commenced pursuant to RCW 11.28.330 or 11.28.340."

RCW 11.28.110 mirrors it where there is no will. Subsection (1) allows an "application for an adjudication of intestacy and heirship without the issuance of letters of administration," and subsection (4) says that where the application does not request a personal representative and the court enters the adjudication, no further administration is required except under the same two sections.

What those two sections require:

  • RCW 11.28.330 gives the person who obtained the adjudication 30 days to personally serve or mail a true copy to each heir, legatee and devisee. The copy names the estate and the cause number, states who applied and when the order was entered, encloses the will where the decedent died testate, and spells out the four-month window to contest. A copy also goes to the Department of Social and Health Services office of financial recovery.
  • RCW 11.28.340 makes the order, four months after entry and the notice, "the equivalent of the entry of a final decree of distribution" as to everyone served or who waived notice. That establishes the will and who takes under it, or establishes intestacy and who the heirs are.

Read the limits with the same care. RCW 11.28.340 keeps the prior rights of creditors and of anyone entitled to a homestead award, an award in lieu of homestead, or a family allowance ahead of the heirs, and it lets any person show good cause and get a personal representative appointed later. If letters do issue more than four months after the adjudication, the adjudication stays final anyway. And four months after the RCW 11.28.330 notices go out, anyone who pays or transfers property to the person named in the adjudication is discharged as though they had dealt with a personal representative.

For a family whose only Washington asset is one parcel and whose creditors were handled in the home state, that is a much shorter road than a full administration.

The Small Estate Affidavit Is Closed Here

Washington's $100,000 successor affidavit does not help a nonresident decedent, and the reason is in the affidavit's own required contents.

RCW 11.62.010(2)(b) requires the claiming successor to swear "[t]hat the decedent was a resident of the state of Washington on the date of his or her death." A nonresident fails that line before any dollar figure comes into it. The affidavit also reaches personal property and debts subject to probate rather than real estate, which is the asset that brought the family here. The full rules sit on the Washington small estate affidavit.

An Out-of-State Personal Representative Can Serve

Where the case does need a personal representative, a relative in another state may take the job. RCW 11.36.010(6) sets two conditions:

  • A Washington agent. The nonresident must appoint an agent who is a resident of the county where the estate is being probated, or who is an attorney of record of the estate, "upon whom service of all papers may be made." The appointment goes in writing and the clerk files it with the other papers in the estate.
  • A bond, unless waived. Unless bond has been waived as provided by RCW 11.28.185, the nonresident personal representative must file a bond approved by the court.

RCW 11.28.185 waives bond where the terms of the will manifest an intent that none be required, and where the personal representative is the surviving spouse or domestic partner and the whole estate after expenses and creditor claims will go to that spouse. A will drafted in another state that waives bond does the work here. One drafted without that clause leaves an out-of-state relative buying a surety bond. More on the amounts and the mechanics in Washington executor bond requirements.

Line the agent up before filing. The appointment is a filed document, not a formality raised at the hearing.

Nonintervention Powers Are Open to a Nonresident Estate

Washington's signature procedure has no residency condition, and that surprises families used to supervised probate.

RCW 11.68.011(2) directs the court to grant nonintervention powers where it finds the estate solvent, counting probate and nonprobate assets, and finds one of three things: the petitioner was named as personal representative in the probated will; or the decedent died intestate, the petitioner is the surviving spouse or domestic partner, the estate is community property only, and there is no issue of the decedent who is not also issue of that spouse; or the petitioner was not a creditor of the decedent at death and the grant would serve the beneficiaries and creditors. Nothing in the section turns on where the decedent lived, and nothing turns on where the personal representative lives.

That matters most when the parcel has to be sold. A personal representative holding those powers sells without a court order. Details on the nonintervention shortcut.

There Is No Statewide Washington Probate Form

The Washington Courts publish statewide forms in ten categories: Accessing the Courts, Behavioral Health, Criminal Law, Family Law, Guardianships and Conservatorships, Financial, Juvenile Court, Protection Orders, Restore Rights, and Voluntary Waiver of Firearm Rights. Read on 2026-08-08, none of them is a decedent estate. Guardianship and conservatorship under chapter 11.130 RCW has a full pattern-form set. Probate of a will does not.

The forms index says so from the other direction: "Your Court may have additional forms you must file in a case. Please check with your local Court to confirm," and it points to the Local Court Rules. So a Washington petition to admit a foreign will is a drafted pleading, or a local form the county publishes, and the county's local rules govern its caption and its notice practice. That is the opposite of states that hand an ancillary filer a numbered form. Handling a Washington probate without a lawyer covers what that means for a self-represented filer.

What It Costs to Open the Case

Washington charges an out-of-state estate the same flat entry price as a resident estate. The fee does not band by value.

ChargeAmountStatute
Fee on the first document in a probate proceeding$200RCW 36.18.020(2)(f)
Surcharge on filing fees$40RCW 36.18.020(5)(c)
Legacy project and judicial stabilization surcharge$50RCW 36.18.020(6)
Total to open the case$290

Two smaller clerk charges come up on every out-of-state file. Filing a will or codicil under chapter 11.12 RCW costs $20 under RCW 36.18.016(27). A certificate of qualification with a certified copy of letters of administration or letters testamentary costs $5 under RCW 36.18.016(9), and a sale usually needs three of them at once for the title company, the escrow agent and the lender.

Recording the Result With the County Auditor

The County Clerk and the county auditor are two different offices, and a case that ends in the clerk's file without reaching the auditor leaves record title exactly where it started.

RCW 65.04.030 tells the auditor or recording officer what to record on payment of the RCW 36.18.010 fees: deeds, grants and transfers of real property, mortgages, instruments relating to community or separate property, and at subsection (3) "[a]ll such other papers or writing as are required by law to be recorded and such as are required by law to be filed." RCW 82.45.197(2) is the requirement that bites most often: the documentation given to the county treasurer for the inheritance exemption "must also be recorded with the county auditor."

Recording is priced per page. RCW 36.18.010(1) charges $5 for the first page of eight and one-half by 14 inches or less and $1 for each additional page, and RCW 36.22.170(1)(a) adds a $5 per-instrument document preservation surcharge. Other statutory surcharges ride on top of that, so confirm the current total with the auditor of the county where the parcel sits before mailing a document in.

The Excise Tax Question, and the Lack of Probate Affidavit

Washington's real estate excise tax does not fall on the transfer at death. RCW 82.45.010(3)(a) says the term "sale" does not include "[a] transfer by gift, devise, or inheritance," and subsection (3)(b) carves out a transfer by transfer on death deed on the same footing.

Claiming that exemption is a documentation exercise, and RCW 82.45.197(1) names the document for each route. Three matter to an out-of-state family:

  • Probated will or intestate administration. Subsection (1)(c) asks for a certified copy of the letters testamentary, or of the letters of administration in an intestate case, showing that the grantor is the court-appointed executor, executrix or administrator.
  • Heirs by operation of law, or an unprobated will. Subsection (1)(g) covers real property transferred to one or more heirs by operation of law, or under a will that has not been probated, where none of the documents in (a) through (e) exist. It asks for a certified copy of the death certificate and a signed lack of probate affidavit affirming that the affiants are the sole and rightful heirs.
  • Transfer on death deed. Subsection (1)(i) asks only for a certified copy of the death certificate.

RCW 82.45.197(3)(b) lists what the lack of probate affidavit has to say: the names of the affiants, their relationship to the decedent, the names of all other heirs of the decedent living at the decedent's death, a description of the real property, whether the decedent left a will that includes a devise of real property, and anything else the Department of Revenue requires. The Department publishes the form. The 2016 legislature wrote its reasoning into the session law: state and local real estate excise taxes do not apply when a devisee or an heir files a lack of probate affidavit and no other documentation exists to show the heir is entitled to the property.

The later sale to a buyer is a different transaction, and excise tax applies to that one. Walk through selling the Washington property before listing it.

Washington Estate Tax on a Nonresident

Start with what Washington does not charge. The Department of Revenue states plainly that Washington has no inheritance tax. Voters repealed the inheritance tax and enacted an estate tax at the November 1981 general election, and the change took effect January 1, 1982. Nobody owes Washington tax for receiving an inheritance.

The estate tax reaches a nonresident, and the situs rule is in the first sentence. RCW 83.100.040(1) imposes the tax "on every transfer of property located in Washington," then adds that "any intangible property owned by a resident is located in Washington." RCW 83.100.020(12) defines a resident as a decedent domiciled here at death. Read together, a nonresident's bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement plans and business interests sit outside the Washington base, and the Washington real estate and tangible personal property sit inside it.

Apportionment does the rest. RCW 83.100.040(2)(b) computes the tax on the whole estate as though everything were Washington property, then multiplies it by a fraction whose numerator is the value of the property located in Washington and whose denominator is the value of the decedent's gross estate. The Department of Revenue publishes Addendum # 4, Apportionment for Out of State Property, for that calculation.

The filing threshold is the part people get backwards. RCW 83.100.050(1) requires a Washington return "if the gross estate equals or exceeds the applicable exclusion amount," and RCW 83.100.020(7) defines gross estate by reference to section 2031 of the Internal Revenue Code. The threshold is measured on the whole estate wherever the assets sit, and only after that does the fraction cut the bill to Washington's share. The Department says the same thing in operating terms: a nonresident who owned Washington real estate or tangible personal property must file if the gross value of all assets, wherever located, exceeds the threshold, and a filing is required even if no tax is due.

The exclusion amount is set by RCW 83.100.020(1)(a): $3,076,000 for a death on or after January 1, 2026 and before July 1, 2026, and $3,000,000 for a death on or after July 1, 2026. A large out-of-state estate with a modest Washington cabin can owe Washington estate tax. A small estate whose only Washington asset is that cabin will not. Washington and federal estate tax works the numbers.

Creditors in a Washington Case

An out-of-state estate runs the ordinary Washington claims process, and RCW 11.40.051 sets four separate windows:

CreditorClock startsDeadline
Given actual notice under RCW 11.40.020(1)(c)Service or mailing, and first publicationLater of 30 days and 4 months
Not reasonably ascertainable, notice publishedFirst publication4 months
Reasonably ascertainable but given no actual noticeDeath24 months
No notice given at allDeath24 months

RCW 11.40.051(3) makes that bar effective against both the probate and the nonprobate assets, which is why publishing notice is worth the cost even on a one-parcel estate. Washington creditor claims walks the notice, the presentment and the rejection steps, and Washington executor duties covers the rest of the appointed person's list.

Keeping the Parcel Out of a Second Case

A Washington owner who lives elsewhere can remove this filing in advance, and the cheapest tool records during life.

Chapter 64.80 RCW authorizes a transfer on death deed. RCW 64.80.020 lets an individual transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at death by such a deed, and RCW 64.80.060 requires it to carry the elements and formalities of a recordable inter vivos deed, to state that the transfer occurs at the transferor's death, and to be recorded before the transferor's death with the auditor of the county where the property is located. That last requirement is the one that fails: a signed deed sitting in a drawer in another state does nothing.

A revocable trust holding the parcel works the same way, with the deed into the trust recorded during life. See how a TOD deed avoids this entirely for the drafting and revocation rules under RCW 64.80.080.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Washington have ancillary probate?

Washington has the result without the label. Title 11 RCW carries no ancillary administration chapter, and RCW 11.02.005(15) defines personal representative as executor, administrator, special administrator, and conservator or limited conservator and special representative, with no domiciliary or ancillary version. What Washington has instead is RCW 11.20.090, which admits a will already probated in another state or country, and RCW 11.20.100, which then applies the same law that governs a Washington will.

Which Washington county takes the filing?

Any county the petitioner selects. RCW 11.96A.050(4) puts venue for the probate of wills and the disposition of a decedent's property in any county in the state that the petitioner selects, with one exception for a petitioner seeking appointment under RCW 11.28.120(3). A party may ask to move venue within four months of the RCW 11.28.237 notice, and for a nonresident decedent the case then moves to a county where part of the probate estate might be, a county where a nonprobate asset might be, or the county where the decedent died. Filing where the land sits avoids that motion.

What does Washington need to accept a will probated in another state?

RCW 11.20.090 asks for a copy of the will and of the original record of probate, certified by the attestation of the clerk of the court that probated it, or by the attestation of the judge if that court has no clerk, and by the seal of those officers if they have one. The witnesses are not called again. RCW 11.20.100 then applies every provision that carries a domestic will into effect to the foreign will admitted here.

Can a Washington case skip appointing a personal representative?

Yes, and this is the route most out-of-state families want. RCW 11.20.020(1) says that if the application for probate does not request appointment of a personal representative and the court enters an adjudication of testacy, no further administration is required except under RCW 11.28.330 or RCW 11.28.340. RCW 11.28.110(1) and (4) do the same where there is no will. The applicant then serves or mails the adjudication within 30 days under RCW 11.28.330, and four months later RCW 11.28.340 treats the order as the equivalent of a final decree of distribution.

Can an out-of-state executor serve in Washington?

Yes, with an agent and usually a bond. RCW 11.36.010(6) lets a nonresident be appointed if the nonresident appoints an agent who is a resident of the county where the estate is being probated, or who is an attorney of record of the estate, on whom service of all papers may be made. That appointment must be in writing and filed by the clerk with the other papers. Unless bond is waived as provided by RCW 11.28.185, the nonresident personal representative must file a bond approved by the court.

Can a nonresident's estate use the Washington small estate affidavit?

No. RCW 11.62.010(2)(b) requires the affidavit to state that the decedent was a resident of the state of Washington on the date of death, so a nonresident decedent is outside it on its own terms. The affidavit also reaches personal property and debts rather than real estate, which is the asset that brings an out-of-state family here in the first place.

What does it cost to open a Washington probate?

$290, flat and statewide, whatever the property is worth. RCW 36.18.020(2)(f) charges $200 on the first document in a probate proceeding, RCW 36.18.020(5)(c) adds a $40 surcharge, and RCW 36.18.020(6) adds a $50 surcharge. A certificate of qualification with a certified copy of letters costs $5 under RCW 36.18.016(9), which matters when a title company, a lender and a closing agent each want their own.

Does Washington tax a nonresident's Washington property at death?

It can. RCW 83.100.040(1) taxes every transfer of property located in Washington and treats intangible property as located here only when the owner was a resident, so a nonresident's accounts sit outside it and the Washington real estate does not. RCW 83.100.040(2)(b) then multiplies the tax by a fraction whose numerator is the Washington property. The Department of Revenue says a nonresident who owned Washington real estate or tangible personal property must file if the gross value of all assets, wherever located, exceeds the threshold, even when no tax is due.

Related Guides

This page describes Title 11 RCW, chapter 82.45 RCW and chapter 83.100 RCW as they read on the date above, and it is general information rather than advice about one estate. Whether an adjudication of testacy without a personal representative fits a particular parcel, whether the home-state probate record satisfies RCW 11.20.090 as the County Clerk reads it, whether a lack of probate affidavit is the right excise document, and what a Washington estate tax return owes on an apportioned estate are all questions that turn on facts a statute cannot settle from a distance. Those belong with a Washington attorney, the Superior Court in the county where the property sits, and the Department of Revenue.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of August 8, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Washington can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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