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Washington Creditor Claims
Support GuideWashington24 min read

Washington Creditor Claims

Washington bars a creditor claim four months after first publication of the notice to creditors, or 24 months after the death when no notice went out.

By Settled Editorial

A Washington creditor normally has four months from the first publication of the notice to creditors to present a claim. A creditor who was served or mailed actual notice gets the later of that four month date and 30 days after the mailing. A creditor the estate should have found, and every creditor in an estate where no notice ever went out, gets 24 months from the date of death.

Four windows, one statute. RCW 11.40.051, titled Claims against decedent and time limits, opens with the phrase that makes Washington different from most states: the bar applies "Whether or not notice is provided under RCW 11.40.020". Publishing is what shortens the window. Skipping publication does not leave the estate exposed forever, and it does not hand every creditor an open calendar. This guide works through all four periods, how a personal representative gives notice, how a creditor presents a claim, what the bar never touches, and why the deadline reaches assets that never enter probate. Read it beside Washington executor duties and Washington probate deadlines, and take any live date to the superior court clerk for the county listed in the Washington court directory or to a licensed Washington attorney.

Four Windows, Not One Deadline

RCW 11.40.051(1) bars a person having a claim against the decedent from making the claim or starting an action, unless the creditor presents it the way RCW 11.40.070 describes and inside one of these limits. The chapeau adds a condition worth catching: the bar reaches a claim only if the claim is "not already barred by an otherwise applicable statute of limitations." A debt that expired during the decedent's lifetime stays expired, and nothing in chapter 11.40 RCW revives it.

The creditor's situationDeadline to present the claimStatute
The estate published notice and served or mailed the creditor actual noticeThe later of 30 days after that service or mailing and four months after first publicationRCW 11.40.051(1)(a)
The estate published notice, the creditor got no actual notice, and the creditor was not reasonably ascertainableFour months after the date of first publicationRCW 11.40.051(1)(b)(i)
The estate published notice, the creditor got no actual notice, and the creditor was reasonably ascertainable24 months after the decedent's date of deathRCW 11.40.051(1)(b)(ii)
No notice went out under chapter 11.40 RCW or chapter 11.42 RCW at all24 months after the decedent's date of deathRCW 11.40.051(1)(c)

Two clocks can run at once in the same estate. A bank that received a mailed notice on day 10 and a physician's office that was never found are answering different subsections on different calendars, and a personal representative who tracks only the publication date will misjudge one of them.

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The Bar Runs Whether or Not the Estate Publishes

The 24 month figures in subsections (1)(b)(ii) and (1)(c) count from the death, not from any act of the estate. Washington calls that a self-executing bar in RCW 11.40.150(2), which says the vacancy tolling in that section "does not extend the twenty-four month self-executing bar under RCW 11.40.051."

That is the practical reason a Washington estate publishes. Notice buys the estate a four month close instead of a two year wait, and it converts a reasonably ascertainable creditor into someone who must be found and told rather than someone who can surface twenty months later.

RCW 11.40.051(2) closes one escape route. An otherwise applicable statute of limitations applies "without regard to the tolling provisions of RCW 4.16.190," the section that pauses limitation periods for a claimant who is a minor, incompetent or disabled, or imprisoned before sentencing. Those personal disabilities do not stretch a claim against a decedent.

What Reasonably Ascertainable Means

Everything in subsection (1)(b) turns on a definition that lives one section away. RCW 11.40.040(1) defines a reasonably ascertainable creditor as one the personal representative would discover on exercise of reasonable diligence, then describes what that diligence consists of: a reasonable review of the decedent's correspondence, including mail that arrives after the death, and of the financial records in the personal representative's possession or reasonably available to them. The statute lists personal financial statements, loan documents, checkbooks, bank statements and income tax returns.

A presumption follows from that review. RCW 11.40.040(2) presumes the personal representative exercised reasonable diligence, and presumes any creditor not turned up by the review was not reasonably ascertainable. Those presumptions fall only to clear, cogent and convincing evidence, which is a demanding standard for a late creditor to meet.

RCW 11.40.040(3) lets a personal representative bank the presumption in writing. Filing an affidavit with the court describing the review puts the facts on the record, and the personal representative may go further and petition for an order declaring that the review happened and that unknown creditors are not reasonably ascertainable. That petition goes through RCW 11.96A.080, with the RCW 11.96A.110 notice also given by publication.

How the Personal Representative Gives Notice

RCW 11.40.020(1) makes notice optional in form and consequential in fact. A personal representative "may" give notice announcing the appointment and requiring claims within the RCW 11.40.051 time limits. Once the personal representative does, four duties attach:

  1. File the notice with the court. RCW 11.40.020(1)(a).
  2. Publish it once each week for three successive weeks in a legal newspaper in the county where the estate is being administered. RCW 11.40.020(1)(b).
  3. Serve or mail actual notice to creditors who become known during the proceeding, by first-class mail to the creditor's last known address. This one stays discretionary, and it is the act that triggers the 30 day window in RCW 11.40.051(1)(a). RCW 11.40.020(1)(c).
  4. Mail a copy to the state. RCW 11.40.020(1)(d) requires a copy, including the decedent's Social Security number, to the Washington Department of Social and Health Services Office of Financial Recovery.

The personal representative then files proof by affidavit of the giving and publication of the notice. That affidavit is where the date of first publication gets pinned down when someone has to reconstruct it later.

RCW 11.40.020(2) handles a venue mismatch. Where the decedent lived in Washington and the probate was opened in a county other than the county of residence, publication runs in a legal newspaper in the county of residence, while the notice is filed with the superior court where the proceedings began. A personal representative who publishes in the filing county in that situation has published in the wrong place.

What the Notice Itself Says

RCW 11.40.030 prints the Probate Notice to Creditors in the statute, so the wording comes from the code rather than from a statewide court form. Washington publishes no statewide probate form set, and county practice supplies the pleading shell around this text.

The published notice tells creditors to present a claim before it would be barred by any otherwise applicable statute of limitations, by serving or mailing a copy to the personal representative or the attorney and filing the original with the court. It gives the same two-part deadline the statute gives, states that a late claim is "forever barred, except as otherwise provided in RCW 11.40.051 and 11.40.060," and states in terms that "This bar is effective as to claims against both the decedent's probate and nonprobate assets." The face of the notice carries the date of first publication, the personal representative, the attorney, the mailing or service address, and the court and cause number.

How a Creditor Presents a Claim

RCW 11.40.070(1) asks the claimant, the claimant's attorney or the claimant's agent to sign the claim and put five things in it: the claimant's name and address; the name, address and authority of any agent signing on the claimant's behalf; the facts or circumstances behind the claim; the amount; and, where the claim is secured, unliquidated, contingent or not yet due, the nature of the security, the nature of the uncertainty, or the date it comes due. Getting the last three wrong does not void the claim so long as the error is not seriously misleading.

RCW 11.40.070(2) removes a step people expect. A Washington claim does not need to be supported by affidavit.

Presentation itself is two acts under RCW 11.40.070(3). The claimant serves or mails a copy of the signed claim to the personal representative or that person's attorney, and files the original with the court where the probate proceedings began. The claim counts as presented "upon the later of the date of postmark or service on the personal representative, or the personal representative's attorney, and filing with the court." A creditor who mails the claim and never files it has not presented anything.

One relief valve sits in RCW 11.40.070(4). Where a claimant makes a written demand for payment inside the RCW 11.40.051 limits, the personal representative may waive formal defects and treat the demand as a filed claim if the claim was due, the amount is the balance over all payments and offsets, the estate is solvent, and the payment is made in good faith.

RCW 11.40.010 sets the gate in front of all of this: a person having a claim against the decedent may not maintain an action on it unless a personal representative has been appointed and the claim has been presented under this chapter. The section carves out the tax notice under RCW 82.32.240 and actions against a notice agent under chapter 11.42 RCW.

Allowing a Claim, and the $1,000 Automatic Allowance

RCW 11.40.080(1) puts a duty on the personal representative to allow or reject every claim presented under RCW 11.40.070, in whole or in part. Sitting on the file is not one of the options.

RCW 11.40.080(2) gives the creditor a way to force the question. Where the personal representative has neither allowed nor rejected a claim within the later of four months from first publication and 30 days from presentation, the claimant may serve written notice that they will petition the court to have the claim allowed. If the personal representative then fails to notify the claimant within 20 days after receiving that notice, the claimant may petition for a hearing. Where the court allows the claim in large part, it may award the petitioner reasonable attorneys' fees chargeable against the estate.

RCW 11.40.090 adds the rule most Washington executors miss. A claim that on its face does not exceed one thousand dollars, presented under RCW 11.40.070, is deemed allowed and can no longer be rejected unless the personal representative notified the claimant of the rejection within the later of six months from first publication and two months from receiving the claim. The personal representative may petition for an order extending that automatic-allowance period. Small claims run on a shorter fuse for the estate than they do for the creditor.

Two more rules from the same section. Allowed claims are ranked among the acknowledged debts of the estate and paid in the course of administration, and a claim may not be allowed at all if a statute of limitations bars it.

Rejection Starts a 30 Day Countdown

RCW 11.40.100(1) gives a rejected claimant 30 days to sue the personal representative or lose the claim forever. The personal representative notifies the claimant by personal service or certified mail to the address stated in the claim, files an affidavit with the court showing the notification and its date, and the date of service or of the postmark is the date of notification.

The notification has to do one more thing to work. It must advise the claimant that suit has to be brought in the proper court against the personal representative within 30 days after notification, or the claim will be forever barred. A rejection letter that omits that warning has not started the clock the statute describes.

RCW 11.40.100(2) leaves room to settle. Before or after rejecting a claim, the personal representative may compromise it, whether due or not, absolute or contingent, liquidated or unliquidated, where the compromise looks to be in the best interests of the estate.

Claims the Four Month Bar Never Reaches

Chapter 11.40 RCW is narrower than the notice makes it sound.

  • Insured claims. RCW 11.40.060 says the time limits do not accrue to the benefit of any liability or casualty insurer. A claim against the decedent or the marital community that applicable insurance can fully satisfy need not be presented inside the RCW 11.40.051 window, though recovery cannot exceed the insurance. Those claims may be presented at any time, subject to the otherwise relevant statutes of limitations, and they create no cloud or lien on estate assets and do not delay distribution.
  • Secured claims. RCW 11.40.135 leaves a secured creditor free to realize on the security whether or not the creditor ever presented a claim. The lien follows the collateral.
  • A judgment entered during the decedent's lifetime. RCW 11.40.130 stops execution on that judgment once the decedent dies and routes the judgment holder into RCW 11.40.070 like everyone else. Where the judgment is a lien on property, the property can still be sold to satisfy it, and the selling officer accounts to the personal representative for any surplus.
  • A lawsuit already pending at the death. RCW 11.40.110 gives the plaintiff four months after appointment of the personal representative to serve a petition substituting the personal representative as defendant. This deadline runs from appointment, not from publication.

A judgment a creditor wins against the personal representative buys less than it looks like. RCW 11.40.120 limits its effect to establishing the amount as an allowed claim.

The Bar Reaches Nonprobate Assets Too

RCW 11.40.051(3) states it in one line: "This bar is effective as to claims against both the decedent's probate and nonprobate assets."

The matching liability rule is RCW 11.18.200. Unless a statute exempts it, a beneficiary of a nonprobate asset that was subject to the decedent's general liabilities immediately before death takes the asset subject to those liabilities, claims, estate taxes and a fair share of administration expenses, and is liable to account to the personal representative to the extent needed to satisfy them. The personal representative has to give the beneficiary notice under chapter 11.96A RCW before demanding that accounting.

Subsection (2) then walks through the instruments Washington families actually use. Property passing under a community property agreement is subject to the decedent's liabilities and claims, and assets that existed as community or separate property immediately before death are exposed to the same extent as if they had been probate assets. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship, payable on death and trust bank accounts, and a transfer on death deed each carry the exposure to the extent of the decedent's beneficial ownership immediately before death. A revocable trust the decedent created for their own use is exposed to the same extent it was open to the decedent's creditors immediately before death. Nonprobate assets that answer for claims abate together with the probate assets under chapter 11.10 RCW.

That is the reason a Washington estate plan built entirely on beneficiary designations still has to reckon with the creditor calendar, and it is worth reading beside Washington trust administration.

Estates That Never Open a Probate

Washington runs a parallel creditor track for an estate passing outside probate. Chapter 11.42 RCW, titled Settlement of Creditor Claims for Estates Passing Without Probate, lets a "notice agent" publish the same kind of notice and get the same kind of bar.

RCW 11.42.010 sets who qualifies. Where no personal representative has been appointed in Washington, a beneficiary or trustee who has received or is entitled to receive nearly all of the decedent's probate and nonprobate assets may act. The person pays a filing fee to the superior court clerk in a county where probate could be commenced, receives a cause number, and files a declaration and oath. Minors, persons of unsound mind, persons convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, and most corporate entities are disqualified.

RCW 11.42.050 then mirrors RCW 11.40.051 with one structural difference. It carries the same 30 day, four month and 24 month periods and the same reach into probate and nonprobate assets, but it opens with "If a notice agent provides notice," so there is no fourth branch for an estate where nobody ever gave notice. That branch lives in RCW 11.40.051(1)(c), which counts a failure to give notice under either chapter.

If a personal representative is appointed after a notice agent has started, RCW 11.40.160 keeps the earlier notice alive. The personal representative is presumed to have adopted the notice agent's acts unless they serve a rejection or nullification on the affected claimants within 30 days of appointment.

The Estate Has to Mail the State a Copy

RCW 11.40.020(1)(d) puts a reporting duty on the estate that has nothing to do with any creditor who reads the newspaper. A personal representative who gives notice to creditors mails a copy of it, with the decedent's Social Security number, to the Office of Financial Recovery at the Department of Social and Health Services.

That office collects Medicaid estate recovery on behalf of the Washington State Health Care Authority, the state's Medicaid agency. RCW 43.20B.080 authorizes recovery from the individual's estate and from nonprobate assets as defined in RCW 11.02.005, so the state's reach in Washington runs past the probate estate. Sending the notice does not create the claim, and skipping it does not defeat one.

Nonintervention Powers Do Not Suspend Chapter 11.40

Most solvent Washington estates are settled under nonintervention powers, which strip out routine court supervision. The claim rules survive that grant intact.

Start with the grant itself. RCW 11.68.011(2) lets the court grant the powers only after determining "that the decedent's estate is solvent, taking into account probate and nonprobate assets." Creditors are baked into the finding. The same subsection blocks a personal representative who was a creditor of the decedent at death from qualifying under the best-interests route in (2)(c), and it lets any person entitled to notice under RCW 11.68.041 come forward with evidence that the grant would not serve the beneficiaries' or creditors' interests.

RCW 11.40.140 then says it outright for the personal representative's own claim: the personal representative must present it under RCW 11.40.070, allowance or rejection is resolved through chapter 11.96A RCW, and "This section applies whether or not the personal representative is acting under nonintervention powers."

A Vacancy in the Office Adds Time

RCW 11.40.150 covers a personal representative who gave notice and then resigns, dies or is removed. The successor publishes notice of the vacancy and succession for two successive weeks in the same legal newspaper, where the vacancy happened within 24 months of the death. The successor also gives actual notice of the vacancy to a creditor whose claim was filed and still undecided, and to a creditor whose claim was rejected where the vacancy fell within 30 days after that rejection.

The gap counts in the creditor's favor. Time between the resignation, death or removal and the first publication of the vacancy notice, or the mailing of actual notice, is added to the period for presenting a claim or suing on a rejected one. The 24 month self-executing bar does not move.

When the Estate Cannot Pay Everyone

Presentment answers who is still in line. RCW 11.76.110 answers who gets paid first, ranking administration expenses, funeral expenses, expenses of the last sickness, wages earned in the 60 days before the death, chapter 11.54 RCW exemptions and awards, and then all other enforceable demands. A personal representative holding nonintervention powers sets the reasonable amount for funeral and last-sickness expenses without a court order under that section.

That ranking runs alongside presentment rather than replacing it, and the order debts get paid works through the six classes in full, beside the calendar in Washington probate deadlines. The rest of the job sits in what else the personal representative owes, and the wider picture is in the Washington probate guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do creditors have to file a claim against a Washington estate?

Four months from the date of first publication of the notice to creditors is the routine window under RCW 11.40.051(1). A creditor who was served or mailed actual notice gets the later of that four months and 30 days after the service or mailing. A creditor the personal representative should have found but never notified has 24 months from the date of death.

Does the Washington creditor deadline run even when nobody publishes notice?

Yes. RCW 11.40.051(1) applies whether or not notice is provided under RCW 11.40.020. Where no notice went out under chapter 11.40 RCW or chapter 11.42 RCW, the creditor has 24 months after the decedent's date of death, and that bar runs on its own without any filing by the estate.

How does a creditor present a claim in Washington?

RCW 11.40.070 asks the claimant to sign a claim carrying the claimant's name and address, the facts behind the claim, and the amount. The claimant then serves or mails a copy to the personal representative or that person's attorney and files the original with the court where the probate began. The claim counts as presented on the later of those two events.

What happens after a Washington personal representative rejects a claim?

The claimant has 30 days. RCW 11.40.100(1) bars a rejected claim forever unless the claimant sues the personal representative within 30 days after notification of rejection, and the rejection notice itself has to warn the claimant of that 30 day limit.

Do nonintervention powers cancel the Washington creditor rules?

No. Under RCW 11.68.011(2) the court grants nonintervention powers only after finding the estate solvent, counting both probate and nonprobate assets. Chapter 11.40 RCW keeps running afterward, and RCW 11.40.140 states that the claim procedure applies whether or not the personal representative is acting under nonintervention powers.

Can Washington creditors reach nonprobate assets?

RCW 11.40.051(3) makes the claim bar effective against both the decedent's probate and nonprobate assets. RCW 11.18.200 then has the beneficiary of a nonprobate asset take it subject to the decedent's liabilities, claims, estate taxes and a fair share of administration expenses, naming community property agreements, joint tenancies, payable on death accounts and transfer on death deeds among others.

Does a Washington estate have to notify the state about the death?

RCW 11.40.020(1)(d) tells a personal representative who gives notice to creditors to mail a copy, including the decedent's Social Security number, to the Washington Department of Social and Health Services Office of Financial Recovery. That office runs Medicaid estate recovery collections for the Health Care Authority.

Related Guides

This page is general information about Washington creditor claims, not legal advice about any particular estate. Whether a claim arrived in time, and whether the estate has to pay it, turns on dates and facts specific to one estate, so the superior court clerk in the county where the probate was filed or a licensed Washington attorney is where those questions belong.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Information current as of August 7, 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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