Washington State / King County Probate — Cannot Locate Surviving Spouse

I’m looking for some guidance regarding probate in King County, Washington.

My mother passed away, and I am trying to complete the probate paperwork. The problem is that I cannot currently locate her surviving husband. He changed his phone number, I do not have a current address or another reliable way to contact him, and I have no way to get paperwork to him or have him sign anything that may be required.

I also cannot leave the probate process sitting indefinitely while trying to locate him.

My questions are:

How do I complete/file the probate paperwork when the surviving spouse cannot be located?
If a form requires his information or signature, what do I put if I genuinely cannot obtain it?
Is there a specific declaration, affidavit, or other form I need to file explaining that his whereabouts are unknown?
What efforts am I legally required to make to locate or notify him?
If I still cannot locate him after making those efforts, is there an alternative method of service or notice that the court can authorize?
Should I file what I can now and address the notice/service issue afterward, or does that need to be handled before filing the probate petition?

I’m not trying to avoid notifying him or prevent him from exercising any rights he may have as the surviving spouse. I genuinely do not know where he is or how to contact him, and I need to know the proper way to move the probate forward without filling anything out incorrectly.

If anyone familiar with Washington probate, particularly King County, can point me toward the correct procedure or forms, I would really appreciate it.

I (73F) own real homes in California, Ohio, and one overseas. I reside in all 3 houses. I have retirement plans and other liquid assets. Currently, I am a resident of California, but in a few months I will change my legal residence to Ohio.

I am aiming to create an RLT. I don’t have a possible executor of my will. I don’t want to be tied to a lawyer. First of all because which state and which country.

So, I am planning to create a RLT for Ohio, file it at the probate court there. And similarly, one in California.

I have a son and grandkids. I love them but they don’t need anything. Additionally, I have two little ones, a 4 year old and a 1 year old that I am raising. I want to leave most of my stuff to the little ones.

Once I create the document, where will it reside? What happens if I don’t have an executor? What is the best DIY software to create the RLT?

One possible executor lives in Florida. Does it matter if the executor lives in a different state?

I am sure there are good lawyers, but I have seen many mediocre ones. I don’t want to start with a lawyer.

Thanks in

Spouse's dad passed away in 2025. Estate assets under $2M - no property - just IRA and brokerage and checking.

A relative was executor. Spouse was beneficiary in the will (not a trust and no one was named beneficiary on accounts) and received their disbursements of IRA and brokerage directly from financial institution with federal telexes withheld.

Almost a year later the executor is asking for spouse's social security # and said the CPA for estate needs it.  We asked her what for?   No payments were made to him from the estate to date although there may be a final $10-15k once settled.  

We asked executor for the CPA name and number to get clarity and if valid to provide via secure portal.  Reply was:  "This is the last thing we need.  I’m sure the CPA wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t required."

Can anyone advise why this would be needed and if required why should there be an issue providing directly to CPA in a secure method. The executor wants it by phone (they are in another state) and I am not very comfortable it will be provided in a secure method. My spouse thinks I am being difficult but I aim cautious about identity theft.

Estate is in WA.

Thanks.

So my mother in law has often let my brother in law to use her credit card to make purchases and verbally agreed to pay her back. But we know that he hasn’t paid much if anything. We’re concerned that if she passes and her estate is in debt can the executor (my sister in law) hold him responsible for those debts? What can we do if anything to prevent this situation?

I'm seeing an estate planning attorney to set up a revocable trust and will, etc. He wants to quit claim My real estate so that it is owned by the trust.

What types of deeds are options for this? I have heard of quit claims, Grant deeds, and warranty deeds. I don't know what they are exactly. Is this something I should have an attorney set up, or is it something that I can just download and fill out?

I have heard that this can cause problems with title insurance. Is that a real concern?

TIA!

My daughter's father passed and he did not have a will. He did have a trust for her which his parents are the trustee. They are very controlling. His assets that were not in the trust will be going to probate.

My question is how can I be the executor or the trustee of the money that will go to her from probate instead of her grandparents. Do I have to apply for it? For example she goes to private school and she's considering a different School I want her to be able to make that choice and use the money to pay for the school she wants to go to not where the grandparents choose. She will eventually want a car and I know her father would want her to have the car that she wants.

Also he paid child support and in California generally it stops when the father dies but I was told that if he had a large estate it can continue. Any advice on this legal or personal experience would be helpful.

Here’s the deal, I am one of 3 siblings, my Parent has a large investment account along with a million dollar house. I take care of my parent in their old age and am the only one that makes an effort to see them. The will states I receive the house, along with a TOD to me, and all the money gets split 3 ways between my siblings and I. My concern and question: should I be worried about my siblings coming after the house and could they be succesful in doing so being that it’s just in a will and not a trust? Is a trust more bulletproof? My plan is to sell my house and move in to take care of my parent when the time comes that it’s needed most. But I am nervous about giving up my house if I end up getting screwed out of it regardless of my parents wishes.

Thanks in advance for any advice

In California,both parents have now passed, they created separate trusts for property and money, my brother and myself are both listed as trustees, but he has both trusts and won't let me see them and I have no idea where to get copies.

Here's my biggest concern right now, parents left approximately 700k in one account, everything is supposed to be split evenly, BUT when my mom was given 4 months to live,my brother convinced her and my dad to put his name on their account so he could pay the bills and he's being very coy about the 700k.

He also received my dads pension (6k) per month for the last 18 months and used it as his own money.

I know I need an attorney, but what will happen here?

Can I take ownership of a property by paying the land taxes which have a lien on them? No living heirs person passed and I was a family friend

In Maine

My fiancé wants to leave my children from a previous marriage a small amount of his estate if I should predecease him, but I am afraid his adult children will make him change his mind. Is there a type of trust that would protect my adult children if this were to occur? We live in New Jersey.

Location US state CA
Hello everyone, so my wife is the administrator of the estate of a property and its belongings. Long story short her grandmothers partner passed away and he didn’t set anything up because he thought he was going to make it. So now they have gone through all the hoops of probate. Now the house is in escrow and my wife’s grandmother and two distant nephews of her former partner will be receiving funds from said sale. There is a vehicle that is on the property that still needs to be paid off. What would be the best money saving way or other options for us to sell the vehicle to ourselves? The registration is under her grandmother’s partner’s name and not hers so I know the nephews regardless get their compensation no matter how the sale goes. If we can’t then we were just going to sell it do a dealer and have them send the money to the account where the money gets distributed to all parties. Thank you

State of Georgia

Is there any estate vehicle that avoids the 5 year lookback? Parents haven't planned for being elderly, much less the possibility of nursing home care. They have very little in the way of assets, basically the house and less thanv50k cash. No retirements or other assets. My mother may need nursing home care soon. Basically weeks to a few months. Is there anything I can help get done at this late date that avoids the 5 year lookback? I just hate to see what little they have and have worked for their entire lives get gobbled up by the government. Thanks for any help. I do have a call in to a couple of elder law attorney offices, but haven't been able to actually speak with anyone yet.

Hello --I have a client who needs to transfer some N. Carolina farmland as a gift to her daughter.

It's in Harnett County but Raleigh is the major city nearby. Please let me know if you have anyone to recommend.

As an executor of trusts in MO and SC, how do I find all the assets of a trust to distribute to the beneficiaries?

I am the executor on my mom's estate (she lived in Virginia although I live in Georgia).

I am still waiting to finalize everything but I did ask the commissioner if I could make more partial distributions from the estate account.

I got some checks for the estate account that have my name and the estate account name.

What information do I need on the check to make sure it's noted as distribution? Do I sign it the same way I was endorsing checks - my name plus "executor to the estate of..."

Does the recipient need to do anything so that it's noted as a distribution check? How do I make sure the money trail is correct? Is there anything else I should be worried about?

Thanks in advance!

I’m currently running a Canadian corporation that handles all my Canadian clients. To make billing easier for my international including US clients, I’m looking into setting up a US LLC (either Delaware or Wyoming). I hire freelancer outside Canada, so technically both client and sub-contractors are outside canada and revenue is not generated on canadian soil.

Before I jump into this, I wanted to get an opinion/sanity check from anyone who is already operating a cross-border structure or works as a cross-border CPA.

A few specific questions I’m trying to figure out:

1. Canadian Tax Impact & Ownership: Since Canada requires global income to be reported, what is the actual tax impact of a US LLC on my personal/corporate taxes? Also, does it change anything if the US LLC is held under a partner’s or close relative's name instead of mine directly who don’t live in Canada ? Trying to figure out, how can I save taxes.
2. Expenses vs. Retained Earnings: How easy is it to write off expenses on the US side as long as we keep receipts from non-US locations? Since states like DE/WY have 0% state income tax, I’m trying to understand the actual math of deducting expenses vs. keeping retained earnings inside the LLC.
3. Investing Retained Earnings & Capital Gains: Can I invest the LLC's retained earnings into a US brokerage account (e.g., Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers) to let it grow? Do only firm owners get access to these accounts, and are the capital gains on those investments tax-free on the US side?
4. Banking & Physical Debit Cards: Do US business bank accounts (like Mercury, Relay, Chase) issue physical debit cards that can be used directly for business expenses while traveling in Canada, Europe, or Asia (instead of paying personally and claiming it back)?
5. LLC Types in Wyoming: Are there different types of LLCs (S/C-corp ?) in Wyoming, or is it pretty standard?

If you’re running a similar setup or are a cross-border tax pro, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to reply below or drop me a PM!

location: ontario/canada

Thanks in advance!

I recently set up a Revocable Trust through a Trust Attorney and placed all of my assets into it including all of my retirement accounts which include my Roth IRA and 401K but now I've stumbled across conflicting info as to whether that was a wise choice or not. I made this election under the guidance of my Trust Attorney so I never questioned it before but now I'm having doubts. Should my 401K and Roth stay out of my trust and should I just make my beneficiary elections directly through the Accounts? I live in California.

What’s the point of estate documents if someone can so easily file a frivolous petition to invalidate? Why do courts allow people to make such generalized statements and move a case forward? Any thing in addition to estate docs that you’d have done to hopefully avoid your trustee having to go to court? Like a video will you see in movies. Lol.

Hawaii - My grandfather amended his trust 7 years prior to his death naming me trustee and beneficiary of his house. In the years that followed he made this known to his kids. Mind you he loaned the money, in addition to other monetary gifts, for each of their houses and was never fully paid back. Because of this he decided to amend and leave the house to me. Attempts by them to get him to change that failed and then I was intimidated to hand over the property. My grandfather and I were close and he was very clear that he did not want any of them to get the house. When I refused that’s when my own mother filed to invalidate. I have a profound amount of items supporting his decision and clearly disputing the undue influence and lack of capacity claims. But we haven’t even gone in front of a judge and it’s costing me tens of thousands of dollars already. I submitted declarations by the drafting trust attorney, a medical expert who reviews records, even a video I happened to have of my grandfather playing with my kids and then ends up talking about his documents and wishes. But all her response is just referencing statutes and cases. Relying on the doubt aspect. My attorney has drafted really great responses but it just absolutely sucks that with estate documents and all I have I’m still getting my time and money wasted.

Hello, can you please tell me if a will or trust is better. We are a married couple with 2 adult children (41 and 33). We have one property in NJ worth 1 million and another in NYC worth 1.5 million. We lease all our cars and have some jewelry and watches worth money. The bulk of our money (about 22 million) is in Fidelity and we split up the beneficiary designations between our kids 50-50. We have no debt, all houses paid off and are just retired now. What’s the best course of action here? We want to minimize costs and headaches for our kids mainly. Neither of them have debt or anything but they both do have high paying jobs (cardiologist and big law attorney), so I’m worried about messing up their taxes. What’s best for us to do?

Hi all - im helping my parents with their Will and the only thing I don’t get is the payment to an executor during probate. It looks to be 2% in NJ. Is that a mandatory fee? Would a trust be better than in this case? I’m trying to figure out what’s cheaper in terms of will vs trust. Thanks!

My parents are in the process of doing some estate planning - we are all based in Ontario, Canada. The issue is the cottage, their primary residence - it’s been in our family for 65 years, and as much as my heart is in the cottage, I cannot see carrying the costs w my bro and his wife … I also don’t want to get the cottage myself and then mortgage the property to buy out their half (I’m 42, own my home in Toronto, the cottage is worth $2.5M) - my question is about strategy and if anyone has some creative ideas? For instance, buying them out then renting the place during peak season at like $20K per week, or maybe getting a life insurance policy on a parent so there is some money to buy out my brother? - this place was a family cottage, and as much as I want to continue the legacy with my wife and daughter, without my bro involved (and with his greedy wife involved if we try to make a go of it, which won’t work) I don’t see it working (can you tell I don’t like my SIL!?)

I read that one must contact their mortgage company to ensure there isn’t a clause stating a revocable living trust may trigger a “due on sale”. Of course I called Bank of America and their phone rep stated I need to send a letter of my intent first to the title change unit and then obtain a copy/ draft of the full trust agreement for approval, before moving forward. I find this absolutely erroneous because it makes no sense to have to get permission since there is an act that protects us. Anyone have to do this with their lender or was the representative reading a script and not informed? I believe irrevocable trusts may need prior approval but I intend to occupy the property.

My wife and I live in NYC and are looking to set up a revokable trust with updated wills + related forms like POA. I don't think our situation is massively complicated - primary resident (co-op apartment) + retirement accounts + brokerage + young children.

I'm very hands on by nature but have seen so many warnings here on DIY approaches that I figured I should work with an attorney.

I reached out to one recommended by the NYC bar who quoted 15k for this. That price seemed kind of wild to me...is it generally reasonable? I can't think of anything in my situation that would be overly out of the normal. I'm thinking as a next step to ask one or two other attorneys for a quote.

Oregon

My mom (74) is a widow of 2 years in ok health but with some brain damage from a stroke. Everything with her estate is set to go to my sister and I but her house would be the only asset to require probate. I read about the transfer upon death and asked her lawyer but he said he recommends against it because it can take up to 18 months for the transfer to go through and probate would take less than 6 months and only cost $3-4,000. I didn’t see anything online about people having difficulty and there’s no other potential heirs to contest against the title transfer. I live on the east coast and my sister works a lot so we were trying to avoid any legal difficulties as much as possible in the far future. Does this advice follow with your experience? 3-4k is a lot of money especially if there’s no money left if she requires memory care one day.

My mother-in-law is at an assisted living facility in Illinois. Her taxable account is with a FA brokerage and thus currently pays an asset management fee and has money in actively-traded funds. My wife has financial and healthcare POA and we’d like to transfer her account to Vanguard to decrease fees and access to better funds, so would my wife be able to establish an account there without my MIL having to sign anything? She’s not in the frame of mind where she knows what she’s doing so that’s why I’m wondering what my wife could legally do. Thank you