Note** this blog is intended to be written to provide information to potential fiduciaries of estates such as personal representatives and administrators.
- If the estate assets (meaning property and other items of value) are under $100,000 you may be able to obtain the assets through a much simpler process of the small estate affidavit rather than going through probate.
- Unless your estate is insolvent meaning, there are not enough assets to pay the debts, you likely won’t need the court’s permission to engage in pretty much all of the tasks needed to administer the estate. The statute calls the ability of you to administer the estate without supervision of the court “nonintervention powers.”
- You probably won’t need to pay federal estate tax or Washington estate tax unless the estate has millions of dollars. Washington’s threshold amount for filing is $2,193,00. Federal is even higher at 13,610,00. (These values change) Though, you may still need a CPA for a couple of reasons: 1. As the Personal Representative or Administrator of the estate you will still be responsible for filing an income tax for the decedent. 2. And, you may need to file a income tax for the estate if it received any income from accounts like bonds, savings, CDs etc. For more information on the estate income tax see here: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/file-an-estate-tax-income-tax-return.
- Attorneys don’t take a set percentage of the estate in Washington. In some states, the attorney helping you with probate will take a percentage of the estate that is allowed under statute. In Washington, no statute provides for a percentage of the estate that attorneys should take. Instead, they may charge by the hour or a flat rate to complete certain aspects of probate such as opening and closing it.
- An important part of the probate process is paying creditors. You will want to do some digging to find out who the creditors were of the decedent. During the probate process you will then have the opportunity to give them direct notice as well as publish notice in a newspaper, this reduces the time they can bring claims from 2 years to 4 months in some cases.
If you’re still looking for additional information, you can read the statutes of course, which are scattered throughout Title 11 found here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=11/. Particularly helpful are RCW 11.68 and RCW 11.76.