Washington Estate Accounting: A Representative's Guide

Washington administers decedents' estates under Title 11 RCW, through the Superior Court in each county. There is no statewide probate form category, and the local rules of the larger counties prescribe none either: King County LCR 98.04 and Snohomish County SCLSPR 98.04 both leave the format open. So there is no form number to look for and none to print. What the statutes say a document must contain is the whole of the requirement.

The first document is the Inventory and Appraisement, required by RCW 11.44.015. It lists all of the property of the estate in six lettered classifications, with a statement of any encumbrance, lien or other secured charge against each item, and the personal representative verifies it. It may be filed in the probate cause, and it may be kept out of the file instead. Either way, certain people can demand a copy of it in writing, and the personal representative then has ten days to furnish one.

The second document is a report of the affairs of the estate, and which report depends on how the estate is being administered. Most Washington estates are nonintervention estates, where the personal representative administers without returning to court and files no accounting at all. In that route the closing filing is a Declaration of Completion of Probate under RCW 11.68.110, which carries four fee figures and no accounting. A beneficiary who wants numbers can petition for a report under RCW 11.68.065, and the court may order one. A supervised estate instead files a final report and petition for distribution under RCW 11.76.030 when the estate is ready to be closed. Both routes want the same underlying facts: money collected, debts paid, property that has come in since the last report, and the property still held.

The inventory and appraisement is due within three months after appointment, unless the court grants a longer time (RCW 11.44.015).

There is no percentage schedule. RCW 11.48.210 allows the personal representative such compensation for their services as the court deems just and reasonable, and it names no brackets and no rates. RCW 11.48.210 adds one allowance: additional compensation may be allowed for the personal representative's services as attorney and for other services not required of a personal representative.

If the will names an amount or a method for the personal representative's compensation, that provision is the full compensation, unless the personal representative files a written renunciation of it in court before qualifying (RCW 11.48.210).

So a Washington fee is an amount you have to justify rather than a number you can look up. Keep the hours, the tasks and the dates as you go, because the record of the work is what supports the figure. ExecutorLedger never computes a Washington commission from a percentage, since no Washington statute sets one.

Nonintervention powers are what make a Washington estate simple, and most solvent estates have them. The court grants them on a finding that the estate is solvent, and from then on the personal representative administers, sells, pays and distributes without further court orders. RCW 11.68.090(2)(b) gives a personal representative with nonintervention powers no duty to follow the procedures of RCW 11.76.010 through 11.76.080, so no periodic report and no final report reaches the court. The inventory duty survives, because that carve-out names only RCW 11.76.010 through 11.76.080 and chapter 11.56 RCW, leaving chapter 11.44 RCW untouched. A will cannot waive it either: RCW 11.68.090(4) says no testamentary provision may limit the effect of chapter 11.44 RCW.

A nonintervention estate closes by filing a Declaration of Completion of Probate under RCW 11.68.110. It states that the estate has been fully administered, that the personal representative has paid or provided for the debts, expenses, claims and taxes, and that distribution has been made. Paragraph (g) holds the money in it: the amount of fees paid or to be paid to the personal representative, to the lawyer, to the appraiser and to the accountant, with a statement that the personal representative believes the fees to be reasonable and does not intend to obtain court approval of them or to submit an estate accounting to the court for approval. Those four figures are the whole of the financial disclosure. No receipts schedule is attached to a declaration of completion.

A supervised estate closes the older way. RCW 11.76.030 requires a final report and petition for distribution, made, verified and filed with the court when the estate is ready to be closed. It shows the money collected since the previous report, the property that has come into the personal representative's hands since then, the debts paid, and the condition of the estate at that time. It gives the names and addresses, as nearly as may be, of the legatees and devisees, or of the heirs on intestacy, and a particular description of all the property of the estate remaining undisposed of. Since chapter 204, Laws of 2026, the court may also presume that the estate is ready to be closed twenty-four months after appointment.

Between those two routes sits RCW 11.68.065. A beneficiary who has not acknowledged receipt of full payment may petition for a report of the affairs of the estate. After notice and a hearing the court may order a report, signed and verified, covering descriptions and amounts of property received, statements of property collected and property distributed, claims filed and whether they were allowed or rejected, the tax returns filed, and anything else the court orders. That is the accounting a nonintervention estate may still have to produce, and it is the shape ExecutorLedger's Washington report follows.

Washington law changed in this area in June 2026, when chapter 204, Laws of 2026 took effect. Guidance written before then, including much of what is online, may describe the older rules. Check the current statute, or ask your attorney, before relying on an older summary.

• Finish paying valid creditor claims, expenses, and taxes, then check whether you were granted "nonintervention" powers (RCW 11.68). Most solvent WA estates get them, and they let you close without a court hearing.
• If you have nonintervention powers, file a Declaration of Completion of Probate (RCW 11.68.110) stating the estate is fully administered and listing the fees paid or to be paid to the PR, lawyers, appraisers, and accountants.
• Mail a copy of the declaration, within 5 days of filing, to every heir, beneficiary, and interested party who hasn't already waived notice or received their full distribution.
• If nobody petitions the court within 30 days (or everyone entitled to notice waived it in writing up front), the declaration itself becomes the legal equivalent of a decree of distribution and automatically discharges you and any bond, with no separate hearing needed.
• If you never obtained nonintervention powers, or an interested party objects, file a final report and petition for distribution under chapter 11.76 RCW instead, attend the court hearing, and hand in signed beneficiary receipts so the court can adjudge the estate closed and discharge you under RCW 11.76.050.

Washington's default path (Declaration of Completion) is closer to a self-executing sworn closing statement than to a Uniform Probate Code §3-1003 filing. Washington has not adopted UPC Article 3. The court-supervised final-report path (chapter 11.76 RCW, decree and discharge under RCW 11.76.050) is the fallback when nonintervention powers were never granted or someone objects.

The inventory's six classifications come from RCW 11.44.015, in the statute's own lettered order: (a) real property, by legal description; (b) stocks and bonds; (c) mortgages, notes and other written evidences of debt; (d) bank accounts and money; (e) furniture and household goods; and (f) all other personal property accurately identified, including the decedent's proportionate share in any partnership, with no inventory of the partnership property itself required. ExecutorLedger's own asset categories have nothing that lands in class (c) today, so that line prints with a blank, so a reader can see what belongs in it.

The statute asks for the fair net value of each item as of the date of death, after deducting the encumbrances, liens and other secured charges on that item. ExecutorLedger records no lien data, so each item prints the value you recorded and a ruled blank for the statement of any encumbrance, lien or other secured charge, and the print says the deduction is the preparer's to make. An asset with no date-of-death value on file prints a blank rather than a zero, and is counted in the schedule without being summed into the total. Real property keeps its own total, separate from the personal property total and never added into it, because real property vests in the heirs or devisees at death (RCW 11.04.250) and never enters the cash balance.

Verification is a declaration, not an affidavit sworn before a notary. Chapter 5.50 RCW governs unsworn declarations, and RCW 5.50.050 prescribes the words: a declaration under penalty of perjury under the law of Washington that the foregoing is true and correct, with the date, the place, the printed name and the signature. Older Washington templates in circulation cite RCW 9A.72.085 instead. That section was repealed effective July 1, 2021, so a document citing it names authority that no longer exists.

The report's money columns say Receipts and Disbursements. Those are the plain words for what the statutes call moneys collected and debts paid (RCW 11.76.030(1)) and sums collected and sums paid out (RCW 11.76.010(3)(a)). No Washington source read for this guide uses the pair Charges and Credits for a decedent's estate, so ExecutorLedger's Washington report does not either. There is no gain or loss line, and no recapitulation that has to balance charges against credits, because no Washington statute asks for one. A sale posts once, at the amount collected, and the asset sold stops appearing among the property remaining undisposed of.

Property that came in after the inventory gets its own printed line whatever its category, since both RCW 11.44.025 and RCW 11.76.030(1) ask for it. A distribution in kind is not a payment of money. It gets its own list, naming the beneficiary and the item, and the item leaves the property remaining undisposed of. Sections the app has no data for still print, with ruled blanks, so nothing is quietly dropped: claims filed, allowed or rejected, the tax returns filed, and the names and addresses of the legatees, devisees or heirs. In a supervised estate, RCW 11.76.100 has the personal representative produce receipts or canceled checks for the expenses and charges paid. An item of expenditure of twenty dollars or less may be allowed without a receipt if the personal representative's own oath supports it, and those allowances without receipts may not exceed three hundred dollars in any one estate.

Community property changes the scope of the inventory and not its columns. RCW 11.02.070 puts the whole of the community property into administration, and the decree of distribution confirms one half of it to the surviving spouse. So a community asset is listed at its full value, never halved, and the six classifications carry no community-versus-separate column. A note is the most the print says about it.

Recording is free for as long as the estate takes: every receipt and disbursement with its date and description, distributions per beneficiary, and a balance that checks itself as you go. ExecutorLedger builds Washington-style documents from those records, an Inventory and Appraisement laid out in RCW 11.44.015's six classifications and a Report of the Affairs of the Estate in whichever route your estate is in, nonintervention or supervised, ready to transcribe or attach when you file or furnish one. Neither is a court form, and your attorney should review them before anything is signed or filed. Every document previews free with your real numbers, and $149 (one-time payment) per estate lifts the watermark.