[WSBAPT] Declaration of Presumed Death

[Andrekita Silva]

Jennifer


         I have not secured a certificate of presumed death in the probate
context. However, I secured a judgment and order for the coroner
of either King County and/ or Pima County, Arizona to issue one. 
I had a client whose husband was believed to have perished in the
Arizona desert while after crossing the border from Mexico. He
had not been seen for 8 years and she was unable to secure
passports for her children, approve surgeries for her children,
or do anything that required both parents. You must have a
contested action (which you do), so I filed a divorce petition.
In that action, we filed a motion for a declaratory judgment
pursuant to 7.24. You must give notice to all interested parties.
 In our case we explained that we couldn’t give notice because we
believed H was dead.  We presented all our proof of why we
believed H had perished in the desert.  In our case, this
included declarations by my client and 2 of H’s siblings,
research from the internet showing the high risks associated with
trying to cross the desert and statistics on deaths, unidentified
remains, etc., and we provided a declaration of an organization
that had assisted my client in searching at hospitals, jails,
etc. right after he disappeared and then again at the one year
point. I also did follow up contacts with the various coroner’s
offices along the S.E. border to see if he had shown up.
	So, you would want to do a pretty vigorous search for the missing person,
and submit that along with efforts by others to locate the person.
Presumably, the conditions under which he disappeared would determine how
vigorous your efforts might be.  If everyone saw his ship go down in the
Artic waters of Alaska, and they never found his body, 7 years later,
less evidence is probably required.
	The trick is that Washington statute says that the coroner or medical
examiner for the county in which the presumed deceased was last seen
alive would issue the certificate.  In our case, although he lived in
King County prior to his death, and my client remained here, everyone
knew he was last seen alive in the Arizona desert. So after getting our
order, we had to approach the Pima County coroner. The Arizona statute
says the county of residence issues the certificate.  We eventually beat
the certificate out of Pima County.
	You said the son was presumed to have died in Spain.  So, possibly, you
may have to get the certificate issued in Spain. When I was researching
for my case, there was a case where the ship started out in Canadian
waters but it was believed to have crossed into U.S. waters- or something
like that.  There was no question that the person had died but there was
a jurisdictional question.  So, you may run into some hitches.

andrekita
Law Office of F. Andrekita Silva
1325 Fourth Avenue, Suite 2000
Seattle, Washington 98101
206-224-8288
www.seattle-silvalaw.com



On Tue, February 5, 2019 11:08 am, Jennifer Mackley wrote:
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