[WSBAPT] questions re will delivery requirement

[Sharon Rutberg]

Hello, friends -

A little help? Client is named PR in her friend's Will, of which we can only find a copy.  She also has in her possession an earlier original Will, in which she is also named PR. The later Will revokes the prior one, and client believes her friend did not revoke the later Will. We are preparing a petition to probate the later Will copy and will be noticing a hearing that will not happen until 2023.

My question - RCW 11.20.010 says that a person having custody of "any will" shall deliver the will to the court within a short time frame. A party in violation of this rule "shall be liable to any party aggrieved for the damages which may be sustained by such violation." I wonder what to do in this instance. Do we do a "will only" filing of the copy of the Will now? It seems like we should get the court's ruling on whether it's a valid will first. Do we deliver the original Will that we believe has been revoked? I am reluctant to begin a probate matter by filing a will we believe is no longer in effect.  Are we okay waiting until we have our petition on the copy of the will ready and then submit both wills at the same time we file the petition?

In this case, I do not see that any party would be "aggrieved," in the language of RCW 11.20.010, by our holding off filing the will documents until we have our petition ready. The people named in the wills will receive notice of the hearing on the Will copy.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Sharon

Sharon C. Rutberg, Attorney at Law
Salmon Bay Law Group, PLLC
1734 NW Market St.
Seattle, WA 98107
206-735-3177, ext. 2
sharon at salmonbaylaw.com<mailto:sharon at salmonbaylaw.com>
Website: www.salmonbaylaw.com<http://www.salmonbaylaw.com/>
Washington State Bar #47055

NOTICES
The contents of this message and any attachments may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine, and/or other applicable protections. If you are not the intended recipient or have received this message in error, please notify the sender and promptly delete the message. Thank you for your assistance.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbapt/attachments/20221206/330b7363/attachment.html>