[WSBAPT] Omitted Child Issue and Potential Escheat

[David Faber]

Good afternoon list,

I have a doozy...

Decedent, while dying of cancer, wrote her Will on a form given to her by a
hospice worker/nurse. Decedent had two children: (A), who is a homeless
drug addict, and (B), who is developmentally disabled, is dependent upon
public assistance, and lives in a group home. Decedent's Will contains no
reference to child A, describes child B as her "only family", appoints
Decedent's sister as Personal Representative, contains no specific gifts,
and leaves her residuary estate to "No one". According to the Decedent's
sister (my prospective client), the hospice worker instructed the Decedent
on how to fill out her Will with the stated goal of allowing the sister (as
Personal Representative) to distribute the entire estate into a Special
Needs Trust that the sister could write after the Decedent died. Lastly,
the net estate is probably worth about $380,000.00. Setting aside the
apparent brazen violation of RCW 2.48.180, I'm now trying to figure out how
to proceed, or if it makes any sense at all to proceed to probating the
Will.

Reviewing the Omitted Child statute (RCW 11.12.091), it appears to *only *apply
to a child born or adopted *after *the date of the Will and therefore A
doesn't have an omitted child claim (correct?). But then that means the
Will leaves the estate to "no one". My worry is that this effectively means
that the estate escheats. Has anyone encountered a situation like this or
have any thoughts that could result in the estate going to A and B as
intestate heirs? The next step after that will be figuring out a
self-settled special needs trust for B, but I'll cross that bridge if we
can find a way to even come to it...

Best,
David J. Faber
Faber Feinson PLLC
800 Polk Street, Suite B
Port Townsend, WA 98368
(360) 379-4110

*** NOTICE: ATTORNEY CLIENT COMMUNICATION - PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL.
This communication may contain privileged or other confidential
information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that
you have received this communication in error, please do not print,
copy, retransmit, disseminate, or otherwise use the information. Also,
please indicate to the sender that you have received this communication in
error, and destroy the copy you received.***
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbapt/attachments/20250520/91634ef3/attachment.html>