[WSBAPT] Notarized Will required to admit to probate vs valid > Will

Mon Oct 5 19:54:59 PDT 2026

I Iove it! Best time of year! Good luck, Laura!

Joshua McKarcher

Attorney, Owner
McKarcher Law PLLC
o: (509) 758-3345
josh at mckarcherlaw.com<mailto:josh at mckarcherlaw.com>

[signatureImage]

________________________________
From: wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com <wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com> on behalf of Laura Latta <laura at lauralatta.com>
Sent: Monday, 05 October 2026 13:34:13
To: WSBA Probate & Trust Listserv <wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com>
Subject: Re: [WSBAPT] Notarized Will required to admit to probate vs valid > Will

Joshua said a lot, but there was one piece I feel compells a response, and that is...GO PADRES! We'll get 'em in games 3-5.

Laura Latta
Law Office of Laura Latta PLLC

she/her

Phone (206) 841-2344

www.LauraLatta.com<http://www.LauraLatta.com>

4010 Lake Washington Blvd. NE Ste. 202

Kirkland, WA 98033

NOTICE:  This communication may contain privileged or other confidential information. If you have received it in error, please advise the sender by replying to this email and immediately delete the message and any attachments without copying it or disclosing its contents to others.

On Sun, Oct 4, 2026 at 9:04 PM Joshua McKarcher <josh at mckarcherlaw.com<mailto:josh at mckarcherlaw.com>> wrote:
I second Eric that this is nothing to be crushed about but to be proud of.

I also suggest -- because I'm provocative and blunt and presently grumpy with my two children and the general state of the world -- that given the concrete admissibility of the unsworn statement requiring only two humans and barely any technically precise language beyond maybe "under Washington law" and "under penalty of perjury" (or legally equivalent words), I gallingly think it (may be) imprudent to add to a highly scrutinized process a third fallible human AND all the individual pieces of data, precise jurat language, the correct state, correct county, a stamp, ink smearing, overlooked expiration of a notary's commission, inadvertent signature mismatch (recall our earlier exchange about signature names matching stamp names as filed with the Notary Overseers at DOL), etc.

I think it is objectively fair to argue that adding that third human and their "formalities baggage" INTO THE PROCESS OF PROVING A WILL is a ("preventably") unnecessary, risky, overkill mental self-deception (of the kind to which we lawyers are susceptible). A deception that one has accorded a document more legitimacy, provability, cachet, familiarity, or "something" than one actually has.

Especially given that as of a few years ago it requires the poor notary public to journal the blasted event unless the notary is a lawyer . . . whose signature is 100% as useful in unsworn statement form as it is in the form that requires an ink stamp!

I would of course not go so far as suggesting it's malpractice to continue using three humans for a two-human process.

But whenever we can remove one human and the inevitability of human errors and fallibility from any process, I will usually insist, "Yes, correct! It is time to rethink our decades-old practices."

Just as it is necessary to redraft decades-old documents into plain English wherever we have opportunity to do so.

Every time we do anything we do, it should be the best current version available for doing that thing. It can't and won't always be -- that's humanly impossible. But we can try.

Thus this listserv and marvelous humans like Eric and Brent and Heather and Diane and Amy and so many others who constantly contribute to our collective betterment, grumpy or otherwise. "Bravo everyone!!!"

And I'm afraid I think the same way about MOST court-based tech I hear about in our state -- other than the perfectly useful downloading of Odyssey TIFs that are easily converted to PDFs en masse. It may be humorous and absurd that they're TIFs, but I can select all of them after downloading, right click, and convert them all to separate PDFs at once, voila!

Thus -- and here I apologize in advance for my grouchy reply to "my good friend on the other side of the Odyssey-fax aisle," Mr. McClure -- I am amused that one would find it undesirable to be able to avoid all idiotic and disparate tech found outside of Asotin County when one can fax (or deliver, if fax headers are too painful for our beautiful probate) pleadings to the clerk directly from any email-based fax system and then download the court-stamped and sequentially numbered (charmingly in handwriting, with initials) copies soon thereafter via Odyssey "lawyer access" that costs all of $110/year.

Surely nobody is using actual fax machines anymore. I pay all of $4/month to Faxage, one of the million options out there that lets one "fax" by emailing 1 or more PDFs already saved to one's computer that one MUST already have saved to one's computer whether filing by fax, "proprietary county system" online upload, postal mail, FedEx, hand delivery, or courier pigeon.

Emailing PDFs to 1509243xxxx at faxage.com<mailto:1509243xxxx at faxage.com> (saved as a contact in my email program) is the picture of technical simplicity if not beauty.

Simplicity in all things, except my email messages. (And I'm told AI may save you all eventually from the latter . . . )

Happy week ahead, fearless lawyers of Washington!!

(And to any San Diego Padres fans out there STILL reading, well, you have my sincere sympathies for today's playoff gut punch in Wisconsin. I mean, I'm not completely heartless and irascible. I'm just frequently so these days; see above re state of the world, etc.)

Joshua McKarcher

Attorney, Owner
McKarcher Law PLLC
o: (509) 758-3345<tel:(509)%20758-3345>
josh at mckarcherlaw.com<mailto:josh at mckarcherlaw.com>

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________________________________
From: wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com> <wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbapt-bounces at lists.wsbarppt.com>> on behalf of Eva Luchini <eva at luchinilaw.com<mailto:eva at luchinilaw.com>>
Sent: Friday, 02 October 2026 09:20:39
To: wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com> <wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com<mailto:wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com>>
Subject: [WSBAPT] Notarized Will required to admit to probate vs valid > Will

You don't often get email from eva at luchinilaw.com<mailto:eva at luchinilaw.com>. Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>

I do not notarize my Wills.  I do a declaration of witnesses of which I am one and my assistant is the other and it should be  SELF PROVING PURSUANT TO RCW 5.50.030, 11.20.020

Here’s what it looks like, below.

Feel free to crush my soul and tell me I’ve been doing it wrong.

DECLARATION OF WITNESSES

(SELF PROVING PURSUANT TO RCW 5.50.030, 11.20.020)

Each of the undersigned declares that, on the date written below and, in our presence, [CLIENT] declared this document to be their Will and signed it as the Testator. At the Testator’s request and in the presence of the Testator and each other, we are signing as attesting witnesses. The Testator appears to be over 18 years old, of sound and disposing mind and memory, competent in every respect to make a Will, and not under any restraint, duress, or undue influence. Each of us is over 18 years old and competent to be an attesting witness. This declaration is made at the request of [CLIENT] for the purpose of proving the foregoing Will.

Each of us further declares under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Washington that the foregoing declaration is true and correct.

Signed at __, Washington, on____________, 2026.

Witness Signature

Witness Signature

Witness Printed Name

Witness Printed Name

Camas, WA 98607

Camas, WA 98607

Witness Address

Witness Address

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