Losing someone you love is hard enough without also untangling what happens to their house when there’s no will. I’ve walked several Seattle-area families through exactly this, and knowing your rights as an heir early on avoids a lot of conflict down the road. Here are the real steps involved.
1. Determine Your Ownership Status
Without a will, Washington’s intestate succession law (RCW 11.04) decides who inherits, and how much. A surviving spouse typically receives all community property plus a share of separate property, with the rest divided among children or other relatives depending on who’s living. Figuring out where you fall in that order is the first real step.
2. Get a Professional Appraisal
An accurate valuation matters for both dividing the estate fairly among heirs and for establishing the property’s stepped-up tax basis. Don’t rely on a Zestimate for this, get an actual licensed appraiser, especially if there’s more than one heir involved.
3. Decide What to Do with the Property
Keep it, rent it out, or sell it. With multiple heirs, this decision has to be made together, and it’s often the step where families get stuck the longest, especially if some heirs want to keep the house and others need the cash.
4. Get Legal Help
Without a will, the estate generally has to go through probate in King County Superior Court so the court can formally determine heirs and appoint a personal representative. A probate attorney who handles intestate estates specifically can save you months of confusion here.
5. Communicate with Other Heirs
Get everyone aligned early, in writing if possible, on what happens to the house. I’ve seen sales stall for a year or more simply because heirs never had one clear conversation about what everyone actually wanted.
6. Pay Any Outstanding Debts
The estate typically needs to settle the deceased’s debts, including any mortgage balance, before heirs receive their share free and clear. The personal representative handles this as part of probate, using estate assets before distribution.
7. Transfer Ownership
Once probate concludes, the court issues an order confirming who inherits, and a new deed gets recorded with King County to reflect the transfer. Only after this step is complete can the property actually be sold.
How Long Does This Actually Take?
An uncontested intestate probate in King County typically takes four to six months from filing to closing, longer if heirs disagree or the estate is more complex. Creditors also get a window to file claims against the estate before assets can be fully distributed, which is part of why this process can’t be rushed no matter how ready everyone is to move forward.
The Exact Split When There’s a Surviving Spouse But No Will
The community-property share is straightforward, your spouse keeps all of it. Separate property, meaning anything owned before the marriage or received individually as a gift or inheritance, splits differently depending on who else survives. If there are surviving children, your spouse gets half of the separate property and the children split the other half. If there are no children but a surviving parent, your spouse gets three-quarters and the parent gets one-quarter. If there’s no surviving spouse at all, the estate passes to children first, then to parents if there are no children, then to siblings if there are no surviving parents, and further out the family tree from there if none of those exist.
Sometimes the hardest part isn’t figuring out the legal order, it’s locating everyone in it. If an heir has lost touch with the family or moved without leaving a forwarding address, King County Superior Court can still appoint a personal representative to move the estate forward, but that person has a legal duty to make a genuine effort to notify every heir before the estate can close. I’ve worked with families who used a genealogist or heir-search service to track down a relative nobody had spoken to in years, specifically because probate couldn’t finish without them.
If you and other heirs decide selling makes the most sense, I buy inherited houses in Seattle and King County as-is, and I’m comfortable working directly with your probate attorney once the estate is ready to sell. Call (206) 900-8173 or send us a message to talk through where things stand.