Selling an Inherited or Probate House in Auburn, WA

If the decedent lived on a King County Auburn parcel, the residence county is King County. The Superior Court Clerk is at 516 Third Avenue, Room E-609, in the King County Courthouse in Seattle, and at 401 Fourth Avenue North, Room 2C, in the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. Kent is the closer counter for many south-end families. Ask your attorney which case-assignment area applies. KindKey will not file the petition because the office is nearby.

If the decedent lived on a Pierce County Auburn parcel, the residence county is Pierce County. Those filings go to the Clerk of the Superior Court at 930 Tacoma Ave S, Room 110, Tacoma, phone (253) 798-7455. Pierce County’s probate page says a case is needed when assets exceed $100,000 and/or the estate includes real property, and it publishes the current fee and the opening documents. Sumner is its own Pierce County city. Algona and Pacific are not Auburn neighborhoods. Do not borrow their paperwork.

The closing agent will ask for letters and for whether nonintervention powers were granted. RCW 11.68.090 gives a personal representative with those powers the authority to sell real property without a further court order, subject to the will and the representative’s duties. If the powers were not granted, chapter 11.56 RCW may require court involvement. The will can forbid a sale or limit price. KindKey cannot waive any of that because the house is a short drive from 1st Street.

Some Auburn parents put the house in a living trust. Some recorded a transfer-on-death deed under chapter 64.80 RCW. Those are not probate files. Heirs in Kent, Federal Way, or out of state can still sell a Lea Hill house or a valley house. They need the signer title will accept, not a family consensus whispered at the kitchen table.

Lea Hill and Lakeland Hills houses are a different inheritance from a smaller house on the valley floor near the Green River, or a downtown house that has been vacant since the owner moved to a care facility. Belongings, a deferred roof, and a yard that got away are common. You do not have to clean them out or remodel them first. Take what the family wants before closing day.

If a relative remains in the house, leave that occupancy question with your attorney. Tell KindKey about a mortgage, a code notice, or fire damage so the offer matches the property. Tax basis and capital gains are a tax professional’s work. KindKey will not estimate them.

An Auburn estate that is also behind on the loan should be treated as a legal emergency, not as a reason to skip reading the purchase agreement. RCW 61.34 may apply. KindKey does not interpret it and does not claim an estate sale is exempt. The county on the deed of trust, King or Pierce, is also the county on the foreclosure recording.

If your attorney says a sale is allowed, KindKey buys as a principal. There is no agent commission and no separate assignment fee charged to the seller. The settlement statement shows the payoff. You can ask for the number while letters are in process. Sign after that authority exists.