Washington

Washington forecloses a deed of trust non-judicially, on a notice of default and then a notice of trustee’s sale recorded and posted at least 120 days before the auction, with no sale until 190 days after the default and no redemption once the trustee’s deed is issued, so that notice fixes the day the house changes hands.

Farmland is the one thing that changes this, because a deed of trust can only be foreclosed out of court where the property is not used principally for agricultural purposes, so a farm or an orchard takes the slower route through court, ends at a sheriff’s sale, and does carry a redemption period.

Probate is the lightest in the country in practice rather than in name — Washington never adopted the Uniform Probate Code, but a solvent estate is normally granted nonintervention powers under RCW 11.68, after which the personal representative can sell, pay and distribute without going back to court.

It is also a community property state, so a surviving spouse takes the whole of the community estate outright, and a probate asset under $100,000 can pass on an affidavit forty days after death with no court filing at all.

Most of Washington’s farm, timber and open-space land sits in current-use classification under the Open Space Taxation Act, which values it on what it grows rather than what it could become.

Taking land out of that classification costs the last seven years of the tax it saved, plus interest and a twenty per cent penalty, and at a sale the seller is liable for all of it unless the buyer signs a Notice of Continuance on the excise tax affidavit.

Designated forest land works the same way with its own compensating tax, reaching back as far as nine years.

Seattle’s housing stock is older than its reputation — roughly half of it was built four decades ago or more — and outside the Cascades the state changes character entirely, into dryland wheat, irrigated Columbia Basin ground and family timber.