Washington Certificate of Trust Requirements

A Washington certification of trust must state that the trust exists and the date the trust instrument was executed, identify the trustor, identify and give the address of the currently acting trustee, set out the trustee’s relevant powers, state whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable and who holds any power to revoke, describe cotrustee signing authority, and give the name of the trust or the titling of the trust property (RCW 11.98.075(1)). It may be signed or otherwise authenticated by any trustee or by an attorney for the trust, and chapter 11.98 RCW requires no oath, acknowledgment, or notarization (RCW 11.98.075(2)).

This page is a practitioner reference for attorneys and paralegals handling Washington matters. It summarizes statutory requirements — it is not legal advice and does not substitute for reading the current statute or consulting Washington counsel.

The governing statute

The authority is a single section, RCW 11.98.075, inside chapter 11.98 RCW — the chapter RCW 11.98.920 titles the “Washington Trust Act.” It was added by 2011 c 327 s 31, part of the amendment package that brought several Uniform Trust Code concepts into Washington law. Washington’s statute calls the document a certification of trust; “certificate of trust,” “trust certificate,” and “affidavit of trust” are practice terms, not statutory ones.

Citation: RCW 11.98.075 Official source: app.leg.wa.gov

The framing sentence sets the purpose: “Instead of furnishing a copy of the trust instrument to a person other than a beneficiary, the trustee may furnish to the person a certification of trust.” The tool is elective on the trustee’s part, and it is aimed at non-beneficiaries — banks, brokerages, title companies, transfer agents.

Required contents

RCW 11.98.075(2) expressly allows any trustee or an attorney for the trust to sign or otherwise authenticate the certification. The section does not require an oath, acknowledgment, or notarization, so a Washington certification is not, by statute, an affidavit. Nothing in the section prohibits adding an acknowledgment when appropriate for the transaction, but whether a recipient may require one is a separate question that RCW 11.98.075 does not expressly resolve.

The currency statement in subsection (3) is also drafted narrowly. It is not a representation that the trust has never been amended, but that no revocation, modification, or amendment has occurred that would make the certification’s own contents wrong. Restating it more broadly creates exposure the statute did not.

Related rules and statutory limits

• Electronic certifications. Chapter 11.135 RCW expressly includes a certification of trust under RCW 11.98.075. An electronic record may satisfy a writing requirement, and an electronic signature or authentication may satisfy a signature requirement. The electronic format does not change the certification’s required contents or the signer’s responsibility for accurate representations.
• Recording and real-property transactions. RCW 11.98.075 does not require every certification of trust to be recorded. A certification also is not the deed that conveys or encumbers real property. Under RCW 64.04.010, a conveyance or encumbrance of Washington real estate generally must be made by deed. Recording and acknowledgment requirements for the underlying transaction must be analyzed separately.
• Recipient requests for notarization. RCW 11.98.075 does not make notarization a condition of a certification. Subsection (5) permits a recipient to request specified trust excerpts and “any other reasonable information,” but it does not expressly state whether a recipient may require the certification itself to be notarized.
• Acceptance deadline. RCW 11.98.075 establishes no deadline for a recipient to accept, reject, or act on a certification. The acceptance deadlines in Washington’s power-of-attorney statute do not apply automatically to a certification of trust.
• Use with a beneficiary. Subsection (1) authorizes a certification as an alternative to furnishing the trust instrument to “a person other than a beneficiary.” The section does not establish the information rights of beneficiaries, which are governed by other trust provisions.

What a third party may demand, and who bears the risk

What the recipient may ask for. Under RCW 11.98.075(5), a recipient may require the trustee to furnish copies of those excerpts from the original trust instrument and later amendments “which designate the trustee and confer upon the trustee the power to act in the pending transaction,” or any other reasonable information. That closing clause gives a cautious institution real room. What it does not give is the whole instrument.

Reliance protection is strong and runs two ways. A person who acts in reliance on a certification without knowledge that its representations are incorrect is not liable to any person for so acting and may assume without inquiry the existence of the facts it contains; knowledge of the trust’s terms may not be inferred solely from holding a copy of all or part of the instrument (RCW 11.98.075(6)). And a person who in good faith enters into a transaction in reliance on a certification may enforce the transaction against the trust property as if the representations were correct (RCW 11.98.075(7)).

The fee-shifting provision is aimed at the demand, not the refusal. This is the point most worth getting right. RCW 11.98.075(8) provides that a person “making a demand for the trust instrument in addition to a certification of trust or excerpts is liable for damages, including reasonable attorney fees, if the court determines that the person did not act in good faith in demanding the trust instrument.” Washington’s exposure attaches to a bad-faith demand for the instrument — not, as under some other states’ schemes, to a refusal to accept a conforming certification. A bank that simply declines the transaction without demanding the instrument is not squarely within the section’s text.

Where subsection (8) does not reach, RCW 11.98.105(2) provides that a person other than a beneficiary who in good faith deals with a trustee “is not required to inquire into the extent of the trustee’s powers or the propriety of their exercise.” RCW 11.98.075(9) preserves the right to obtain the instrument in a judicial proceeding concerning the trust.

Getting the trustee identity right. Because subsection (1)(c) requires the currently acting trustee, a certification prepared during a transition needs the change to have taken effect: RCW 11.98.039 governs change of trustee, RCW 11.98.041 fixes the outgoing trustee’s discharge date, and RCW 11.98.060 confirms that a successor succeeds to all powers and duties. Where three or more trustees serve, RCW 11.98.016(1) permits a power vested in them jointly to be exercised by a majority — which the cotrustee disclosure required by RCW 11.98.075(1)(f) should reflect.

Certifications for out-of-state trusts

RCW 11.98.075 does not by its terms limit itself to Washington trusts, and the surrounding chapter supplies the validity and situs analysis. Under RCW 11.98.012, a trust not created by will is validly created if its creation complied with the law of the jurisdiction where the instrument was executed, or of the jurisdiction in which the trustor was domiciled, had a residence, or was a national, the trustee was domiciled or had a place of business, or any trust property was located. RCW 11.98.005 then determines when situs is Washington — by designation plus a connecting factor, by registration with the superior court clerk, or by the defaults in subsection (3).

Washington real property is a statutory connecting factor, but ownership of Washington real property does not by itself make Washington the situs in every case. Under RCW 11.98.005(1), Washington real property supports Washington situs when the trust instrument designates Washington as the situs or designates Washington law and another statutory condition is satisfied. Washington real property may also support registration under subsection (2) or a situs determination under the default rules in subsection (3). For a Washington real-property transaction, counsel should analyze situs, governing law, trustee authority, the certification, and the deed or other transaction instrument separately.

Frequently asked questions: Washington certificate of trust requirements

Related Washington documents

The certification is only as good as the instrument behind it, and the elements a Washington trust needs to exist are on the Washington revocable living trust requirements page — including the beneficiary-trustee limitation in RCW 11.98.200, which constrains the “relevant powers of the trustee” a certification can accurately recite. Where an agent under a power of attorney is transacting, RCW 11.125.240(1)(a) requires an express grant before the agent may create, amend, revoke, or terminate an inter vivos trust; the Washington durable power of attorney requirements page covers that scheme. For the full incapacity package, see the Washington advance health care directive requirements page.

A certification that recites trustee powers the instrument doesn’t actually grant is a document-assembly problem, not a research problem — which is the case for deterministic drafting rather than generative guesswork.