What if the people you trust to help you or your family after your death aren’t local? Can somebody who lives across an ocean help you with your will goes into action?
Colin Ley is an asset protection attorney and the creator of the PREP Trust®. He is also the co-founder of LayRoots (along with with partner in life & business – Shreya Ley)
Want to protect yourself from stupid lawsuits? Schedule a free, quick call with me at livemorecarefree.com.
Transcript:
Can you name a non-US person as executor of your will?
Hello, I am Colin, I’m Shreya, with LayRoots and we are going to answer a question that we received on whether you can name a foreigner as your personal representative or executor in your will. Before we get into that though, if you have any questions about this or about your estate plan, you can book a free 30 minute chat with me or me.
Go to livemorecarefree.com. Livemorecarefree.com.
Boom. So can you name a non-us person or a person who lives outside of the United States as your executor or personal representative? The answer is yes, you can. Uh, in Washington. Great. The requirement for a personal representative is that they’re an adult over 18. They’re not crazy. And. They don’t have a criminal past, basically. So what would be some of the cons of naming someone who’s not a U S person? So that’s a different question, right? Because whether it’s, what’s that? Isn’t there a superhero quote? It’s not a question of whether you can, it’s whether you should, I don’t know if that’s a superhero quote, but I like it anyway.
So yes, you can. Although if the person isn’t. Um, here in the County or probate is opened, they’re going to have to have a local person appointed to be the local contact. Is that like an attorney? It could be an attorney or someone else. Um, and then they can like travel. Maybe if they can get a visa.
I’m traveling if they want to do that. I mean, we’ve, we’ve done that for people who are named in California say, and they either the attorney is the local contact. Here in King County. Um, but yeah, the question is whether you should, I mean, if someone’s out there living their life in Spain, you know, they’re going to have to reach out to someone here in Washington and hire them to do their thing.
And I don’t know, is that good? I mean, I feel like it’s becoming less and less of an issue these days, if I’m being completely honest with you calling. Yeah, because it’s like global, it’s easier to get in touch with people across the globe and then like if someone hires an attorney to do their estate plan, then hopefully they have that person’s contact information and then they have the internet where they can like search them and stuff.
And so that’s true. Probably less of a hassle, but more of a hassle than naming someone local. Less of a hassle than it used to be. Like if you don’t know anyone, yeah, you don’t trust it. Could be either. It’d be either really, I feel like it’s probably more of an issue for people who maybe have like minor kids. And that’s just in Washington state, you know, if you have to open up probate and some other state, they might have different rules.
I think in California, I don’t know if they allow foreigners to do it. I don’t know. Um, so it depends on the state where a probate needs to be open. Yeah. What about having a perfect, I’m going down a rabbit hole. Nevermind. Don’t rabbit hole Shreya. Keep it simple. As they say. That’s what we’re doing.
Cool. So if you found this video helpful, what should they do it? Like, yeah, you got any questions, comments? Leave them down below and we would appreciate it. Like it while you can. I hear they’re getting, they’re getting rid of them.
