# RCW 61.24.180 and CR 12: A Timing Problem [RCW 61.24.180](http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=61.24.180) allows a deed-of-trust trustee named in litigation solely in its fiduciary capacity to file a declaration of nonmonetary status and avoid full participation. The statute borrows heavily from [California Civil Code section 2924l](https://law.onecle.com/california/civil/2924l.html). Washington’s adaptation, however, introduced timing parameters that conflict with the state’s own rules of civil procedure, producing a fifteen-day gap that the statute’s tolling provision does not reach. ## The Statutory Clock Under subsection (1), a trustee may not file a declaration of nonmonetary status until “not less than thirty-five days after service of the summons and complaint.” The opposing parties then have thirty days from service of the declaration to object. Subsection (8) provides the tolling mechanism: > Upon the filing of the declaration of nonmonetary status, the time within which the trustee is required to file an answer or other responsive pleading is tolled for the period of time within which the opposing parties may object to the declaration. The tolling is triggered “upon the filing” — not upon service of the summons, and not retroactively. The answer deadline pauses only when the declaration is filed with the court. ## The CR 12 Clock [CR 12(a)(1)](https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&group=sup&set=CR&ruleid=supcr12) requires a defendant to serve an answer “within 20 days, exclusive of the day of service, after the service of the summons and complaint.” A trustee that waits for the thirty-five-day eligibility window will find its answer already fifteen days overdue by the time the statute permits it to file the declaration. Subsection (8) does not resolve this. A declaration that cannot be filed until day 35 cannot retroactively toll an answer deadline that expired on day 20. The trustee is exposed to default for the entire fifteen-day interval between the answer deadline and the earliest possible filing date. ## Comparison with California’s Version The mismatch is apparent when the Washington statute is set beside its California model. Section 2924l permits the trustee to file its declaration “at any time.” California’s objection window is fifteen days, not thirty. And California’s default answer period under [Code of Civil Procedure section 412.20](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=412.20.&lawCode=CCP) is thirty days, not twenty. In California, the mechanism is self-contained: the trustee files the declaration before the answer deadline arrives, the tolling provision pauses the deadline during the fifteen-day objection window, and the trustee either exits the case or receives thirty days to answer after a timely objection. The declaration, the tolling provision, and the answer deadline all operate within the same timeline. Washington’s legislature doubled the objection period (from fifteen to thirty days), imposed a thirty-five-day waiting period that does not exist in the California original, and applied both to a procedural framework whose answer deadline is ten days shorter than California’s. The result is a statute whose internal timeline is fifteen days out of phase with [CR 12(a)(1)](https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&group=sup&set=CR&ruleid=supcr12). The longer timelines are not without justification. California’s fifteen-day objection window is short. A plaintiff or other opposing party served with a declaration of nonmonetary status must evaluate the complaint’s allegations against the trustee, determine whether the trustee’s conduct is genuinely limited to its fiduciary role, and file a formal objection — all within fifteen days. Washington’s thirty-day objection period gives opposing parties more time to make that assessment. The thirty-five-day waiting period serves a related function: it ensures that opposing parties have had the complaint in hand for over a month before the trustee may file its declaration, providing a baseline period to evaluate the trustee’s role in the litigation. The problem is not that these timelines are too long. The problem is that the waiting period falls before the declaration is filed, placing it on the wrong side of the tolling trigger. ## What Practitioners Actually Do Until the legislature corrects the timing, a trustee intending to invoke the nonmonetary-status mechanism must bridge the gap through existing procedural tools. ### Stipulated Extension Under CR 6(b) The standard approach is a stipulated extension of time under [CR 6(b)](https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&group=sup&set=CR&ruleid=supcr06). Trustee’s counsel contacts opposing counsel, explains the statutory constraint, and requests a stipulation extending the answer deadline to day 65 or later — long enough to encompass the thirty-five-day waiting period and the thirty-day objection window. Plaintiff’s counsel in most cases has no reason to oppose: the trustee is a nominal defendant, the extension costs the plaintiff nothing, and both sides avoid unnecessary filings. Washington’s litigation bar is collegial, and reasonable extension requests are routinely granted. A trustee seeking additional time to invoke a statutory mechanism that may remove it from the case entirely presents no prejudice to the opposing party. The stipulated extension is the advisable course for any trustee served with a complaint in which it is named solely in its fiduciary capacity. Where a stipulation cannot be obtained — an uncommon scenario — a motion under CR 6(b) showing good cause should succeed. The impossibility of complying with both [CR 12(a)(1)](https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&group=sup&set=CR&ruleid=supcr12) and [RCW 61.24.180(1)](http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=61.24.180) simultaneously is, by itself, good cause for an enlargement of time. ## Why a Placeholder Answer Is Not a Solution The availability of a stipulated extension does not eliminate the structural defect. The only other option — filing a placeholder answer — illustrates why the statute requires legislative correction rather than continued reliance on professional courtesy. A trustee can file an answer by day 20 and then file the declaration on day 35. This avoids default but renders the statutory mechanism partially redundant. If no objection follows and the trustee achieves nonmonetary status under subsection (6), the answer was unnecessary. If an objection is sustained, the trustee already has a responsive pleading on file and subsection (8)’s thirty-day post-objection answer period serves no purpose. Either way, the trustee has performed the work the statute was designed to eliminate. ## The Case for Legislative Correction The stipulated extension resolves the problem in individual cases. It does not resolve the statute’s internal contradiction. A procedural mechanism designed to spare nominal defendants the cost of litigation participation should not depend on opposing counsel’s willingness to grant an extension — even where, as in Washington, that willingness is nearly universal. The statute’s timeline should be self-executing. The gap also creates an asymmetry that the stipulation practice obscures. A trustee whose opposing counsel refuses the extension — whether through unfamiliarity with the statute, strategic calculation, or simple nonresponsiveness — faces a choice between default and the cost of a placeholder answer that the statute was designed to make unnecessary. The statute provides no protection for this scenario because it assumes a timeline that does not align with the rules of civil procedure. The fix is to move the protective time from before the declaration to after it. The legislature should amend subsection (1) to permit the trustee to file a declaration of nonmonetary status at any time after service of the summons and complaint — eliminating the thirty-five-day waiting period — and extend the objection period in subsection (3) from thirty days to sixty days. This preserves the substantive protection the current timelines provide. Under the existing statute, opposing parties have thirty days to object to a declaration that cannot be filed until day 35 — an effective window from day 35 to day 65 after service. Under the proposed amendment, opposing parties would have sixty days to object from the date of filing. If the trustee files the declaration on day one, the objection window runs through day 61. If the trustee files on day ten, it runs through day 70. In either case, opposing parties receive at least as much time to evaluate the trustee’s role and prepare an objection as they do under the current statute, and the formal objection period is twice as long. The amendment also eliminates the timing conflict. A trustee that files its declaration before day 20 triggers the tolling provision under subsection (8) before the CR 12(a)(1) answer deadline expires. The declaration, the tolling provision, and the answer deadline operate within the same timeline — as they do in California, and as the statute’s design assumes they should.