To make a will in Washington State, you need to be at least 18 and of sound mind, put your wishes in writing, sign the document, and have at least two competent witnesses sign it in your presence. Washington also lets you do all of this electronically, and because Washington is a community property state, your will only controls your half of what you and a spouse own together. Get those pieces right and the document will carry weight in probate.
Who Can Make a Will
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Sound mind means you understand you’re creating a will, you have a general sense of what you own, and you recognize the people who would normally inherit from you, such as a spouse, children, and close family members.1Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.020 – Requisites of Wills
Put It in Writing and Sign It
The will must be in writing. You can sign it yourself, or if you’re physically unable to, you can direct someone else to sign for you in your presence. Washington does not recognize holographic wills. A handwritten document without proper witness signatures is not valid here, even if it’s entirely in your own handwriting.1Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.020 – Requisites of Wills
Get Two Competent Witnesses
At least two competent witnesses must attest to the will. They do this either by signing the will itself or by signing a separate affidavit, in your presence and at your direction. A competent witness is generally anyone who could testify in court.1Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.020 – Requisites of Wills
Be careful about using a witness who also inherits under the will. If a beneficiary serves as a witness and there aren’t at least two other disinterested witnesses, the law creates a rebuttable presumption that the witness-beneficiary obtained their gift through undue influence. If they can’t overcome that presumption, they only receive what they would have inherited under intestacy, which could be nothing.2Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.160 – Interested Witness, Effect on Will The safe habit is to pick witnesses who take nothing under the document.
Electronic Wills
Washington adopted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, which lets you create, sign, and witness a will electronically. You and your witnesses don’t have to be in the same room; “electronic presence” through video conferencing satisfies the requirement. If your witnesses aren’t physically present with you, each person can sign separate counterparts of the document, and those counterparts together count as a single will.1Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.020 – Requisites of Wills
Understand Community Property Before You Draft
Washington is a community property state, and this one fact shapes everything else about your will. Property acquired during marriage generally belongs equally to both spouses, no matter who earned the income or whose name is on the account. You can only give away your half of community property in your will.3Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 26.16.030 – Community Property Defined, Management and Control
Separate property (anything you owned before the marriage, inherited individually, or received as a personal gift) is fully yours to leave to whomever you choose. The practical challenge is that separate and community property often get mixed together over years of marriage. A house you owned before marriage but paid down with marital income, for example, may be partly community property. If your will tries to give away more than your share, the affected provisions can be challenged or reduced. Sort out what’s community versus separate before you draft, because it’s one of the areas where a Washington attorney earns their fee.
What to Include in Your Will
Personal Representative
Name a personal representative (called an executor in many other states) to manage your estate. This person gathers your assets, pays debts and taxes, and distributes what’s left according to your instructions. In Washington, you can also request that the court grant your personal representative “nonintervention powers,” which let them handle most estate administration tasks without going back to the court for approval at each step.4Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.68.085 – Nonintervention Powers, Generally Asking for nonintervention powers in the will itself can save your estate significant time and legal costs. Name an alternate in case your first choice can’t or won’t serve.
Beneficiaries
Identify each beneficiary by full legal name and describe the property they’ll receive with enough specificity that no one has to guess what you meant. “My vintage guitar” could refer to any of three instruments in your closet. “My 1962 Fender Stratocaster, serial number L12345” leaves no room for argument. Name contingent beneficiaries too, meaning the people who inherit if your primary beneficiary dies before you do.
Guardians for Minor Children
If you have children under 18, your will is where you nominate a guardian to raise them if both parents die. Courts give significant weight to a parent’s nomination, though they retain final authority to act in the child’s best interest. Talk to potential guardians before naming them, and name an alternate.
A Residuary Clause
Specific gifts direct particular items or dollar amounts to named people or organizations. After those are distributed, everything left over falls into the “residuary estate.” A residuary clause tells your personal representative who gets that remainder. Without one, leftover property passes under Washington’s intestacy rules even though you had a will for everything else. It’s the provision that catches what you forgot to mention and anything you acquire after signing.
Coordinate Assets That Pass Outside Your Will
Certain assets transfer automatically to a named beneficiary when you die and bypass your will entirely. No matter what your will says about these assets, the beneficiary designation or ownership structure controls. The common examples:
- Life insurance proceeds go to the beneficiary named on the policy.
- Retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs pass to the designated beneficiary.
- Payable-on-death bank accounts go directly to the named individual.
- Joint accounts with right of survivorship pass automatically to the surviving owner.
- Transfer-on-death deeds, which Washington allows for real property, pass the property to the named beneficiary without probate.5Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 64.80 – Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act
- Assets in a living trust pass under the trust document, not your will.
People overlook this constantly. If your will leaves everything to your children from a second marriage but your retirement account still names your ex-spouse as beneficiary, your ex-spouse gets the retirement account. Review beneficiary designations on all of these assets at the same time you sign your will, so the designations and the document work together as a single plan.
Add a Self-Proving Affidavit
When a will reaches probate, the court normally needs proof that it was properly signed and witnessed. Without additional documentation, that means tracking down the original witnesses years later and getting them to testify or provide statements.
A self-proving affidavit avoids that step. You and your witnesses sign a sworn statement at the time of execution confirming the legal requirements were met. When the will later enters probate, the court can accept it without the witnesses having to appear. For electronic wills, Washington requires the affidavits to be attached to or logically associated with the electronic will, with a qualified custodian maintaining it from the moment of execution. Adding a self-proving affidavit costs nothing extra and saves your personal representative real headaches later.
Store, Update, and Revoke
Keep the signed original in a secure, accessible place, such as a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box, and tell your personal representative exactly where to find it. A will nobody can locate after your death is functionally the same as no will at all. Washington law also lets you file the original with the county superior court for safekeeping.
Life changes make old wills inaccurate or even harmful. You have two ways to update. A codicil is a formal amendment that must be signed and witnessed using the same procedures as the original; it’s fine for small, isolated changes. A new will is almost always the better choice for anything substantial, because stacked codicils create confusion and invite challenges. Include a clear statement in the new will revoking all previous wills and codicils.
Washington recognizes two methods for revoking a will. You can execute a new will that expressly revokes the old one or is simply inconsistent with it. You can also physically destroy the will by burning, tearing, or otherwise obliterating it with the intent to revoke. If someone else destroys it for you, that person must do so in your presence and at your direction, and two witnesses must be able to confirm what happened.6Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.12.040 – Revocation of Will, How Effected, Effect on Codicils Crossing out a section or writing “void” on one page is risky, because partial markings may or may not count as valid revocation depending on how a court reads your intent. The cleaner move is a new will with an explicit revocation clause.
What Happens if You Skip This
If you die without a valid will, Washington’s intestate succession statute decides who inherits, following a rigid formula that gives fixed shares to your spouse, descendants, parents, and siblings in order.7Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.04.015 – Descent and Distribution of Real and Personal Estate The formula ignores non-relatives entirely. A long-term partner you never married, a close friend who cared for you, a favorite charity — none of them inherit anything under the defaults. A valid will is what lets you override those rules.