How to Revoke a Power of Attorney in Washington State

To revoke a power of attorney in Washington State, you sign a written revocation before a notary, deliver it to your former agent, notify every bank or institution that has the original document on file, and record the revocation with the county auditor if the original was recorded. You can do this at any time, without your agent’s permission, as long as you have the mental capacity to understand what you’re doing.

Who Can Revoke and When

Only the principal — the person who signed the POA — can revoke it. Your agent’s cooperation is not required and their objection does not matter. The single requirement is capacity: you have to understand that you’re ending someone’s authority to act for you.

If capacity is already gone, personal revocation is off the table. A family member or other interested party would have to petition a court to appoint a guardian or modify the arrangement.

Check which type of POA you have before you start. A non-durable power of attorney terminates automatically when the principal becomes incapacitated. A durable POA survives incapacity because it contains language stating the power is not affected by the principal’s disability.¹ If a non-durable POA has already ended by operation of law, there is nothing left to revoke.

Write and Sign the Revocation

Washington does not require a specific form. Draft a document that clearly states you are revoking the authority you previously granted, and include:

Your full legal name
The full legal name of the agent whose authority you’re ending
The date the original power of attorney was signed
A clear statement of revocation
Your signature and the date

Referencing the execution date of the original document removes any ambiguity if you’ve granted more than one POA over the years.

Sign the revocation before a notary. Washington’s execution requirements for a power of attorney call for the principal’s signature to be either notarized or witnessed by two competent adults who are not related to you or to the agent and are not your care providers.² Applying those same formalities to the revocation is the safest route, and banks and title companies are far more likely to accept a notarized document without pushback.

Notify the Former Agent

A signed revocation sitting in your desk drawer does not end your agent’s authority in the real world. Under Washington law, termination is not effective against anyone who acts in good faith without actual knowledge of the revocation, and an act performed under those circumstances still binds you.³ If a former agent keeps signing checks or transferring assets because nobody told them to stop, you can be stuck with the results.

Send the signed revocation to your former agent by certified mail with return receipt requested. Hand delivery with a signed acknowledgment works too. Either way, you want a dated paper trail that forecloses any later claim of “I didn’t know.”

Notify Banks and Other Third Parties

The same good-faith protection extends to third parties. A bank that processes a transaction from your former agent without knowing about the revocation is protected by statute.³ This is where most people slip. They revoke the POA, notify the agent, and forget every institution that has the original on file.

Send a copy of the revocation to every institution that received or relied on the original power of attorney. Common places to check:

Banks and credit unions where the agent had authority over accounts
Investment and brokerage firms where the agent could trade or withdraw funds
Healthcare providers, if the agent could access records or make treatment decisions
Insurance companies, if the agent could file claims or change beneficiaries

For online banking and digital accounts, mailing a revocation letter is not always enough. Login credentials may still work after the legal authority behind them ends. Contact each platform’s customer service to confirm the agent’s access has been removed, change your passwords, and revoke any authorized-user access directly in the account settings.

Record the Revocation If the POA Was Recorded

Some powers of attorney get filed with a county auditor, usually because they cover real estate. If yours was recorded, you have an extra step: the revocation document itself must be recorded in the same auditor’s office where the original was filed. Until you do that, the recorded POA is not considered revoked no matter what else you’ve done.⁴

Recording the revocation puts it in the public record where any title search will find it. Skip this step and a title company or buyer could reasonably rely on the recorded POA and let the former agent sell, mortgage, or encumber your property. Recording fees vary by county and include a base fee plus statutory surcharges; call the county auditor’s office for the current amount before you go.

If You’re Replacing the POA With a New One

Signing a new power of attorney does not automatically cancel an earlier one. A previous POA remains in effect unless the new document specifically states that it revokes the prior power of attorney, or that all other powers of attorney are revoked.³ Without that language, you can end up with two agents both authorized to act for you.

Include an explicit revocation clause in the new document, and separately go through the full revocation process for the old one: written revocation, notice to the former agent, notice to third parties, and recording if the original was recorded.

Revoking Authority With Federal Agencies

Federal agencies do not follow the Washington POA statute. If your agent was authorized to deal with the Social Security Administration, revoke that authority using Form SSA-1696-SUP1. Sign and date the form and submit it by mail, fax, or in person at a local field office. The revocation takes effect on the date the SSA receives the signed form, and the agency stops dealing with the named representative at that point.⁵ Notify the former representative directly as well. If the person you’re removing was your principal representative, the form requires you to name a replacement.

Other federal agencies, such as the IRS or the Veterans Administration, have their own procedures. If your agent could act before any federal agency, contact that agency directly to confirm the specific steps.

When the POA Ends Automatically

Some events end an agent’s authority by operation of law, so no affirmative revocation is needed. The POA ends if you die or if your agent dies. It also ends if either spouse files for divorce, annulment, or legal separation: an agent-spouse’s authority terminates automatically unless the power of attorney specifically says otherwise. The same rule applies to state registered domestic partnerships.³

Even when automatic termination applies, follow the notification steps anyway. Banks and healthcare providers won’t know about a divorce filing unless you tell them. As far as they’re concerned, the POA on file is still valid until they get notice.

Healthcare Directives Follow Different Rules

If what you actually want to revoke is a healthcare directive rather than a financial power of attorney, the rules change. You can revoke a healthcare directive at any time regardless of your mental state; the statute does not require competency.⁶ You also have more options:

Destroying the document by tearing, burning, or defacing it, either yourself or by someone in your presence at your direction
Signing and dating a written revocation
Stating out loud that you want to revoke
Using the online method provided by the Department of Health, if the directive was stored in Washington’s health care declarations registry

Written and verbal revocations only become effective once your attending physician is notified. The physician documents the revocation in your medical record with the time and date. A verbal revocation stated in a hospital room stays legally ineffective until someone actually tells the doctor.⁶

1
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.125.040
2
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.125.050
3
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 11.125.100
4
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 65.08.130 – Revocation of Power of Attorney
5
Social Security Administration. Instructions for Completing Form SSA-1696-SUP1
6
Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 70.122.040