Will requirements in Washington

Who can make a will in Washington

Washington asks two things of you before a will counts: you must be at least 18, and you must be of sound mind when you sign. Sound mind is not a medical diagnosis here. It means you can say, in ordinary terms, roughly what you own, who your close family is, and that the document in front of you is meant to give your things away when you die.

Signing your will in Washington

1. 1You sign

   You sign the will, or someone signs it for you, in your presence and at your direction.

2. 2Two witnesses sign

   Two competent witnesses sign too, watching you sign or acknowledge the will. Washington is one of the few states that lets a witness do this in your electronic presence rather than in the room with you. Choose witnesses who inherit nothing under the will, so no gift is ever in question later.

3. 3The affidavit

   Optional, and worth doing anyway: a self-proving affidavit, signed by you and your witnesses before a notary. With it attached, the court can accept your will later without locating anyone to testify.

Handwritten and electronic wills

Washington does not recognize a holographic will, one written and signed entirely in your own hand with no witnesses. However careful the handwriting, it does not stand on its own here; every will in Washington still needs the same two witnesses described above. What Washington has built instead is a genuine electronic path: since 2022, the state’s electronic wills law lets the will itself exist, be signed, and be witnessed as an electronic record, no notary required, so long as it still has its two witnesses. That does not retire the paper will. A signed paper document, witnessed the ordinary way, remains fully valid in Washington and works in every other state too. That is the version Myend’s Last Will prepares: build it online, then print and sign it with two witnesses, on paper, the form every state, Washington included, has always accepted.

Married in Washington: community property

Washington counts marriage itself as a kind of shared ownership. Most of what you and your spouse bring in while married, wages, retirement contributions, a house bought together, is already held half and half between you, no matter whose name is on the account or the title. Your will has authority over your own half of that shared property, plus whatever stays separate, generally what you owned before the marriage or received on your own as a gift or inheritance. Washington is one of nine states built this way, and it is worth taking real inventory of what is actually yours to leave before deciding who gets it.

Your executor

Washington calls this role executor and lets you name almost any capable adult, in state or out. Naming someone outside Washington adds two extra steps: an out-of-state executor must appoint a Washington resident, or the estate’s own attorney, as an agent who can receive legal papers on their behalf, and unless the will waives it, that executor also has to post a bond. Both requirements can land on the same nonresident, which is more than many neighboring states ask. The simplest way around it is naming someone in Washington first, with an out-of-state person as backup. New to the role? Start with what an executor actually does.

If someone challenges the will

Washington will enforce a no-contest clause, the provision that cuts off anyone who challenges the will and loses. The limit comes from the courts rather than a single statute: a challenge brought in good faith and with probable cause, meaning a reasonable person looking at the same facts would think it worth raising, stays protected even if it ultimately fails. The clause is aimed at the challenge nobody could reasonably believe in, not at every honest question.

If you do not make a will

Without a will, Washington’s intestacy law decides who inherits, working through a fixed order of relatives rather than asking what you actually wanted. Long-term partners you never married, chosen family, stepchildren you raised as your own: none of them inherit automatically under that order. A valid will is how you replace the state’s default with your own decisions. See what happens if you die without a will.

What is different about Washington

Washington will not take your word written in your own hand, but it will take your word typed and signed on a screen.

Community property and a tolerance for handwritten wills tend to travel together. Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho are all community property states that also recognize a will written entirely by hand. Washington breaks that pairing. Marriage here works the same partnership way, half of what you build together is already shared, but the state draws a hard line at informal handwriting. Without witnesses, it does not count, no matter whose hand wrote it.

What Washington offers instead is a genuinely modern path. Since 2022, the state has authorized a fully electronic will: a document that exists, is signed, and is witnessed entirely as an electronic record, still with two witnesses and no notary required. Few states have gone that far. Washington is strict about the form of an informal will and unusually open about the format of a formal one.

Common questions

Sources and review