How to Avoid Probate in Washington

Washington moves assets outside probate five ways: a community property agreement under RCW 26.16.120, a transfer on death deed under chapter 64.80 RCW, joint tenancy with right of survivorship, payable on death and transfer on death designations on accounts and securities, and a funded revocable living trust. Each one works on a specific asset class, and none of them shields the asset from creditors.

Start with a question most avoidance pages skip. Washington probate is lighter than probate in a supervised state, so the honest comparison is between a planning step you take now and a court process that is often modest. This page is general information about Washington law, not advice about your estate or your plan. Confirm anything that matters with a licensed Washington attorney.

Washington Probate Is Already Light, So Compare Honestly

RCW 11.68.011 lets the Superior Court grant nonintervention powers when it finds the estate solvent, counting probate and nonprobate assets, and finds one of three conditions met. RCW 11.68.085 then states the effect in one sentence: the personal representative may administer and settle the estate without supervision or intervention by the court, except where chapter 11.68 RCW says otherwise.

That changes the math. A solvent Washington estate usually runs on one hearing near the front of the case and a declaration of completion at the end, without a decree of distribution and without court confirmation of a house sale. Read the Washington probate process and how nonintervention powers work before deciding that avoidance is worth restructuring your ownership. Anyone who tells you Washington probate is a disaster to be escaped at any cost is describing a different state.

Avoidance still earns its place. It keeps a transfer private, it moves an asset the day after a death certificate issues rather than after an appointment, and it spares an out-of-state family a Washington court file. Choose it for those reasons.

The Community Property Agreement Is Washington's Signature Route

RCW 26.16.120 is titled Agreements as to status, and it is the reason Washington plans look different from plans in a separate property state. Nothing in the chapter, the section says, prevents both spouses or both domestic partners from jointly entering an agreement concerning the status or disposition of the whole or any portion of the community property, then owned by them or afterwards to be acquired, to take effect upon the death of either.

The execution rule sits in the same sentence. The couple signs a written instrument under their hands and seals, witnessed, acknowledged and certified in the same manner the law requires for deeds to real estate. Washington abolished private seals at RCW 64.04.090, so the practical requirements are signature, witnessing and acknowledgment before a notary. The couple may alter or amend the agreement later the same way.

One agreement can carry everything the couple owns as community property, including property acquired after signing. That breadth is why a community property agreement shows up in so many Washington plans, and it is also the source of its risks.

Three limits are written into RCW 26.16.120 itself:

• The agreement shall not derogate from the right of creditors. It moves ownership, not liability.
• It does not curtail the Superior Court's power to set it aside or cancel it for fraud or under another recognized head of equity jurisdiction, at the suit of either party.
• It does not prevent the slayer and abuser rules in chapter 11.84 RCW from applying.

Two more limits come from outside the section. A community property agreement passes everything to the surviving spouse or partner, which overrides what a will says about those assets and makes it a poor fit for a blended family where a child from an earlier relationship is meant to inherit. And RCW 11.02.005(14) names a community property agreement as a nonprobate asset, which is the definition RCW 43.20B.080(3) adopts for Medicaid estate recovery. The agreement does not put the property beyond the state's reach.

The agreement also outranks the bank's paperwork. RCW 30A.22.100 opens by making the ownership of deposit funds after a depositor's death subject to community property rights and to the terms and provisions of any community property agreement, before it says anything about survivorship or payable on death designations.

What Community Property Already Does on Its Own

Married Washington couples get part of the answer without signing anything. RCW 26.16.030 defines community property, and RCW 11.02.070 sets out what happens at death: one half share of the community property is confirmed to the surviving spouse or surviving domestic partner, and the other half is subject to the decedent's will or descends under chapter 11.04 RCW.

Read the second sentence of that section, because it is the one that gets left out. The whole of the community property is subject to probate administration for all purposes of Title 11, including payment of the obligations and debts of the community, the award in lieu of homestead and the allowance for family support. The survivor's half is confirmed to the survivor and still stands behind community debts in the administration. Half ownership is not half immunity.

A Transfer on Death Deed Moves Washington Land

Chapter 64.80 RCW, the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, was enacted by 2014 c 58. Use a Washington transfer on death deed when the goal is to move real estate at death without a probate.

RCW 64.80.020 lets an individual transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at the transferor's death, and bars using the deed to effect a deed in lieu of foreclosure of a deed of trust. RCW 64.80.060 sets three requirements: the deed must contain the essential elements and formalities of a properly recordable inter vivos deed, must state that the transfer to the beneficiary occurs at the transferor's death, and must be recorded before the transferor's death in the office of the auditor of the county where the property is located. Recording after the death does nothing.

RCW 64.80.030 makes the deed revocable. RCW 64.80.100 governs what happens at death: the beneficiary's interest is contingent on surviving the transferor and lapses if the beneficiary does not survive, concurrent beneficiaries take in equal undivided shares with no right of survivorship, and a lapsed share passes to the other named beneficiaries in proportion to their remaining interests.

Two facts to carry away. RCW 64.80.120 makes the beneficiary liable for an allowed claim against the transferor's probate estate and for the statutory allowances to a surviving spouse and children, to the extent RCW 11.18.200, RCW 11.42.085 and chapter 11.54 RCW provide, so the deed does not clear the property of creditors. And chapter 64.80 RCW contains no statutory form. Washington publishes no official transfer on death deed, so every free Washington form on a template site is somebody's draft. Beneficiaries who later sell inherited Washington real estate will need the recorded deed and the death certificate in the title file.

Land does not sit in limbo while any of this happens. RCW 11.04.250 vests title immediately in the heirs or devisees at death, subject to debts, family allowance and administration expenses, with no decree of distribution needed, though nobody counts as a devisee until the will has been probated.

Joint Tenancy Works, With a Community Property Twist

RCW 64.28.010 authorizes joint tenancy with right of survivorship and opens by naming the reason: it permits property to pass to the survivor without the cost or delay of probate proceedings. Joint tenancy arises only by written instrument that expressly declares the interest created to be a joint tenancy. The section closes with the same warning the community property agreement carries, that the transfer shall not derogate from the rights of creditors.

Between spouses and registered domestic partners, RCW 64.28.040 adds a wrinkle worth knowing. A joint tenancy interest held in both names is presumed to be their community property. It passes to the survivor as joint tenancy property does, and in all other respects it is treated as community property. Either person may sever the joint tenancy, and severed property is then presumed community property again.

Beneficiary Designations on Accounts and Securities

RCW 30A.22.100 settles what happens to deposit funds when a depositor dies, subject to community property rights and to any community property agreement. Money left in a single account belongs to the estate. Money in a joint account with right of survivorship belongs to the surviving depositors unless clear and convincing evidence shows a contrary intent when the account was created. Money in a trust or payable on death account belongs to the designated beneficiary.

Securities have their own act. Chapter 21.35 RCW is the Uniform Transfer on Death Security Registration Act, and RCW 21.35.020 lets an owner register a security in beneficiary form, showing the owner and a designated beneficiary who takes at death.

Retirement accounts, life insurance and annuities pass by contract. Keeping those designations current is the cheapest avoidance step available, and it is the one most often left stale after a divorce or a death in the family. While you are updating them, settle online accounts after death too, since access is a planning question rather than a court question.

A Revocable Living Trust

RCW 11.98.008 lists the methods of creating a trust. RCW 11.103.030 governs revocation and amendment of a revocable trust. Property titled in the name of the trust before death passes under the trust instrument, so no probate case reaches it.

The word that decides everything is funded. A signed trust that never received title to the house, the accounts or the business interest moves nothing, and the estate goes through probate anyway. Compare a Washington revocable living trust against a community property agreement honestly: for a married couple whose assets are community property and whose plan is to leave everything to each other, the agreement does the same job for a fraction of the effort. The trust earns its cost when the plan is more complicated than that, when land sits in another state, or when a beneficiary should not receive money outright.

Washington also counts a trust of which the person is grantor and that becomes effective or irrevocable only on death as a nonprobate asset under RCW 11.02.005(14), so the trust route carries the same estate recovery exposure the agreement does.

The Fact Almost Nobody Publishes: a Will Can Redirect Some Nonprobate Assets

The reflex answer is that a beneficiary designation always beats a will. In Washington that answer is incomplete, and chapter 11.11 RCW is why. The chapter is titled the Testamentary Disposition of Nonprobate Assets Act.

RCW 11.11.020(1) gives the owner's interest in any nonprobate asset specifically referred to in the owner's will to the testamentary beneficiary named to receive it, even over the rights of a beneficiary designated before the date of the will. Three rules bound that:

• RCW 11.11.020(2): a general residuary gift, or a will disposing of all the owner's property, does not entitle the devisees to nonprobate assets.
• RCW 11.11.020(3): a disposition of "all nonprobate assets", or of a whole category such as all payable on death bank accounts, counts as a disposition of the assets whose beneficiaries were designated before the date of the will.
• RCW 11.11.020(4): a designation the owner signs after the date of the will controls, and the will's provision for that asset does not govern, even if the later designation is revoked.

RCW 11.11.010(7)(a) then carves five things out of the chapter entirely: real property passing under a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, a deed whose possession is postponed until death, a transfer on death deed, an interest passing under a community property agreement, and an individual retirement account or bond. A Washington will cannot reach any of those five, which is a reason the community property agreement and the transfer on death deed hold up so well.

Anyone updating a will and old beneficiary forms in the same season should map which assets fall inside chapter 11.11 RCW and which fall outside it, because the two documents interact.

What Avoiding Probate Does Not Do

• It does not defeat creditors. RCW 26.16.120, RCW 64.28.010 and RCW 64.80.120 each say so on their own terms.
• It does not avoid Washington estate tax. RCW 83.100.020(1)(a) sets the applicable exclusion amount by date of death, and clause (x) sets $3,000,000 for a decedent dying on or after July 1, 2026. Take the estate tax question separately from the probate question.
• It does not stop Medicaid estate recovery. RCW 43.20B.080(3) reaches nonprobate assets as RCW 11.02.005(14) defines them, and that definition names community property agreements, transfer on death deeds, joint tenancies and death-triggered revocable trusts by type.
• It does not replace incapacity planning. A durable power of attorney and a Washington health care directive handle decisions while you are alive. Doing that work is what keeps guardianship as the last resort it is meant to be under chapter 11.130 RCW.

One more distinction. The successor affidavit route under RCW 11.62.010 is simplified administration, not avoidance. It releases personal property forty days after death when the estate subject to probate stays at or under $100,000, and it cannot move real estate at any value.

Choosing Between Them

For a married Washington couple whose property is community property and whose plan is mutual, the agreement plus current beneficiary designations covers most of the ground. Where there is real estate and no spouse, the transfer on death deed does the work. Where the plan needs structure, the trust does. Where none of that fits, nonintervention powers make a Washington probate a manageable process rather than a thing to fear.

Sources:

• Title: RCW 26.16.120 Agreements as to status. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=26.16.120
• Title: RCW 26.16.030 Community property defined, management and control. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=26.16.030
• Title: RCW 11.02.070 Community property, disposition, probate administration of. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.02.070
• Title: RCW 11.02.005 Definitions and use of terms. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.02.005
• Title: Chapter 64.80 RCW Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80
• Title: RCW 64.80.020 Authorized, prohibited use. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80.020
• Title: RCW 64.80.030 Revocable. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80.030
• Title: RCW 64.80.060 Requirements. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80.060
• Title: RCW 64.80.100 Effect at transferor's death. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80.100
• Title: RCW 64.80.120 Liability for creditor claims and statutory allowances. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.80.120
• Title: RCW 64.28.010 Joint tenancies with right of survivorship authorized, methods of creation, creditors' rights saved. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.28.010
• Title: RCW 64.28.040 Character of joint tenancy interests held by both spouses or both domestic partners. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.28.040
• Title: RCW 64.04.090 Private seals abolished. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=64.04.090
• Title: Chapter 11.11 RCW Testamentary Disposition of Nonprobate Assets Act. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.11
• Title: RCW 11.11.010 Definitions. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.11.010
• Title: RCW 11.11.020 Disposition of nonprobate assets under will. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.11.020
• Title: RCW 30A.22.100 Ownership of funds after death of a depositor. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=30A.22.100
• Title: RCW 21.35.020 Registering a security in beneficiary form, designation of beneficiary. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=21.35.020
• Title: RCW 11.98.008 Trust creation, methods. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.98.008
• Title: RCW 11.103.030 Revocation or amendment. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.103.030
• Title: RCW 11.68.011 Settlement without court intervention, petition, conditions, exceptions. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.68.011
• Title: RCW 11.68.085 Nonintervention powers, generally. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.68.085
• Title: RCW 11.04.250 When real estate vests, rights of heirs. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.04.250
• Title: RCW 11.62.010 Disposition of personal property, debts by affidavit, proof of death, contents of affidavit, procedure, securities. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.62.010
• Title: RCW 83.100.020 Definitions. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=83.100.020
• Title: RCW 43.20B.080 Recovery for paid medical assistance, rules, disclosure of estate recovery costs, terms, and conditions. Publisher: Washington State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=43.20B.080
• Title: Estate tax. Publisher: Washington State Department of Revenue. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/other-taxes/estate-tax

It is not legal advice.