Is an Online Will Legal in Washington?

A will executed in Washington must be attested by two or more competent witnesses under RCW 11.12.020(1); the chapter contains no holographic alternative, so an unwitnessed handwritten will executed in Washington is invalid. The same subsection's foreign-wills proviso gives effect to a will executed in the mode prescribed by the law of the place where it was executed or of the testator's domicile, which can validate an out-of-state holographic will. (RCW 11.12.020(1))

Members of the United States armed forces and persons employed on a vessel of the United States merchant marine may dispose of their wages and personal property by nuncupative will; any other competent person may dispose of personal property worth no more than one thousand dollars. The oral will must be proved by two witnesses who were present at its making, the testator must have asked someone present to bear witness that it is the testator's will, it must have been made during the testator's last sickness, the words or their substance must be committed to writing and offered within six months of being spoken, the surviving spouse and heirs at law must be cited to contest it, and no real estate may pass by it.

This is a narrow, mostly historical exception; it cannot carry a house or any estate of consequence, and the six-month proof window is strict. (RCW 11.12.025)

An electronic will must be a record readable as text at the time of signing, and testamentary intent may be established by extrinsic evidence. Self-proof under RCW 11.12.450 requires the witnesses' affidavits affixed to or logically associated with the will, made before an officer authorized to administer oaths (or, if fewer than two witnesses are physically with the testator, before a remote notary authorized under RCW 42.45.280), plus a qualified custodian who maintains custody from execution on. Custody is not optional in practice: under RCW 11.20.020(3), an electronic will whose custody has not been maintained by a qualified custodian must be treated as a lost or destroyed will. (RCW 11.12.400 to 11.12.491)

Remote witnessing: allowed within the statute’s conditions. The electronic will must be signed in the physical or electronic presence of the testator, and at the testator's direction or request, by at least two competent witnesses, after the testator signs the record or acknowledges the signing or the will. A proxy signing the will for the testator, by contrast, must act in the testator's physical presence. Electronic presence is defined at RCW 11.02.005 as real-time communication to the same extent as if physically present.