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Washington Transfer on Death Deed
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Washington Transfer on Death Deed

Washington has a transfer on death deed under chapter 64.80 RCW. Record it with the county auditor before death, and creditors still reach the property.

By Settled Editorial

Washington has a transfer on death deed. Chapter 64.80 RCW, the Washington uniform real property transfer on death act, lets you name someone to take your house at your death, and the house passes to that person outside probate. You keep every right of ownership while you are alive. The deed only works if you record it with your county auditor before you die.

Two features of the Washington version catch people out, and most pages on this topic mention neither. The State never published a deed form, so every free Washington transfer on death deed form online is a private draft. And the deed does not put the house beyond your debts, because RCW 64.80.120 makes the person who receives it answerable for allowed claims against your estate and for the family awards. Every rule below was read at the Revised Code of Washington on August 8, 2026, and each section is linked so you can check it. This page is general information. It is not legal advice. Have a licensed Washington attorney draft or review any deed that affects your home.

The Statute and the Date It Took Effect

RCW 64.80.900 states the short title in one line: "This chapter may be cited as the Washington uniform real property transfer on death act."

The chapter came from Second Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1117, which became chapter 58, Laws of 2014. The signed session law records that the House passed it on March 11, 2014 by 91 yeas to 7 nays, the Senate passed it on March 7, 2014 by 49 yeas to 0 nays, Governor Jay Inslee approved it on March 27, 2014 at 9:37 a.m., and it was filed the same day with the Secretary of State. The certification page states an effective date of 06/12/14. Every operative section of chapter 64.80 RCW carries the same history line, 2014 c 58, so the chapter has stood unamended since it took effect.

RCW 64.80.901 sets the reach in one sentence: the chapter applies to a transfer on death deed made before, on, or after June 12, 2014, by a transferor dying on or after June 12, 2014.

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Washington Never Published a Deed Form

The section list for the chapter, read on August 8, 2026, runs RCW 64.80.010 through RCW 64.80.120, then RCW 64.80.900, .901, .902, .903 and .904. Nothing in that list is a form section. The uniform act carries an optional statutory form and several adopting states took it. Washington left it out.

So a document titled Washington Transfer on Death Deed that you buy or download is somebody's private draft, not a state publication. That does not make it wrong on its face, because RCW 64.80.060 tells you what the deed must contain rather than how it must be worded. It does mean no state office has reviewed the wording, and a bad legal description or a missing acknowledgment surfaces after your death, when the one person who could fix it is gone.

What the Deed Must Contain

RCW 64.80.060 sets three requirements. A transfer on death deed:

  1. must contain the "essential elements and formalities of a properly recordable inter vivos deed";
  2. must state that the transfer to the designated beneficiary is to occur at the transferor's death; and
  3. must be recorded before the transferor's death in the public records in the office of the auditor of the county where the property is located.

The first requirement sends you to ordinary Washington deed law. RCW 64.04.020 says every deed shall be in writing, signed by the party bound by it, and acknowledged before a person authorized to take acknowledgments of deeds. The transfer on death deed is signed and notarized like any other deed.

The third requirement is the one that fails in real life. Recording goes to the county auditor. RCW 36.22.010(1) makes the county auditor "recorder of deeds and other instruments in writing which by law are to be filed and recorded in and for the county". Record in the county where the land sits, which is not always the county where you live. Record while you are alive. A deed that is signed, notarized and left in a drawer moves nothing.

RCW 64.80.050 sets the mental capacity needed: the capacity required to make or revoke a transfer on death deed is the same as the capacity required to make a will.

Nothing Changes While You Are Alive

RCW 64.80.090 answers most of the worry people bring to this deed. During the transferor's life, a transfer on death deed does not:

  • affect an interest or right of the transferor or any other owner, including the right to transfer or encumber the property;
  • affect an interest or right of a transferee, even if the transferee has actual or constructive notice of the deed;
  • affect an interest or right of a secured or unsecured creditor or future creditor of the transferor;
  • affect the transferor's or designated beneficiary's eligibility for any form of public assistance;
  • create a legal or equitable interest in favor of the designated beneficiary; or
  • subject the property to claims or process of a creditor of the designated beneficiary.

You can sell the house, refinance it, or give it away. The person you named cannot stop you, and their creditors cannot reach the property while you live.

RCW 64.80.070 removes the paperwork most people expect. The deed is effective without notice or delivery to the designated beneficiary during your life, without their acceptance, and without consideration. You do not have to tell the person you named. RCW 64.80.030 keeps the deed revocable even if the deed or another instrument says otherwise, and RCW 64.80.040 declares it nontestamentary, so it operates outside your will.

How to Revoke It

RCW 64.80.080 is narrow about method. An instrument revokes a recorded transfer on death deed only if it is one of three things: a later transfer on death deed that revokes the earlier deed expressly or by inconsistency, an instrument of revocation that expressly revokes it, or an inter vivos deed that expressly revokes it. Whichever route you take, the instrument must be acknowledged after the acknowledgment of the deed being revoked, and recorded before your death with the county auditor of the county where the deed is recorded.

Subsection (3) closes the shortcut people reach for first: after a transfer on death deed is recorded, it may not be revoked by a revocatory act on the deed. Tearing up your copy or writing across it revokes nothing. A will does not revoke it either, since the statute lists three instruments and a will is not among them.

Co-owners get their own rules in subsection (2). Revocation by one transferor leaves the deed standing as to another transferor's interest. A deed of joint owners is revoked only if every joint owner living at the time the revocation is recorded revokes it. A deed of community property signed by both spouses or both domestic partners is revoked only if both of them revoke it, unless only one is then surviving, in which case that survivor may revoke.

What Happens When You Die

RCW 64.80.100 runs the transfer, and several of its rules surprise families.

The person you named has to outlive you. Subsection (1)(b) makes the designated beneficiary's interest contingent on surviving the transferor, and an interest that fails to survive lapses. Survival carries RCW 11.05A.030 with it, so a beneficiary not established by clear and convincing evidence to have survived you by 120 hours is treated as having died first. Nothing passes down to that beneficiary's own children by default. If every named beneficiary dies before you and you record no replacement, the house stays in your estate and passes under your will or by Washington intestate succession.

Naming two people works differently than most expect. Subsection (1)(c) gives concurrent beneficiaries equal undivided shares with no right of survivorship, and subsection (1)(d) sends a share that lapses or fails to the other beneficiary, or to the others in proportion to their interests in the rest of the property. Two children who both outlive you take half each as tenants in common. If one of them dies first, the survivor takes the whole.

Joint ownership outranks the deed. Subsection (3) says that if the transferor is survived by one or more other joint owners, the property belongs to the surviving joint owner or owners with right of survivorship. The deed becomes effective only when the transferor is the last surviving joint owner.

Community property has its own subsection, and this is where Washington departs from most states. Under subsection (4), if the property is community property and the transferor is married or in a registered domestic partnership and the spouse or partner did not join in the deed, the transferor's interest passes to the designated beneficiary at death. If the spouse or partner did join in the deed and the transferor dies first, the deed is not effective on that death. It takes effect on the death of the surviving spouse or partner, as to that person's interest at the time of death. Because Washington splits marital property in half, the character of the land decides what a single owner can actually convey, and Washington community property works through that split.

The beneficiary takes the house as it stands. Subsection (2) passes the property subject to conveyances, encumbrances, assignments, contracts, mortgages, liens and other interests to which it is subject at your death. The mortgage comes with the house. Subsection (5) adds that a transfer on death deed transfers property without covenant or warranty of title even if the deed contains a contrary provision.

Divorce cancels the designation. A transfer on death deed is a nonprobate asset under RCW 11.02.005(14), which names it in the definition, and RCW 11.07.010 revokes a provision in favor of a former spouse or former state registered domestic partner once the marriage or partnership is dissolved, invalidated or terminated.

A beneficiary who does not want the property can walk away. RCW 64.80.110 lets a beneficiary disclaim all or part of the interest as provided by chapter 11.86 RCW.

Creditors and Family Awards Still Reach the House

RCW 64.80.120 is the section competitors skip. A beneficiary of a transfer on death deed is 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 provided in RCW 11.18.200, RCW 11.42.085 and chapter 11.54 RCW.

Read that plainly. The deed moves the title out of probate, and it leaves the value within reach. Where the estate cannot pay an allowed claim, the person who received the house can be pursued for it. The award to a surviving spouse, domestic partner or children under chapter 11.54 RCW sits ahead of the beneficiary the same way. Anyone recording this deed to defeat a debt they already know about is planning against the statute rather than around it. Washington creditor claims covers the four month window a personal representative runs and how a claim becomes allowed.

Medical assistance recovery gets its own carve out. RCW 64.80.100(2) preserves liens recorded within twenty four months after the transferor's death under RCW 41.05A.090 and RCW 43.20B.080, and for that purpose it treats the recording of the transfer on death deed as having occurred at the transferor's death. The state also counts a transfer on death deed inside the nonprobate asset definition it uses to measure what estate recovery can follow.

Land Only, and One Prohibited Use

Chapter 64.80 RCW reaches real estate and nothing else. RCW 64.80.010(5) defines property for the whole chapter as "an interest in real property located in this state which is transferable on the death of the owner". A car, a boat and a bank account fall outside it. Vehicle titling after a death runs through the Department of Licensing under its own rules, so that answer has to be looked up separately and never carried across from this chapter.

RCW 64.80.020 carries one prohibition. An individual may transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at death by a transfer on death deed, and the deed may not be used to effect a deed in lieu of foreclosure of a deed of trust.

RCW 64.80.902 keeps the chapter nonexclusive: it does not affect any other method of transferring property otherwise permitted under Washington law. A community property agreement, a joint tenancy with right of survivorship and a revocable living trust all stay available, and the other ways to avoid Washington probate compares them against this deed.

Excise Tax When the Deed Runs

Washington's real estate excise tax does not treat the death transfer as a sale. RCW 82.45.010(3)(b) takes "a transfer by transfer on death deed" out of the definition of sale, to the extent the transfer is not in satisfaction of a contractual obligation the decedent owed to the person receiving the property. Subsection (3)(a) does the same for a transfer by gift, devise or inheritance. The tax question returns when the beneficiary sells, and selling inherited Washington real estate covers that step along with the basis rules.

If a probate is already open or looks likely, read how Washington probate works first, since a house that passes by deed still leaves the rest of the estate to settle.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Information current as of August 8, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Washington can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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