Testate

Key Takeaways

• Testate means a person died leaving a valid will. Intestate means they died without one.
• The person who makes a will is the testator, and personal property passed through a will is a bequest.
• In Washington a will must be in writing, signed by the testator or by another person at the testator's direction and in the testator's presence, and attested by two or more competent witnesses.
• Dying testate does not avoid probate. It only means the will, rather than the succession statute, directs who receives the property.

What It Means

Testate describes the situation when a person dies leaving a valid will. The person who wrote it is the testator, and the document is that person's written instructions for how their assets and property should be distributed after death. The opposite is Intestate, dying with no valid will, which hands the decision to the state's succession statute.

Real estate students meet the word in the transfer of title chapters, because a will is one path of voluntary alienation. A sale is another and a gift is a third. In each of them the owner, not the government, picks the recipient. Escheat is the fallback at the far end of the scale, where property reverts to the state because there is neither a will nor an heir.

The word carries a warning that trips people up on exams and at listing appointments alike. Testate describes the decedent, not the process. A testate estate still goes to court, still gives creditors their window, and still needs an appointed personal representative to sign the Deed when estate real estate is sold. What the will changes is the destination of the property, not whether the estate has to be administered.

How It Works in Washington

Washington sets the bar for a valid will in RCW 11.12.020. Every will shall be in writing signed by the testator or by some other person under the testator's direction in the testator's presence or electronic presence, and shall be attested by two or more competent witnesses, by subscribing their names to the will, or by signing an affidavit that complies with RCW 11.20.020(2), while in the presence or electronic presence of the testator. A will executed in the manner allowed where it was signed, or where the testator was domiciled, is also treated as legally executed here. The statute recognizes electronic presence and allows a will to be executed in counterparts that together count as a single document.

Miss those requirements and the decedent is treated as intestate, which hands distribution to RCW 11.04.015. That statute gives the surviving spouse or state registered domestic partner all of the decedent's share of the net community estate, plus one half of the net separate estate if the decedent left issue, three quarters if there is no issue but a parent or a parent's issue survives, and all of it if none of those survive. In a Community Property state that split surprises families who assumed the house would simply pass to the spouse. Either way the estate runs through Title 11 RCW, so a valid Will settles the destination and not the process. How the underlying ownership form changes the answer is covered in our guides to estates in land and life estates.

Example

Ruth dies in Olympia. Two years earlier she signed a will at her kitchen table while two neighbors watched, and each neighbor subscribed their name as a witness. That satisfies RCW 11.12.020, so Ruth dies testate. Her will leaves her Thurston County house, worth about $430,000, to her son Colin, and her $60,000 in savings to her sister. Colin does not own the house on the day Ruth dies. The court admits the will and appoints a personal representative, who publishes notice to creditors, pays $7,200 in final medical bills out of the savings, and then distributes the house to Colin by a personal representative's deed. Colin records the deed and lists the property four months later at $445,000. Had Ruth signed that same page in front of only one witness, the will would fail RCW 11.12.020 and RCW 11.04.015 would decide who took the house.

Common Mistakes and Exam Traps

• Testate and probate are not the same idea. Testate describes a decedent who left a valid will. Probate is the court process that settles the estate either way.
• The testator makes the will. The personal representative carries it out. Exam questions swap the two roles.
• Escheat applies when a person dies with no will and no heirs, so the property reverts to the government. It is not what happens when someone dies intestate but leaves living relatives.
• Dying testate does not by itself keep property out of probate. Survivorship ownership and trusts do that, not the existence of a will.