Washington route screening
The decedent's entire estate subject to probate, less liens and encumbrances, must not exceed $100,000.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.
The affidavit itself only collects personal property, so solely owned real property counts toward the limit but does not transfer under this procedure.
Threshold evidence and currency
Currency: No later session-law supersession is recorded in the reviewed source set for this threshold. The edition/currentness label below is the basis for the published figure.
Controlling citation: RCW 11.62.010 — Section history through 2008 c 6 s 923.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
(c) That the value of the decedent's entire estate subject to probate, not including the surviving spouse's or surviving domestic partner's community property interest in any assets which are subject to probate in the decedent's estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars; (d) That forty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent;
| Procedure | Successor affidavit |
|---|---|
| What counts | The probate estate within the statute’s scope, so solely owned real property can count |
| Value basis | Value less enforceable liens and encumbrances |
| Waiting period | 40 days after death |
| Facts the asset list cannot supply | The surviving spouse or domestic partner's community-property interest, which this state excludes from the count |
The Washington caveats that can change this answer are listed once, on the Washington overview.
What a small-estate screen can and cannot decide, and which assets never enter it, is explained once in small-estate affidavit or probate and what counts as a probate asset.
RCW 11.62.010 uses a $100,000 ceiling, but it is not measured the way a common-law state measures one. The value counted is that of “the decedent’s entire estate subject to probate, not including the surviving spouse’s or surviving domestic partner’s community property interest in any assets which are subject” to probate.
Washington is a community property state, and in a long marriage a large share of what looks like the decedent’s estate is the survivor’s own half interest. Removing that half before testing the ceiling means Washington estates that would be screened out by a gross-value test in Nebraska or Idaho can still qualify here. It also means a Washington screen cannot be run from a single “estate value” figure: the character of each asset — community or separate — has to be settled first.
That characterisation question is the reason this site does not attempt to pre-compute a Washington qualification. Whether a particular account is community property, separate property, or a mixture depends on when and how it was acquired and on any agreement between the spouses, and none of that is available to a calculator.
Source: RCW 11.62.010, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.
Reviewed source note: (c) That the value of the decedent's entire estate subject to probate, not including the surviving spouse's or surviving domestic partner's community property interest in any assets which are subject to probate in the decedent's estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars; (d) That forty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent;
Washington record: 5/5 verified, 19 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction