The Intestate Trap: How a Few Bad Actors Just Cost Your Loved Ones Thousands

At this year’s annual mid-year CLE, the biggest bombshell (by far) was the complete overhaul of Washington State's intestate probate rules.

Our intestate probate system wasn’t something people were actively complaining about. Sure, no one approaches probate with glee, but Washington's historically streamlined approach was at least bearable and efficient for most families.

That has officially flipped. Thanks to a new law that went into effect on June 11, 2026 (Engrossed House Bill 2445), the operational gap between dying with a will (testate) and dying without one (intestate) has completely widened in three ways: time, effort, and money.

How Did We Get Here?

The entire overhaul is a direct reaction to a highly publicized King County fraud case (State v. Elliott). A ring of scammers figured out a loophole: they tracked down over 200 estates of deceased strangers who died without a will, waited out a statutory window, and petitioned the court to become the estate administrators under the state's "suitable person" provision. Once in control, they liquidated tens of millions in real estate and pocketed massive, manufactured corporate fees that should have gone to the rightful heirs. 

The Attorney General took up the issue and pushed the legislature for a framework called "Ending Probates for Profit." 

But the name itself is a fallacy. It presumes that making a fair profit or getting paid for administering an estate is inherently dirty. Wouldn't it make more sense to call it "Ending Theft Through Probate"? You know, targeting the actual illegal behavior.

Instead of specifically closing the loop holes that allowed the bad actors to take advantage of the probate system, the legislature took a sledgehammer to the entire system.

Didn’t We Already Have Intervention Probate?

Here is the most frustrating part of this entire situation: Washington's probate structure already had a built-in safety net to stop this exact scam. It’s called “intervention probate”.

WA State relies on a clear distinction between non-intervention powers (where you manage the estate independently) and court-supervised intervention (where the judge watches your every move). Under existing law, if a random, unrelated stranger walked into a courtroom petitioning to control a dead person's estate, the probate judge already had the absolute authority to deny non-intervention powers. They could keep the estate under strict court oversight, demand full transparency, and require a massive bond to protect the beneficiaries.

The judicial safety valve was already there. If the courts had just exercised their existing powers to keep these bad actors under strict intervention probate, the scam would have been dead in its tracks.

The New Approach

Under the new 2026 rules, if an intestate estate requires an unrelated "suitable person" to serve as the administrator—which includes lifelong family friends, trusted accountants, or even unmarried companions—they are met with absolute statutory suspicion. The law now hits them with a brutal checklist:

• A mandatory 90-day waiting period before they can even be appointed.

• A mandatory high-value bond equal to the estate's assets. 

• Strict hourly compensation caps. 

• An absolute statutory ban on non-intervention powers, forcing them into full court supervision for every single asset sale, bill payment, and disbursement.

The ultimate kicker: The actual heirs cannot waive these restrictions. Even if every single beneficiary signs a waiver saying they completely trust this family friend to run the estate seamlessly, the law says no. The family friend and the unmarried, life-long partner are stripped of non-intervention powers and forced into a costly, dragged-out, court-supervised nightmare.

The California Copycat

To top it all off, the legislature chose to model this heavy-handed, hyper-bureaucratic framework after California. This makes it clear that Olympia was not thinking straight. Why on earth would you copy your probate model from a state whose probate system is so notoriously slow and expensive. So much so that practically everyone in CA with an estate plan is forced to set up a living trust just to avoid probate like the plague.

Washington used to pride itself on having a streamlined probate system that made expensive living trusts unnecessary for the average person. Now, we are adopting the very dysfuntion that requires this type of planning.

The Bottom Line

Now, if you die without a will in Washington, it is going to cost your loved ones significantly more. As such, it has never been more vital to have a valid Last Will & Testament prepared.