Attorney Travis Scott Eller presented a lecture at the National Business Institute’s “Washington Landlord-Tenant Law 2024” seminar on October 22, 2024. Mr. Eller’s topic was “Terminating Tenancy.” The seminar is now available on demand. Attorneys can use promo code FPDN50A at checkout to get $50 off. See at https://nbi-sems.com/products/99100. Mr. Eller has presented on landlord-tenant law for other organizations for containing legal education credit and for real estate clock hour credit for decades. He has participated in online seminars hosted by the King County Law Library featuring landlord attorneys, tenant attorneys, and judicial officers. Travis Eller is slated to chair […]
washington landlord tenant law
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Settled law breeds few appeals for the simple reason that if the law is settled there are fewer issues to appeal. When new laws are passed, they can be interpreted in different ways, leading to more appealable issues. Landlord-tenant law was once well settled but is now with a plethora of new laws it is the opposite extreme. In the past, there were only a handful of landlord-tenant appellate cases each year. Now there are sometimes a handful of appellate developments in a single day. This week there were two important appellate decisions and oral arguments on another case with […]
There are two bills being proposed in the Washington legislature that if enacted into law would impose strict rent controls in Washington. The proposals’ terms vary, but both would essentially peg rent increases to inflation, with a cap of seven percent. The bills are HB 1388 and HB 1389. HB 1389 has numerous provisions absent from HB 1388. Landlords could “bank” unused rent increase capacity if the landlord does not increase rent in a 12-month period. To preserve banked capacity the landlord would have to serve a statutory notice form and serve in the same formal legal manner as a […]
Yesterday Governor Inslee signed a bill that establishes a just cause eviction law throughout Washington state. The Washington just cause eviction law is largely similar to just cause eviction laws in Seattle, Federal Way, and Burien. Washington residential landlords may no longer serve a “20-day” no-cause notice to terminate a tenancy. There is an exception when the landlord shares housing with the tenant. Landlords may terminate a tenancy and the end of the initial lease term with 60 days’ notice. To evict because the landlord wishes to sell or if the landlord or an immediate family member intends to live […]
Sometimes tenants fail to respond to an eviction summons, or fail to appear for a hearing only to later appear in court and ask the court to give them another hearing date and to stay the eviction in the meantime. Landlords and their attorneys often get little or no notice of the stay until it is granted. A Court of Appeals decision had required tenants to give the landlord notice that they were seeking a stay, and required the tenant to post a bond. No longer. The state Supreme Court last week ruled that tenants are not required to give […]
Sometimes a tenant owes the landlord for more than just the current month rent. If a tenant offers money short of the total amount owed, it is important that the landlord apply the payment to the oldest month first. Otherwise, in an eviction or civil action the court might hold that the landlord waived the prior months. For example, if the current month is February and the tenant has not paid any rent this year, then offers the amount of one month rent, the landlord should apply the payment to January, not February. If the tenant notes on the payment […]