Tension between landlords and tenants over new eviction law could prompt changes
Alarmed that evictions are among the leading causes of homelessness, Washington state legislators this year passed a bill that gave tenants more time to pay rent before facing the threat of losing their home.
Now, only five months after the new law took effect, Democratic lawmakers plan to consider a bill in the session that begins Jan. 13 to close “loopholes” that some property managers have exploited to blunt protections for tenants, said Sen. Patty Kuderer of Bellevue.
Because housing is an “essential need,” the Legislature should closely scrutinize “how and when folks are evicted for non-payment of rent,” said Kuderer. She sponsored SB 5600, the major tenant protection bill which became law this year.
The law extends the time from three to 14 days that tenants can pay late rent before an eviction can begin. The purpose of extending the pay-or-vacate notices served by landlords and property managers is to help tenants seek rental assistance or work out an arrangement with their landlord.
Also, the new law gives judges more discretion to weigh why a person was late in paying rent when considering an eviction order. Renters can’t get that enhanced judicial discretion if they’ve received three or more pay-or-vacate notices within a year.
A researcher formerly at the University of Washington told a Senate committee that before the new law took effect in late July, he received a copy of a document used by the Rental Housing Association of Washington to train landlords and property managers about it.
The trade group advised them to take two steps: “First, eliminate grace periods for late payment of rent and routinely issue notices to pay or vacate on the second of every month. Second, consider some combination of raising your minimum screening standards and shortening your lease terms, perhaps even exclusively month-to-month.”
Kuderer said the bill she plans to file may make the following changes:
▪ Eliminate the provision that renters lose their ability — when they get three or more pay-or-vacate notices within a year — to get judges who can use more discretion to weigh why tenants were late in paying rent when considering an eviction order.
▪ Mandate grace periods for tenants, such as those who receive their government assistance payments after their rent is due. A lobbyist for the Rental Housing Association of Washington said he expects the bill would create a three-day mandatory grace period before landlords can serve pay-or-vacate notices for properties with 10 units or more.
▪ Require property managers to be licensed or certified by the state and to receive training in the details of the 46-year-old Residential Landlord-Tenant Act.
▪ Adopt a statewide “just cause law” that would require landlords to provide a valid business reason for terminating a month-to-month lease.
Kyle Woodring, a lobbyist for the Rental Housing Association of Washington, the state’s largest advocacy group for rental owners and managers, wrote in a recent blog post: “For most small housing providers, the policies passed by our state legislature in 2019 felt like an assault on the very idea of rental property ownership.”
He said members of the trade group told lawmakers before they approved the bill that a sharp increase in the pay-or-vacate notice period would force property owners to roll their voluntary grace periods at the beginning of the month into the new 14-day period. Because the law narrowly restricts evictions for money owed to rent, landlords now must pursue fees through other civil procedures, Woodring added.
“Tenants who now cannot be evicted for accruing late fees have little incentive to pay their rent before the due date in a 14-day pay-or-vacate notice, and even if they do miss the period, the bill allows them to pursue mandatory reinstatement of tenancies with payment plans that could last as long as three months,” he wrote.
Kuderer said the law should be improved because the state faces a homelessness “crisis.”
“If we can figure out a way to help someone who’s a little behind on the rent — whether it’s for an unexpected medical bill or a car repair bill or their employer went under and they’re looking for new work — we save more money by helping keep someone housed temporarily so they never slip into homelessness,” she said.
Tim Thomas is the principal investigator of an eviction study being the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley.
He said his research shows there’s a large risk of eviction to women and people of color in Washington, especially black households. In Pierce County, one in six black adults were named in an eviction filing from 2013 to 2017 — considerably higher than for Asian-Americans, Hispanics and whites.
Nearly half of Washington renters are “rent-burdened,” paying 30 percent or more of their income on housing, Thomas said.
“The issues of eviction occur at the intersection of rising rents, inadequate public assistance and stagnant wages,” he said.
Darby Kruger is a landlord in Tacoma. He and his wife own a Craftsman-style rental house and a four-unit Victorian apartment building, where they live and rent out two units.
“I’ve had to pay the mortgage out of my pocket many times while I’ve had to evict people and sometimes that can take 60 to 90 days. I can honestly tell you I have never received a dime from anybody who has gone to collections and that’s pretty typical,” Kruger said.
Kruger, 57, said for several years he handled evictions and other paperwork himself because he couldn’t afford to hire an attorney. With the increased complexity of the state’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, he said he now must budget $2,000 per unit annually for legal expenses.
The new law’s extension of pay-or-vacate from three days to 14 days has increased “risk and exposure” for landlords who continue to have to pay their mortgages while not being allowed to try to recover evictions costs, he said.
“I used to communicate a lot more with people and give a lot more grace. Now, because that time frame has been extended out, I need to serve the 14-day notice immediately, like Day 1. If (rent) is due the 1st, I have to file it on the 2nd because I just can’t afford the exposure. I continue to engage and talk to people and hope we can work something out. The last thing I want to do is litigate,” Kruger said.
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Tension between landlords and tenants over new eviction law could prompt changes."
