.jpg)
The Washington state Senate passed a bill unanimously on Thursday, April 3, that updates language in Washington state's Unlawful Detainer Act, which was first signed into law in 1890.
House Bill 1003, sponsored by state Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, attempts to streamline the process for landlords to serve notices of eviction by mail. As the law stands, notice by mail has to be mailed from the county where the relevant property is.
The new law instead simply requires notice by mail be sent from within the state of Washington and provides the tenant five days to respond after the notice is delivered instead of the current one-day response period.
The bill was signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson April 11.
Abbarno introduced the bill to his colleagues in committees in the House, describing the new legislation as a simple update to a state law that hasn’t been updated for more than 100 years. The representative said the change would make it easier for landlords to serve eviction notices to tenants living in rental properties in different counties.
“It seemed odd that you would have to either get a process server or travel to another county to mail eviction notices or notice of unlawful detainer,” Abbarno said. “This bill is a fairly small bill because what it does is it tries to create a unified process that if you’re going to be serving through mail whether it's in the county or out of the county as long as it's within the state of Washington … I feel like it's fair to the landlords because it changes an old antiquated law, but it also gives tenants a little bit of extra time to respond.”
In the state of Washington, landlords who wish to evict a tenant for any of 17 lawful reasons must start the process by serving the tenant an eviction notice. That notice can be served in one of three ways. First, the landlord can hand deliver the notice to the person being served. If the person being served is not present at the site of the eviction, a notice can be given to a person of suitable age and discretion. A copy must be mailed to the individual being served.
If neither of the first two options are possible, a landlord must leave a copy of the notice in a conspicuous place on the property, deliver a copy to any person residing at the premises if someone can be found and, lastly, mail a copy of the notice to the tenant at the unlawful residence. Only when this first step is completed can the process begin. Eviction cases can be thrown out if the procedures are not followed properly.
After a notice is provided by mail, tenants will now have five days to respond and different amounts in other situations.
In Washington state, after a notice of unlawful detainer is served, the tenant may be given a summons and complaint and, if the two parties cannot resolve the issue, the case will be brought before a judge.
During the bill's public hearing in the Senate Housing Committee, 64 people signed in in support of the bill and another 571 signed in against it.
Despite the overwhelming number of people signing in opposed to the bill during public hearings, only one provided actual testimony.
That testimony came from Yakima County resident Kenton Gartrell, who claimed that the change made by the bill will do very little to change the process of eviction in the state of Washington.
“I think the language is redundant and legally not necessary. I think it’s actually a time waste,” Gartrell said. “Going forward with this language change does not actually change anything but maybe one minute point. It still goes in front of a judge. It still goes through a systematic judicial system.”
The bill passed through the House and Senate with no issues and, as a result, no amendments or changes to the bill's original language were made. The Senate passed the bill unanimously while just five Republicans voted against it in the House.
