Landlords and tenants of mobile home lot rentals are subject to the rules of the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act. (RCW 59.20) It’s a separate act and has some significant differences. For instance, on a residential lease the tenant must be given three days to pay past due rent after being given an eviction notice. In a mobile home the tenant is given five days.

The rental of the mobile home or manufactured home itself is governed by the Residential Landlord Tenant Act. (RCW 59.18)

Landlords and tenants of mobile home lot rentals are subject to the rules of the Manufactured/Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act. (RCW 59.20) It’s a separate act and has some significant differences. For instance, on a residential lease the tenant must be given three days to pay past due rent after being given an eviction notice. In a mobile home the tenant is given five days.

The rental of the mobile home or manufactured home itself is governed by the Residential Landlord Tenant Act. (RCW 59.18)

If a Fair Housing complaint is filed alleging that a prospective tenant was discriminated against, the burden of proof is on the landlord to show that the same criteria were used for all applicants?  The story below conveys the importance of careful and detailed records.

” We had an applicant we did NOT turn down because of a companion animal but did turn her down because she owed a prior landlord about $2500. She filed the complaint with the Department of Justice claiming that she had been turned down because she had made her reasonable request to have a companion animal. The DOJ began an investigation and sent to us a list of questions that was several pages long. Although my inclination was to just call them and say “hey we denied her because she owed a prior landlord money” our attorney was adamant that you can cause yourself a lot of problems if you don’t thoroughly and completely comply with their request for information. The list of things they asked for included names and addresses phone numbers of all of our tenants, any reasonable requests we had had in the last year for accommodation for handicapped people (we had a few), how we had responded to those requests (we provided what they asked for in all cases) and if we had charged the tenant for any of the requests (we didn’t charge the tenant in any of the cases). They also wanted to complete list of all the people that we had turned down over the last year, I think, and why we had turned them down and what their names and phone numbers were. The response took about 40 hours worth of work to complete, consisted of 35 pages of documents which we had to generate. That is, these were all documents we had to create not just photocopy. One example, was a spreadsheet for all of our tenants with names addresses and phone numbers exported to an Xcel spreadsheet and that was then shrunk down to only a couple of pages. Then there were personal interviews with our staff members by an investigator for the DOJ. In the end we could not have hoped for more complete vindication than the 17 page letter from the DOJ provided.“

This is nothing to take lightly.

Just as in Washington State Purchase and Sales Agreements, days are counted differently in rental agreements?  Here are the most common examples:

3 Day Pay Rent or Vacate Notice – the day the notice is delivered isn’t counted, nor are weekends and holidays.  (If the notice is served on Thursday, Friday is day one, Monday is day two and Tuesday is day three.)

10 Day Notice to Comply with the Terms of the Lease or Vacate – weekend days count.

20 Day Notice to Vacate – Must be delivered 20 calendar days before the end of the rental payment period (usually the end of the month).next rent payment is due.  If rent is due on the first of the month, on May 15^th the soonest a notice to vacate could be given would be for the end of June.

30 Day Notice to Change the Terms of the Lease, including raising the rent – Notice must be delivered by the first of the month.  Can only be given at the end of the lease or when the tenant is on a month-to-month lease rental agreement.

These are confusing and there are always exceptions.  Please contact Coldwell Banker Bain Property Management for further assistance!