Date: February 4, 2020
To:

Honorable Members of the Seattle City Council

From: Nathan Torgelson, Director, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections
Emily Alvarado, Director, Office of Housing
Jason Johnson, Director, Human Services Department
Andrew Lofton, Executive Director, Seattle Housing Authority
Re:

Protecting Renters from Evictions

Like you, we believe that strong tenant protections are needed as we build more affordable
housing in neighborhoods throughout the City of Seattle. To that end, the City is committed to
working with stakeholders to develop new and innovative tools to help renters remain in their
homes.
Unfortunately, we write to express deep concerns with Council Bill 119726. While we
understand consideration of CB 119726 has been delayed until February 10, we request that
City Council postpone any action on the legislation until alternative strategies to reduce
evictions – strategies that would have a lesser likelihood of being tied up in court action – can
be further explored and developed.
As you know, over the past year, Mayor Durkan, City Council, and departments worked
together to successfully implement a range of tenant protections including lobbying the
legislature to strengthen protections statewide. By working together, we were able to take
steps to reduce burdens for renters and improve access to information and resources for
tenants and landlords. We strongly support the goal of preventing homelessness, especially
unsheltered homelessness and want to work together to develop new approaches to prevent
evictions.
We understand the intent of this legislation is to prevent physical evictions in winter months,
because eviction can lead to homelessness and sleeping outdoors during these months can
increase the likelihood of developing exposure-related medical conditions. However, based on
the numerous and significant issues listed below, CB 119726 will not achieve these goals and is
an unworkable starting point.
There is significant legal risk associated with passing CB 119726. It will likely be challenged in
court, require significant time and resources to defend, and a negative outcome is very
possible. In the case of a lawsuit, the ordinance likely would not go into effect, and renters will
still be evicted from their homes. A recent legal challenge of a recent ordinance cost the City
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 more than $1.43 million. These resources are better spent developing and investing in solutions
that will help tenants find or maintain stable housing.
A more detailed explanation of our concerns is outlined below.

1. CB 119726 has numerous adverse impacts on the tenants it is trying to help.
Tenants will still end up evicted. Once a tenant has an eviction on their record, their ability to
be rehoused becomes increasingly challenging. Vulnerable tenants need interventions, such as
those provided by City-funded homelessness prevention programs and carefully considered
tenant protections, which could be far more impactful for the tenant than a delayed eviction.
Tenants could exit the envisioned process with significant debt. Rent responsibility continues
throughout the eviction and writ timelines, until the household vacates the unit. Tenants may
be incentivized to stop paying, knowing that that they will need money to move when the
moratorium expires while not realizing that they will ultimately be responsible for all unpaid
charges. Charges could include rent, interest charges on assessed judgements, utilities, storage,
parking, pet rent, and late fees, which could easily accrue to thousands of dollars over the fivemonth period. Once accrued, they could be very difficult for a low-income tenant to recover
from. If the tenant seeks assistance, this debt may be more than rent-assistance and debt-relief
programs can accommodate.
Tenants will be less likely to benefit from longer-term agreements that serve as alternatives
to eviction. If a property owner is unable to vacate the property between November and
March, they will be reluctant to enter into any agreement, such as a longer-term payment plan,
that extends into the winter months. Property owners may also be less willing to enter into
agreements that address behavior issues or provide for a longer move-out date. If the tenant
were to breach the agreement between November and March, the owner would have no
recourse. These agreements are especially vital for seniors and tenants with disabilities. If prefiling settlements are reduced, that means filed evictions are increased, and more tenants end
up with a filed eviction on their record.
Evictions will be likely to increase during non-winter months. Tenants may be more likely to
be evicted for smaller sums of money or less serious lease violations between April and October
when property owners are able to move forward with the process as designed today.
The legislation creates an incentive for informal evictions. By prohibiting evictions for five
months of the year, this legislation creates an incentive for property owners to find informal
ways to remove tenants when they are unable to rely on the sanctioned process.

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 2. CB 119726 could have adverse impacts on the health and safety of rental
communities.
There are some cases where eviction as quickly as possible is critical to the health and safety of
other residents of a rental community. CB 119726 narrowly exempts “criminal” or “illegal”
activity, but there are occasional situations where a tenant’s behavior and actions may not
meet a definition of “criminal” or “illegal” but nevertheless pose an imminent threat to the
health and safety of residents, staff and others.
A recent example to illustrate: A man living in a Seattle Housing Authority community
demonstrated extreme anger management issues and threatened other residents with physical
harm. He repeatedly shouted offensive racial slurs, made physical threatening gestures toward
other residents in hallways, laundry areas, the community room and other common spaces and
approached people’s individual apartment doors in the same manner, terrifying other
residents. Staff attempts to mediate put them in danger and were ineffective. Law enforcement
was not able to make an arrest because a crime had not been committed. SHA was forced to
evict to protect other residents; it was essential this happened in a timely manner to protect
the other residents. In any case similar to this, SHA attempts to help mitigate the behavior
through the use of professional resources and services, before turning to eviction as the only
recourse when other efforts did not resolve the situation. These circumstances occur rarely, but
they do happen, and they have to be addressed.

3. CB 119726 could have adverse impacts on the rental market.
An increased risk to property owners may result in increased rent or higher screening criteria.
Small landlords make up a sizeable portion of Seattle’s rental housing stock. Over 20,000 of the
32,000 registered rental properties are single-unit properties such as houses and condos, many
of which are owned by a small landlord. CB 119726 could result in to up to five months of
unpaid rent and utilities, leaving the property owner to cover debt service, maintenance costs,
utilities, and other expenses. This could cause higher rents to cover the risk, higher screening
criteria to minimize risk, and property owners leaving the rental market voluntarily or
involuntarily if they cannot cover their expenses.
The legislation will impact operations of publicly subsidized affordable housing. In rent- and
income-restricted housing where operating costs are not currently subsidized, owners may seek
additional public subsidy in order to cover expenses—such as replacement reserves, debt
service, and staffing costs—that would otherwise be paid using rental income.

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 4. CB 119726 poses significant legal and procedural questions about how it would be
operationalized and enforced and creates conflict with state laws.
The language is unclear. CB 119726 is unclear about whether an eviction may be filed between
November and March. Section C.1 states that the moratorium is a defense to an eviction while
Section C.8 states that the property owner may not evict a tenant if the tenant would have to
vacate within the prohibited timeframe. Either option has consequences.
Enforcement and the City’s jurisdiction is in question. If the owner is able to file the case, it is
unclear whether the court would be able to enforce the moratorium if the tenant did not
answer or appear. The legislation leaves the matter of defaults, which account for more than
half of all evictions, unaddressed.
Further, SDCI also does not appear to have the ability or the jurisdiction to enforce this
ordinance. It is not clear that serving an eviction notice or filing the case alone would violate
the ordinance. Once filed, SDCI does not have enforcement power over the King County
Sheriff’s Office or the King County Superior Court. It would ultimately be up to the courts and
the King County Sheriff – not the City – to enforce the moratorium.
Notices are likely to expire. If notices can be served, but no eviction can be filed, the notices
would likely expire because the landlord is unable to take action during the five months. RCW
59.18.130 states that a notice expires after 60 days unless the property owner moves forward.
Writs are likely to expire. If the owner prevails in an eviction case and obtains an order
between November and March, the legislation requires the court to stay the writ of restitution
until April 1. The writ would likely expire during the delay as RCW 59.12.090 requires that the
writ be returned within 20 days of issuance. Generally, this is extended an additional 10 days in
King County before the court needs to re-issue. However, any longer period would result in an
increase in attorney’s fees for the owners that would likely be added to the tenants’ debt or
passed on to new tenants in the form of higher rent.
Rent, or partial payments of rent, are unlikely to be accepted, increasing tenant’s debt. If
notices can be served, but no eviction can be filed, the owner is unlikely to accept rent (except
for full payment during the cure period of a non-payment notice) because acceptance of rent
can be construed as a waiver of the property owner’s right to proceed to an eviction. As stated
above, this increases the likelihood that a tenant would exit the situation with significant debt.
Interest will likely accrue and increase tenant debt. If the owner may file the case and obtains
an order/judgment between November and March, the judgment is subject to 12 percent
interest that accrues until the sum is paid, digging the tenant deeper into debt even if they
were able to pay the rent for the moratorium months.
Tenants’ legal status is in question. It is unclear what the tenants’ legal status would be during
the moratorium if the court made findings that the tenancy was terminated and issued the writ
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 with a delayed execution date. The termination of the tenancy and subsequent acceptance of
rent by the owner could create a new month to month tenancy subject to JCEO protections;
further incentive for an owner to avoid accepting rent during this process.

5. We believe we can develop more effective ways to reduce evictions, in ways that are
not limited to just the winter months and in ways that do not adversely impact
tenants.
Over the last two years we have seen important advances in eviction protections and other
safeguards for tenants. Several Mayor-led and Council-led tenant protections have been
enacted. We have increased funding to community organizations to provide eviction defense
and other tenant services and continue to invest in homeless prevention programs that have
proven successful at keeping vulnerable tenants housed. We have built the Renting in
Seattle portal and outreach program to help renters learn their rights and connect with
services. At the state level, tenant safeguards have been added to the eviction process to allow
more time to head off an eviction and more judicial discretion to work out alternatives to
eviction.
We look forward to working with you in partnership toward the goal of preventing evictions
and preventing homelessness. We are excited about new ideas we are developing that
intervene early in the process to help tenants find a path that avoids eviction.

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