Your Right to Habitable Housing in Washington

Washington law requires your landlord to keep your rental fit for human habitation for the whole tenancy, and RCW 59.18.060 lists what that means, from heat and hot water to a weathertight roof and working plumbing. Once the landlord receives your written notice of a problem, repairs must start within 24 hours, 72 hours, or 10 days, depending on how serious it is. If the landlord misses that deadline and you are current on rent and utilities, the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act (RLTA) lets you end the lease, repair and deduct within set limits, pay rent into escrow (an account held by a neutral third party) after a government inspection, or ask a court to reduce your rent.

What must a Washington landlord keep in repair?

The landlord must:

• Keep the unit in substantial compliance with any code or regulation whose violation endangers or impairs your health or safety.
• Keep roofs, floors, walls, chimneys, fireplaces, foundations, and other structural parts in reasonably good repair.
• Keep shared areas reasonably clean, sanitary, and free of defects that raise the risk of fire or accidents.
• Keep electrical, plumbing, and heating systems, and any appliances the landlord supplied, in reasonably good working order.
• Provide facilities for heat, water, and hot water, and keep the unit reasonably weathertight.
• Provide reasonably adequate locks and keys.
• Run a pest control program when you move in and, except in a single-family house, control infestations during the tenancy unless you caused them.
• Provide garbage containers in common areas and regular pickup, except in a single-family house.

These duties do not cover damage caused by you, your household, or your guests. You also lose your repair remedies for a problem if you unreasonably refuse to let the landlord in to fix it. A lease clause that waives these duties is unenforceable; the only exception is a separately negotiated agreement, not in a standard lease form, that a county prosecutor, the attorney general's consumer protection division, or your own attorney approves in writing.

If your landlord bills you for electricity or water, the landlord cannot shut off either one for nonpayment on a day the National Weather Service has issued, or announced it will issue, a heat-related alert for your area. You can ask for reconnection on those days, and any repayment plan the landlord requires cannot exceed 6 percent of your monthly income.

For the general version of this duty and how it works in other states, see the implied warranty of habitability and your basic rights as a tenant.

How do you request repairs, and how fast must the landlord act?

Put the request in writing and deliver it to the person named as the landlord in your lease or to whoever collects the rent. Under RCW 59.18.070, the notice must identify the unit, the owner's name if you know it, and the problem. Keep a copy and proof of when it arrived, such as a certified mail return receipt or a copy the manager signs and dates, because each deadline runs from the landlord's receipt.

These are deadlines to start work, not to finish it, and they do not apply when circumstances outside the landlord's control prevent a timely start. The landlord must then complete the repair promptly; if circumstances outside its control, including lack of financing, delay completion, the repair still has to be done as soon as possible.

You can use the remedies below only if you are current on rent and on any utilities your lease makes you pay.

What can you do if the landlord misses the deadline?

End the lease and move out

If the problem is still not fixed within a reasonable time after the deadline passes, you can give the landlord written notice and move out, even in the middle of a fixed-term lease. You owe no rent after the day you leave and are entitled to a prorated refund of any prepaid rent. Within 30 days, the landlord must send a full and specific statement of any deposit deductions along with any refund due.

Repair and deduct

RCW 59.18.100 gives you two ways to pay for the repair and subtract the cost from rent. It does not cover the duty to provide garbage containers and pickup. Our guide to repair and deduct explains how the remedy works in general.

1. Hire a professional. Give the landlord a good-faith estimate from a licensed or registered contractor (or a capable person, if the work needs no license) by first-class mail or in person. You can send it with your repair notice. If the landlord does not start work within the deadline, counted from when it has received both your notice and the estimate, you can hire the contractor. For a 10-day problem, wait until 10 days after your notice or 2 days after the landlord receives the estimate, whichever is later. After the work is done and the landlord has had a chance to inspect it, deduct up to two months' rent per repair, with no more than two months' rent in total in any 12-month period.
2. Do it yourself. This route works only if the repair costs no more than one month's rent (counting materials and labor at local prevailing rates), the law does not require a licensed worker, and the defect is inside your unit. You need the repair notice but no estimate. Do the work in a workmanlike manner (to a reasonable professional standard), let the landlord inspect it, and deduct up to one month's rent per repair, with no more than one month's rent in total in any 12-month period.

Example: your rent is $1,800. A hired repair can be deducted up to $3,600 (2 x $1,800), and $3,600 is also the ceiling for all hired repairs in any 12 months. A repair you do yourself is capped at $1,800, and so is your 12-month total for self-repairs. You usually pay the contractor first and recover the cost from upcoming rent.

All repairs must meet code, and a landlord can sue you for damage caused by negligent work. If you deduct when the rules do not allow it, the landlord can treat the shortfall as unpaid rent and start the eviction process.

Pay rent into escrow after an inspection

RCW 59.18.115 lets you pay rent to a neutral escrow instead of the landlord when conditions substantially endanger or impair your health or safety. The statute lists examples: structural defects, exposure to weather, plumbing or sanitation defects that risk illness or injury, no water or hot water, heating or ventilation that does not work or is hazardous, defective wiring, unsafe exits, and conditions that increase the risk of fire.

1. Give the landlord written notice of the conditions and let the 24-hour, 72-hour, or 10-day period pass.
2. Ask your city or county to inspect. It must inspect and issue its certification within 5 days of your request, and when practical it gives the landlord 24 hours' notice so the landlord can attend.
3. Decide in good faith that repair and deduct cannot fix the conditions.
4. If the inspector certifies the conditions, deposit the full rent each time it comes due with an escrow company, a bank, an attorney, or the clerk of the district or superior court.
5. Within 24 hours of depositing rent, mail or deliver a sworn Notice to Landlord of Rent Escrow, with a copy of the certification, to the landlord.

While you keep paying the full rent into escrow on time, the landlord cannot file an eviction for nonpayment. Paying less than the full rent removes that protection. The escrow releases the money to the landlord once the local government certifies the repairs. The landlord can also ask a court to release it, and if the landlord has not filed within 60 days of your deposit, you can; a trial must be held within 60 days of filing. You are reimbursed for escrow fees if you followed the notice rules. Once you send the escrow notice, escrow becomes your only remedy for the certified conditions, though you can still go to court or agreed arbitration at the same time for the reduced rental value. Not every city or county performs these inspections, and without a certification you cannot use escrow.

Ask a court to reduce your rent

A court or arbitrator can decide how much the problem lowered the unit's rental value and order the landlord to refund the rent you paid above that value from the date of your notice, plus repair costs you have not already deducted. After that ruling, you owe only the reduced rent until the landlord fixes the problem or the court orders otherwise. Small claims court, where you do not need a lawyer, can award money only, up to $10,000, such as a refund of rent you overpaid. An order lowering your rent going forward requires a regular court case or agreed arbitration.

If the government condemns your unit

If a code agency notifies the landlord that the unit will be condemned or is unlawful to occupy, and the landlord knew or should have known about the conditions, the landlord must pay relocation assistance of $2,000 per unit or three months' rent, whichever is greater. The landlord must pay it, along with your full deposit and any prepaid rent, within 7 days of the agency's notice. The landlord does not owe relocation assistance if a natural disaster caused the conditions, or if a tenant's or third party's illegal conduct caused them without the landlord's prior knowledge.

Can you withhold rent in Washington?

No. Washington has no general right to stop paying rent over repairs. Holding back rent outside the repair-and-deduct and escrow procedures lets the landlord serve a 14-day notice to pay or vacate, the first step toward an eviction, and being behind on rent blocks you from using the RLTA repair remedies at all. Our guide to Washington eviction protections covers what happens after that notice.

Can your landlord retaliate for a repair request?

No. The landlord cannot evict you, raise your rent, reduce services, or add new obligations to punish you for a good-faith complaint to a government agency about code violations or for using your rights under the RLTA, such as sending a repair notice. If the landlord takes one of those actions within 90 days of your complaint or request, or within 90 days of an inspection it led to, the law presumes the action is retaliation, and the landlord must prove otherwise. For a rent increase, that presumption does not arise if the landlord's increase notice states reasonable grounds for it. The presumption runs the other way if you were behind on rent or otherwise in breach of the lease when the landlord gave notice to end the tenancy. A tenant who wins a retaliation claim or defense recovers court costs and reasonable attorney's fees, and a landlord who wins can recover its fees too. See retaliation protections for tenants for how these rules compare nationally.