[WSBARP] [WSBARP Digest] evictions, UD and available housing

[Carmen Rowe]

I'll short-cut my response rather than try to cut & paste the digest, other
than this brief excerpt:


"Food for thought - the unlawful detainer statute was created for a quick
and efficient way to resolve the issue of possession. It's no longer quick,
it's no longer efficient, and it's no longer affordable for many landlords.
Some are starting to consider walking away from unlawful detainers and just
file full on ejectment cases because now they are likely faster and can
resolve all issues more effectively than unlawful detainers can.
KJ"

Amen, Amen, Amen ... other than it's way beyond that, as someone else
noted. Not some, but many, small housing providers are considering (and
many have acted upon) leaving the market altogether. I did, and every
person I personally know that had a rental property or two did. Those that
had it for retirement quickly saw the potential for it to pull them down,
not maintain them, and invested elsewhere.

The latest mess just showed that the government is plenty willing to "take"
private property to serve the greater good (I know it wasn't technically a
"taking" as it said tenants still liable; but the odds of a tenant that far
in arrears having the means to pay it back? In I would hazard to say the
very vast majority of cases, the words are just air, any judgment worth
less than the paper it was printed on). Never mind the ongoing increasingly
extreme tenant-protection laws (King County leading, but where KC goes, the
rest apparently eventually follows). No cause eviction was the final straw
for many colleagues & friends & family I knew who had rental properties.
With the solid market, they simply sold. Which also allowed one of the few
remaining options for a straight-forward end to a tenancy.

It won't get better. What used to be a viable secondary source of income
(and sometimes, critically, a resource for retirement) just isn't anymore.
And there goes a significant chunk of the housing market - which contained,
by the way, the landlords who were likely the least of the problems the
legislation meant to address, and the most likely to be
accommodating/friendly/humane to their tenants, with whom there was a more
personal connection by the nature of the person just having a few rentals.
So you eliminate a significant chunk of the housing, and another chunk gets
passed to the 'mass production landlords' who are the worse offenders.

I could not agree more with that comment that this is a horrible trend
long-term for homelessness, so the purported protections will do great harm.

But I never seem to see any discussion on that. Only how horrible landlords
are, how they "owe" it to the tenants, how they were somehow just living
high on this side gig. Is there any balance to the discussion anywhere?


Carmen Rowe



Phone: (360) 669-3576 (direct cell)
Email:  Carmen at GryphonLawGroup.com

*Olympia/Lacey and primary mailing office:*
1415 College Street SE, Lacey, WA 98503

*Seattle office:* 2611 NE 113th St. Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98125

*NOTICE REGARDING OPERATIONS AND COVID-19:* We see our community as working
together to address COVID and its impact on our lives, health, and
business. The nature of our practice lends itself well to virtual operation
and we offer a range of flexible solutions to best work with your needs and
preferences. We are here to support you.

*Privileged and confidential: *This message is confidential. If you receive
this message in error, please let us know, and please delete and disregard
any information it contains. We thank you for your respect in not sharing
this email with anyone.


>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbarp/attachments/20230119/325afd9d/attachment.html>