Bill to Cap Rent Hikes Fails in Washington State

Two bills that aimed at addressing Washington State’s housing crisis by capping rent hikes and requiring landlords to provide at least six months’ notice of rent increases failed to pass the state House of Representatives this week, most likely ending the initiative this year.

Landlords had lobbied fiercely against the bills, warning that the rent regulations would drive them out of the state. Proponents said the defeat of the rent caps would result in people in Washington “sleeping in their cars,” according to a report in the Seattle Times.

“There are people who will lose their homes to rent increases [this year],” said Rep. Alex Ramel of Bellingham, a sponsor of the cap on rent increases. “Many of them will move into another home in another community, but some of them are going to lose their home and they’re going to end up sleeping in their cars.”

The bills died without a vote when a key deadline for advancing them during this year’s legislative session arrived Wednesday. The bills were pulled after opponents signaled they would unleash an avalanche of amendments, each requiring a vote, to run out the clock.

The proposed bill would cap rent increases for tenants of older building at 3% or the rate of inflation, whichever is higher, up to 7% per year. The bill would have exempted housing built in the last 12 years and allow greater increases after renovations or for landlords who could prove “significant hardship” due to unexpected costs.

The bill also would have permitted who did not raise the rent this year, to raise the rent next year. After a tenant moved out, there would be no limit on the rent the landlord could charge the next tenant under the proposed legislation.

The other bill that failed would require landlords to give at least six months’ notice of rent hikes of more than 5% and would have allowed tenants to break a lease to avoid a rent increase of more than 5%. A similar measure was proposed last year and also failed.

A third measure, which requires more documentation from landlords in order for them to keep a portion of a tenant’s security deposit, passed in Washington’s House this week.

Landlord groups argued that, if adopted, the rent caps—which they compared to rent stabilization laws in New York City and San Francisco—would drive landlords to sell their properties.

“You’re artificially capping prices. You can tinker around the edges, but the underlying principle is the problem,” Sean Flynn, executive director of the Rental Housing Association in Washington, told the Times.

The proposed rent cap in the Washington bill was much tighter than a law adopted in neighboring Oregon in 2019, which limited rent increases to 7% plus inflation each year—a cap which after last year’s inflationary spiral is allow Oregon landlords to raise rents by close to 15% this year.

Supporters of the rent cap bill in Washington have embraced a three-pronged strategy for addressing the Evergreen State’s housing crisis, including boosting the supply of market-rate homes, increasing funding for subsidized affordable housing and rent stabilization for tenants.

One of them suggested that this week’s failure of the rent stabilization piece is a temporary setback. “Momentum is building. The understanding that we must do something is really growing,” Rep. Nicole Macri of Seattle told the newspaper.