Renter faults notice on increase

Q: I rent in Seattle. My one-year lease expired March 1. On March 15, I received my new lease, which included a rent increase, with instructions to sign immediately. It said if I didn't the lease will become month-to-month with a $100 month-to-month fee beginning April 1.

I think I should have received a 30-day advance notice of the rent increase. What should I do?

A: Your landlord could have increased your rent without giving you a 30-day notice if he'd simply presented you with a new lease before the old one expired. But he didn't. So now he's back to square one.

By law he must give you 30 days' notice before the day your rent is due that there's been a change in the rules, said Siobhan Ring, executive director of the nonprofit Tenants Union. Raising the rent and/or charging a new fee are considered rules changes.

There may be more. Tenants inside the city of Seattle must receive 60 days' notice if the rent increase is 10 percent or more. So, for example, if your rent has been less than $1,000 a month, your landlord must give you the two months' notice because a $100 a month increase exceeds 10 percent. Ring said this rule applies even if the landlord terms the increase a fee rather than a rent increase.

She suggests you write your landlord a note citing the state law on rule changes. It's RCW 59.18.140; if you type that into a Web browser search field, you can find it online. Ask the landlord to resubmit the rule change with the proper notice. Make sure you keep a copy of this correspondence.

If your landlord refuses to follow the law, contact Seattle's Department of Planning and Development and ask to speak to the person in charge of enforcing local ordinances.

Q: One member of our condo's board of directors is several months behind in paying her dues. I think this person should be removed from the board, and a lien placed on her unit to protect the association's interests in the event she enters bankruptcy.

Since our board is unlikely to do this to one of its own members, can you please tell me which law-enforcement agency has jurisdiction over condo associations and their boards of directors?

A: There's a good reason no law-enforcement agency enforces condo rules and regulations: breaking them is not a criminal issue, explained Bellevue attorney David Tall, of Oseran, Hahn, Spring & Watts.

"It's a civil issue, so if the board of directors is not doing what it's supposed to be doing, it's the association owners who need to resolve the situation," Tall said. That means reading your bylaws to determine the duties, obligations and authority of your board of directors. That will tell you what's supposed to happen when an owner is delinquent in dues payment. Tall suggests you then write a letter to the board demanding that it follow its own rules in dealing with the delinquent board member.

Commonly this means the board will inform the person their dues must be paid; otherwise their account will be referred to an attorney for collection.

Certainly if the past-due board member has extenuating circumstances — job loss, serious illness, etc. — there can be some leeway. For example, a payment plan can be worked out to bring that person current. But if the late payer is healthy and has the ability to pay — but doesn't — then there's really no excuse for letting her skate, Tall said.

If you're uncomfortable tackling this yourself, consider gathering support from other homeowners.

Q: We sold our home last month and have now discovered the escrow company paid off our line of credit and second mortgage, but not our first mortgage — so we still owe it!

The escrow company says it's our fault because we didn't give it the loan number. Now it wants to charge us to pay off the first mortgage, which we've agreed to. However, on further thought, my understanding is that we already paid the escrow company to clear the title, which would have any and all associated loan numbers attached to it. Do we have any recourse?

A: Attorney Robert Sargeant, with Williams, Kastner & Gibbs, is perplexed by your problem.

First of all, it's not your responsibility to provide the loan numbers. Finding the official record of them is the responsibility of the escrow company that handles the sale's final details. It orders a preliminary commitment for title insurance from a title company. This document, which people commonly call a title report, contains information on mortgages, taxes, liens, judgments and any other matters of record. So your title report should have turned up the existence of your first mortgage, Sargeant said.

Did the escrow closer somehow miss this? You would have had an immediate tip-off because the money that should have gone to pay off your mortgage came to you instead. So your closing statement would have reflected this unexpected windfall.

Assuming that happened, Sargeant said: "My response is — don't think about whether you have recourse; think about your responsibility when you accepted all that money."

He suggests you talk with the closer. Ask that person to be reasonable about the fee. "My experience is all closers try to be fair," he said.

Home Forum answers readers' real-estate questions. Send questions to Home Forum, Seattle Times, P.O. Box 1845, Seattle, WA 98111, or call 206-464-8510 to leave a question on a recorded line. The e-mail address is erhodes@seattletimes.com. Sorry, no personal replies. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.