AN ORDINANCE relating to rental agreements; relieving a tenant experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, or stalking from liability for damage to the landlord’s property caused by a perpetrator of domestic violence, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, or stalking; creating a landlord mitigation program; and amending Sections 7.24.020, 7.24.030, and 22.206.170 of, and adding new Section 7.24.033 to, the Seattle Municipal Code.
I'm sure I will sign it. Please read the next agenda item. You can read a shorter title if you like. Agenda item three Council Bill 119 658 Relating to Rental Agreements Committee recommends that they'll pass. Councilmember Herbold This bill prohibits a landlord from seeking damages from a tenant or a household member who has experienced domestic violence so long as they have provided written documentation to the landlord, signed by a qualified third party, stating in the in the statement that the tenant or household member reported to a qualified third party that they are a victim of domestic violence and the name of the perpetrator that caused the violence. This qualified third parties can be law enforcement, health professionals, court employees, licensed mental health professionals, or advocates for crime, victim or witness programs. The time, date and location of the act of domestic violence that relate resulted in the property damage and a brief description of the property damage. These are all the contents of this third party report. This was modeled off of the principle of of limiting liability that is already established in state tenant law, which allows a survivor to terminate a lease before the end of the term of the lease without penalty. The key provision of this legislation is that the survivor should not be held liable for damages caused by their abuser. This bill specifically states that when perpetrators cause damage to a unit, it is they who are responsible for that damage. Advocates with the coalition ending gender based violence insisted that we structure the reporting requirements to maintain anonymity of the perpetrator in reporting to mitigate the risk of retaliation. This is a best practice in the gender based violence advocacy and support to ensure safety. And it preserves the agency of a survivor to make. Decisions that deeply impact their lives. Hopefully, my colleagues here received an email last Thursday from the Coalition speaking to this point. This provision of protecting the anonymity of the perpetrator while limiting the liability of the survivor created a practical challenge for the bill that many constituents and advocates representing landlords expressed, namely, namely, the question of a landlords ability to recoup their damages. To respond to this challenge with the support of the Rental Housing Association, the Multifamily Housing Association and tenants rights organizations like Washington can in the Housing Justice Project and the Coalition, we introduced a landlord mitigation fund modeled after a similar resource used in the state to help landlords in these scenarios. Great. Thank you. Catherine Herbold, Councilmember Bagshaw. Thank you, Councilmember Herbold. Thank you for bringing this forward and I appreciate our conversation this morning. And I think a specific question I had asked and you answered, I just wondered if you'd repeat it, is that you have been working with the Rental Housing Authority and others just to get their buy in and to get their input as well. I heard someone testify today. I appreciated that. But I wonder if you'd just bring it up a little bit and flesh it out a little bit more? Sure. Well, as I said, we recognized that the provision of limiting the liability to the tenant and the desire and best practice of not releasing the name of the perpetrator created a practical challenge that constituents and advocates representing landlords expressed to me, namely the question of a landlord's ability to recoup for damages caused by the perpetrator if they can't locate them. And so to respond to this challenge and with the support of the Rental Housing Association and the Multifamily Housing Association, we introduced a landlord mitigation fund in this legislation. And you also responded this morning that you felt that you got sufficient input from them and it was added in this legislation that we had their support at least. Correct? Yeah. And I think we heard some conversation about interest in working together collaboratively in the state legislative session to ensure that the statewide landlord mitigation fund is available for this purpose. We will be working within the context of this year's budget for bridge funding to get us through to that point. But that's a I'm anticipating ongoing collaborative work on that. Thank you. You catch her with any questions or comments on this bill? I'll make a closing comment, and that is my support for the bill is actually very simple that as this egregious example shows that a and sometimes I say victim not I say victim as opposed to Survivor because I don't want to lose track of the fact that they often are victims of brutal violence and have survived it. So whether it be a victim or a survivor of violence, make sure they are not stuck with a bill for property damage after experiencing something like that. So that is what I think gets to the heart of this legislation, which I fully support. I don't think that there was any intent in this legislation to deprive a landlord an ability to try to recoup it from a responsible party for perhaps or even create a fund for it. And I think that's the other part of this legislation. I know their policy basis as to why I support it. And so I'm very hopeful that as we both work on a state clarification and we work with all of the groups that are vested on this issue, that perhaps we either improve it or implement it just right. Because the strong policy reason behind this and that is not to penalize a survivor, makes all the sense in the world to me. And I would venture to say landlords would fully agree me agree with me on that. And thank you for bringing this example because this is the kind of policy we want to reverse. So thank you for bringing this legislation forward. And with that, please call the roll. Any other comments? No hands. Please call the roll on the passage of the bill. Senator O'Brien. All right. Pacheco I so want I make sure. Herbold I was president. Harrell I aid in favor and oppose. The bill passes and Cheryl, sign it. Please read the next agenda item.