For a year now, Washington state has had a law limiting rent increases. Yet despite numerous violations, not a single cent in fines has yet reached the treasury. Instead, authorities have focused on settling disputes without imposing real financial penalties. The state attorney general’s office, acting as a consumer protection agency and mediator, has settled about four dozen cases of alleged violations. The total amount of assessed fines tops $800,000, but landlords have not had to pay those sums. Instead, they made concessions: cancelled planned increases or refunded overcharged tenants. That approach is faster and cheaper than litigation, and unlike local governments with varying rules, the attorney general enforces the law uniformly across Washington and has the resources to investigate complaints.
According to a state representative, these agreements have helped more than a thousand households get rent relief. Punishment for violators is structured as conditional fines: if the property owner complies with the law going forward, the penalty is waived. In most cases the state collects only $2,000 to cover legal costs.
The biggest fines fell on owners of trailer parks and RV campsites — a unique form of housing where residents own their homes but lease the land. Those properties are singled out in the law because moving a home is extremely costly. For example, the Suntides park in Yakima County was fined nearly $400,000 for a 5.4% rent increase when 5% was allowed. And the owners of Wild Rose in Spokane County received a conditional fine of $217,500 for attempting to raise fees by 16.7%. In mobile home parks people typically live permanently, and the law protects them from sharp lot rent hikes; RV campsites are often regulated as temporary housing, but they were included as well to prevent displacement.
Park owners are surprised they were equated with mobile home communities, which are subject to the stricter 5% limit. “This is complete nonsense,” said Rick Lungo, owner of Wild Rose. “I was supposed to somehow guess my campground would be treated like a mobile home park?” He called the state’s actions “an out-of-control Big Brother.” Park owners argue the 5% cap is unfair: ordinary landlords can raise rents without limits between tenants, while park owners are tied to the same residents whose homes can’t be quickly moved. They also bear infrastructure costs — roads, utilities — that increase faster than 5% a year.
The law remains one of the most controversial in the state. It caps rent increases at 7% plus inflation (max 10%), and at 5% for mobile homes. But there are exceptions: new construction is exempt for the first 12 years, which is an incentive for developers to invest in new mobile home parks despite the limits. In the Seattle region there is a severe shortage of affordable housing: older parks are closing for redevelopment and new ones are rarely built, so the exemption is meant to boost supply to ease the crisis. Public housing and small homes where the owner lives in one of the units are also exempt.
The Washington Landlord Association warns the law will drive investment out of the state. “As taxes, insurance and operating costs rise, small landlords will leave Washington,” said the association’s executive director, Sean Flynn. “This trickle will turn into a torrent.”
Meanwhile, the Manufactured Housing Community of Washington (MHCW) filed a lawsuit seeking to block the 5% limit. They argue they cannot get exemptions even in emergencies, which threatens them with significant losses. A hearing is set for mid-July in Spokane County Superior Court. Supporters of the law hope it will provide predictability for tenants, but the battle between residents and landlords is far from over.
Based on: 1 year later, how WA’s controversial cap on rent hikes has been enforced