The Seattle City Council decided on April 26 to extend protections for those who owe back rent due to the COVID pandemic.
In a 7-to-1 vote, the council mandated "reasonable" repayment plans, supplementing previous legislation that required landlords to offer their tenants a "reasonable" amount of time to pay off back rent.
The COVID pandemic and consequent social distancing restrictions put many people in public-facing occupations out of work. State and city eviction moratoriums prevented landlords from putting them out on the street, but they left many renters with huge debts to their landlords.
In May 2020, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring landlords to offer three-to-six-month repayment plans to people with past-due rent. Because of the length of the pandemic, even that schedule proved burdensome for many.
The new legislation requires landlords to accept repayment plans that may go longer than six months, so that renters would not have to repay more than one-third of their monthly rent every month. The new ordinance would cover back rent accumulated up to six months after the end of the city's civil emergency order.
For example, if your rent is $1,500, the most your landlord can ask you to pay is $2,000 per month — your current rent plus one-third, i.e., $1,500 + $500. If you owe ten months' back rent, you'll pay it off at that rate in 30 months.
Councilmember Dan Strauss, who sponsored the bill, said the new ordinance is necessary because of the unexpected length of the pandemic.
"[In March 2020] we believed that the pandemic would only last two weeks, and then two months, and we definitely did not foresee it lasting two years or more," Strauss said.
"We did know then, when everything was shut and many people's line of work froze, that people needed time to address the debt incurred during that close-down."
Strauss described the bill as a "technical correction" that would bring the city's rule closer to the state legislature's 2021 payment plan requirement. Strauss said the new policy was the best option for both property owners and tenants behind on rent.
"The bill before us today helps us ensure that landlords are made whole and tenants have a reasonable time to repay their debt," Strauss said. "The tenant does remain responsible for repaying any and all debt they've incurred."
The ordinance was supported by renters' rights advocates and opposed by landlord groups.
"This is unnecessary [and] confusing and will leave Seattle housing providers guessing which state or city laws apply to them, making it more difficult to ensure they are fully in compliance with city and state law," said Daniel Bannon, a representative of the Rental Housing Association of Washington.
"We must prevent further isolation of Seattle's rental housing policy that is forcing small housing providers out of the city at unprecedented rates," he added.
Only Councilmember Sara Nelson voted against the bill. Councilmember Kshama Sawant was out of town.