https://q13fox.com/2020/02/10/seattle-city-council-unanimously-votes-to-ban-evictions-in-winter/

Thoughts?

Can you imagine how many bum tenants a law like this will attract? Someone could move to Seattle in October and immediately stop paying rent. Four months later, they could disappear and the Landlord would never see a dime.

I may start doing my winter vacations in Seattle...

I can see tenants abusing this by not paying rent during the cold months then moving out owing you money.

It will be more important to raise standards when screening tenants.

@Patrick McGrath

I lived in Seattle for 30 years. I moved North out of the city and King County. I don’t and wouldn’t own rentals in the city but still have some in the county.

The city council is largely ignorant and socialist as is the current mayor. The city is becoming a sewer. The once beautiful ‘Emerald City’ is still green but now colored with human waste and garbage.

Citizens are afraid to go downtown even in the daytime. The treatment of landlords is indicative of the mindset of fools and despots.

Do they have laws on security deposit?

My SD would be 6 months rent.

@Jerry Lucker sawant is an idiot

Next, they'll be wondering why you need perfect credit to get in anywhere.. 

Why anyone would run rentals in such immunity states boggles the mind ! Couldn’t be dumber they deserve what they get for voting in insane liberal morons - did I say that out loud ?

Communist not immunity

This really is insane and the rule is almost asking for misuse. It will be great if city pays the landlords in case the evictions have to be delayed due to winter months. Being humane at others expense is easy..

Now don't get me wrong, I have seen bad things happen to good people. I have negotiated with the renters in these cases and given them some leeway. But in both cases when I had to evict renters for non-payment of rent, I felt they were banking on the fact that court hearings and collections process will be not my time's worth. So all these delaying tactics are not helping people but in fact telling them being lazy is OK. Right now people sometimes trade good credit with an option to not pay for 1-2 months. Changing 1-2 months to 4-5 months makes that trade even more lucrative and more people will be willing to have a bad mark on credit if that saves them 3-4 months of rent. 

I hope people come together and sue the city for this law. 

Seattle is one of the 21 cities where renters represents at least half the total population living in households.

They could vote to live for free for the rest of their lives if they wanted to.

Seattle landlords--your customers are exercising their political power (or it's being exercised for them by those in power for their own purposes).

The people in Seattle's government have made it into an "Illegal" sanctuary city set on harboring have-nots from other countries.

When the Have-nots outnumber the Haves things like this happen.

Then when things like this happen and the area's turn into slums due to inadequate cash flow, they will further plague landlords calling them slumlords and cracking down on them.

This just seems like part of a much bigger political issue (and possibly a way to make their sanctuary city more attractive to who they want to draw there to live). Competition for more residents like Dallas and Austin do with new jobs. 

Just my 2 cents.

Just wait...rent control is right around the corner.

Meanwhile, in OK we do evictions in 30 days for $300. 

Motion to sell Seattle to Canada. Bunch of clowns up there. 

Cook County, IL is similar but doesn't sound as blatant. From what my attorneys have told me, the sheriff's office is prevented from doing lockouts when the outside temperature drops to a certain level. You effectively can't get a lockout until the spring. We already prefer to offer former occupants cash for keys but our attorneys said that it's essential during the winter.

For us, we actually prefer to have a non-paying occupant just in the winter months because it reduces the risk of a burst pipes incident in a vacant home. We can time the move out date with the beginning of spring.

Originally posted by @Russ B. :

Next, they'll be wondering why you need perfect credit to get in anywhere.. 

Next, Seattle moves to ban credit checks. Councilmember Kshama Sawant states that people who fail to pay their bills have a disproportionately harder time finding landlords willing to rent to them. Under the new law, the first person who calls 'dibs' is entitled to the place. However, if the first person to calls dibs is a white male, the landlords is allowed to extend the dibs calling process until a more deserving person, such as a woman or person of color can call dibs.

/s

@Patrick McGrath Illinois is the same. While I understand that you don’t want to literally throw someone out into the cold, there are certainly people who will take advantage of it.

Originally posted by @Dennis M. :

Why anyone would run rentals in such immunity states boggles the mind ! Couldn’t be dumber they deserve what they get for voting in insane liberal morons - did I say that out loud ?

it reminds me when i foreclosed on a few buy and hold investors in Detroit and ended up owning rentals there.. same thing but with the utls.. the city wont shut off heat or water in the winter or just about anytime.. and those become liens on your property. tenants know this and simply never pay their utls..  

Originally posted by @Dennis M. :

Why anyone would run rentals in such immunity states boggles the mind ! Couldn’t be dumber they deserve what they get for voting in insane liberal morons - did I say that out loud ?

 It shouldn't boggle the mind. Owning rentals in high demand locations of the high demand metros is the fastest and easiest path to becoming a multimillionaire.  Sure, you got to put up with some stuff you dont want to, but when your property values go up a quarter of a million dollars every 5 years, you learn to deal with it.

Originally posted by @Russell Brazil :

Originally posted by @Dennis M.:

Why anyone would run rentals in such immunity states boggles the mind ! Couldn’t be dumber they deserve what they get for voting in insane liberal morons - did I say that out loud ?

 It shouldn't boggle the mind. Owning rentals in high demand locations of the high demand metros is the fastest and easiest path to becoming a multimillionaire.  Sure, you got to put up with some stuff you dont want to, but when your property values go up a quarter of a million dollars every 5 years, you learn to deal with it.

Touche'

@Scott Mac the same city council who have voted for this idiotic law are also trying to pass taxes against Amazon and other successful companies that provide high paying jobs in the region. Seattle is no longer a business friendly city and we are now seeing companies looking to relocate outside of the city, including Amazon which is now re-directing their future development to Bellevue. Once again, Sawant is pushing her whack job agenda to keep herself relevant

@Parker Eberhard the crazy thing about this is that the threshold for being eligible for this new law is an annual income of $76k or less. In Seattle making less that $76k a year classifies you as living below the poverty line

Originally posted by @Jerry Lucker :

@Patrick McGrath

I lived in Seattle for 30 years. I moved North out of the city and King County. I don’t and wouldn’t own rentals in the city but still have some in the county.

The city council is largely ignorant and socialist as is the current mayor. The city is becoming a sewer. The once beautiful ‘Emerald City’ is still green but now colored with human waste and garbage.

Citizens are afraid to go downtown even in the daytime. The treatment of landlords is indicative of the mindset of fools and despots.

 After 55 years in Seattle, yes lived in the city, not the burbs, when Seafair was the only game in town; well, we also had the Sonics, anyway we've had enough with aforementioned socialism and landlord hate being spewn about, sold all of our investments and moved a few years ago to landlord liked, low taxed, free to breath, great growing economy, sunny, Very Profitable, friendly Arizona and haven't looked back.

You hit the screwball on the head with your comment: "The city council is largely ignorant and socialist as is the current mayor. The city is becoming a sewer."

People don't see that side of Seattle on a casual visit. But, just try investing there. Those of you still trying are brainwashed or masochistic or both. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it .

Originally posted by @Andy Mirza :

Cook County, IL is similar but doesn't sound as blatant. From what my attorneys have told me, the sheriff's office is prevented from doing lockouts when the outside temperature drops to a certain level. You effectively can't get a lockout until the spring. We already prefer to offer former occupants cash for keys but our attorneys said that it's essential during the winter.

For us, we actually prefer to have a non-paying occupant just in the winter months because it reduces the risk of a burst pipes incident in a vacant home. We can time the move out date with the beginning of spring.

The sheriff may not enforce orders when the temperature outside is 15 degrees or colder, or when weather conditions would cause health-related danger to the person being evicted, like during a blizzard, storm or high winds. It's been fair game most of this winter. Even in the summer we have to wait 2-3 months for the sheriff. The service needs to be privitized and the court process streamlined to 30 days, it's currently ridiculous.