Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Washington
No notice termination of Month to Month
We recently let a friend move in. She paid first last and fee upon moving in. 10 weeks later, she moved out without any notice leaving all her belongings. We applied the last months rent to her bill but were left 2 weeks short as well as not having any notice. We atempted to contact her and return her property with no success. Now she is contacting us in a threatening manner asking for the money from the last month and belongings that she left. after 3 mos of not being able to reach her or her family (with notable proof) we gave her things of no value (cltohing) to a shelter. We only have one item here and we have agreed to return that no problem.She moved in the end of January 03'and left the 10th of March. We are unsure of what we can do to protect ourselves. Do we owe her the money or does she owe us money for storage and rent for the time we had no notice or are we even??? Can we get into trouble for not maintaining her other belongings? We do not wish to go to court over trying to help a friend but we are unsure what we are going to do or should do. Thank you for your time.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: No notice termination of Month to Month
You should be okay. First, it won't be worth her while to press the matter. You can claim improper notice and additional rent for her failure to provide 20 days notice. It appears you waited 3 months and tried to contact her regarding her belongings. RCW 59.18 provides that abandoned property must be kept for (I believe without looking it up) 45 days. You have easily satisfied that. She could press the issue and there are certainly no guarantees in court but I think you've got the upper hand and, other than the headache of her claims, not much to worry about from a monetary standpoint.
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