LEGISLATIVE SESSION 2026 RECAP
Now that April has arrived, the 2026 Legislative Session has officially been over for around two weeks. This year’s legislative session had much less drama than years past, at least in the rental housing sector, but this did give us the opportunity to get some great work done while lawmakers were all worked up about the income tax policy.
Legislative Day on the Hill
I’ll go ahead and start this legislative update with an event recap. Our Legislative Day on the Hill in 2026 was just as well attended as it always is, which was encouraging given the fact that this year’s bills are not quite as exciting as previous years. Co-hosted with the Building Owners and Managers Association, we hosted more than 100 attendees this year!
Attendees got in-person experience speaking to lawmakers, exploring Olympia, and interacting with our Government Affairs team throughout the day. A catered hot lunch along with informative handouts made for a smooth and engaging experience for all who joined us in early February.
Legislative Day on the Hill took place at a crucial moment during Legislative Session. With just about two weeks until the “House of Origin Cutoff,” where many bills are officially dead for the rest of session, our direct engagement with lawmakers made the difference in getting our priority bills across the finish line, as well as providing feedback on bills which were yet to pass out of their house of origin.
I am deeply appreciative of each and every one of you who took a whole day to show up in person to Olympia and speak on behalf of housing providers in Washington state, and I look forward to having you back next year!
Notice Service Bills
As you will know if you have read any of my other articles this year or have joined any of our briefings in this year’s session, fixing certified mail notices has remained at the top of our agenda for this year’s session. I am pleased to announce that both of the notice service bills HB 2664 and HB 2452 have passed in this year’s session. These bills are crucial fixes to our notice service process and completely remove the certified mail provisions that were established just last year. Without our involvement this year, these fixes would not have made it across the finish line, and we are thankful to all of our members who took time out of their day to share their strong support of these policies.
Given that there is not a defined effective date on these policies, they will become law 90 days after they are signed by the governor. This means they will likely go into effect sometime in June, and while this exact date is already available on our website, it is not confirmed as I am writing this article. Check out our website to learn more about when all the new laws will become officially active.
Medium Priority Bills That Passed
As with any year, there are several housing-related bills that passed other than just the notice service bills that we strongly supported. As with the notice service bills, RHAWA will inform you well in advance of when these policies will officially go into effect and how to properly comply.
These are all medium-priority bills that we don’t love, but are not vehemently opposed to either:
SB 6237 adds requirements to provide disclosures related to the possibility of a property being in a flood zone. In practice, this will likely be one additional form to our lease in a similar format as a lead-based paint disclosure.
SB 5937 was originally a bill that we strongly opposed, as it would have added significant administrative burden for any property using electronic entry systems. However, thanks to RHAWA’s feedback and the personal testimony of our members, this bill has been heavily modified and no longer will have a significant impact on small housing providers. Additionally, the requirements this bill imposes on larger apartment complexes are much more tenable than in the original version of the bill.
SB 6200 adds requirements to allow residents to have their own personal cooling units, which could be of slight concern. However, there are significant exceptions in situations where a property cannot support personal cooling units or if residents are not properly installing or maintaining their own cooling units.
In the interest of time and word count, these summaries are clearly not as detailed as a full summary I would provide in my advocacy-related pages on the website. I encourage you to check the RHAWA Support Center or Blog for exact details on these new laws and how to make sure you are staying up to date with all regulations.
Dead Bills
Now we move on to bills that died in this year’s legislative session. Some of these bills would have had a direct negative impact on small housing providers in our state, while others were a direct violation of fundamental property rights. The first two of these bills were a high priority for us to defeat, and the last bill we had concerns about but would have supported if the provisions were modified.
I am happy to announce that SB 5496, which would directly limit property rights in Washington state, died in the second to last week of legislative session. The provisions of this bill state that an entity may not own more than 100 single-family homes, with some exceptions for new builds, substantial rehabilitation, or non-profits. While this bill would not have a direct impact on most small housing providers, it would be a direct limit on fundamental property rights established in the constitution.
RHAWA is philosophically opposed to these kinds of restrictions because it would set an incredibly dangerous precedent for the state to violate some of the most basic rights outlined in our founding values. This bill has served as a controversial policy for much of this year’s legislative session, and RHAWA was instrumental in the defeat of this policy.
HB 2265 was one of our highest-priority bills we opposed this year, as it would have mandated housing providers to provide air conditioning in order for a property to be “habitable” and would have also established an “extreme heat” eviction ban. Given that there are already several cold-weather eviction bans and school-year eviction bans in local jurisdictions, this would have created a system in which there was a very limited amount of time where an eviction would be allowed. This bill was one of the most concerning pieces of legislation presented this year, and I am happy to announce that thanks to our involvement and the voices of our members, this bill is dead in this year’s session and is unlikely to return in the future.
SB 6139 is the last bill I will share an update on, and it is also the only other bill directly related to rental housing that is dead in 2026. This bill was both good and bad: it would have allowed housing providers to accept partial rental payments during an eviction without delaying the eviction process, but it would have also required that all previous methods of payment that were available when a lease was originally signed must remain available for the duration of a tenancy. The latter part of these provisions would have clearly caused issues in a situation where a housing provider switched banks, property management systems, or a rental property was sold with a tenant still residing there. Clearly, this bill was all over the place and may be reworked in a future session.
Stay on the Lookout!
Despite the fact that state lawmakers are done this year, that does not mean now is the time to rest. Local city councils often wait until legislative session is over to develop local policy, so it is more important than ever to keep an eye on your inbox for changes in your local jurisdiction.
We had quite the successful legislative session this year, and I am thankful to all members who showed up digitally and in person. All of our highest-priority PRO bills passed, and all of our highest-priority CON bills failed. This establishes a great foundation for success in next year’s session. Stay informed and stay involved—you will hear from the RHAWA Government Affairs team very soon.