Fall 2025 - Property Management Q&A - Lease Renewal Notice
Question:
If a property manager makes an offer for renewal with the proper amount of notice, what do you do when the tenant and the owner start negotiating on price and terms? Since this is in Seattle, do I have to serve another notice with 6 months’ notice, and do I have to post the agreed upon terms on their door? The owner and tenant have been negotiating for 6 months, and we made 2 written counter offers, and two others via email. The tenant has decided to accept the very first offer that was posted on their door and sent to them. but now the owners don’t want to honor that offer. Does a subsequent offer rescind the previous offers?
Answer:
Without seeing the notices you issued, what I can say is that the tenant needs to accept the offer of extension within 30 days of receipt. The initial extension offer must be issued between 60 and 90 days prior to lease expiration. Because I am not sure you issued the original notice correctly, let’s run through that.
Notices of lease extension offers need to be issued in the same form as required for pay or vacate notices. See RCW 59.12.040. Also, please note that this statute was amended in 2025, requiring any mailed component of such a notice to be certified mail and requiring an additional five days in the timeline for delivery of the mail. Because the subject property is in Seattle, any notice of rent increase would have had to be issued at least 180 days before the lease expired and that notice must also have been issued in the manner provided in RCW 59.12.040.
I would say that the law presumes that the landlord and tenant may engage in some sort of negotiation after the notice(s) were issued. The tenant has the absolute right to evaluate the landlord’s renewal offer. Unlike the normal rules of offer/counteroffer/acceptance, in this context, negotiation or counteroffer does not terminate the original offer of a lease extension. Therefore, based on your facts, assuming all the notices were correctly issued, the tenant has 30 days to consider that offer and can compel the landlord to grant the extension agreement.
Again, since this is in Seattle, we need to consider the impact of local ordinances as well, Seattle has a “right of first refusal” to extend a lease. This can be found in SMC 7.24.030(a)(1) which provides in relevant part as follows: Except as provided in subsection 7.24.030(J)(2), the landlord must offer the tenant for whom the tenancy for a specified time is expiring a new tenancy on reasonable terms for the same rental unit, with the new tenancy starting on the day after the expiration of the tenancy for a specified time. The landlord must make that offer between 60 and 90 days before the expiration of the tenancy for a specified time and before the landlord offers tenancy to any third party. The landlord must deliver a proposed rental agreement to the tenant in accordance with RCW 59.12.040 and give the tenant 30 days to accept or decline the proposed rental agreement. (emphasis added).
The “right of first refusal” notice need not be issued if the landlord and tenant have already signed a lease extension more than 90 days before the lease expiration date. I am informed by many property managers that they are starting lease renewal negotiations 90 or 120 days before the lease expires, to try and avoid the need to issue that particular notice.
About the Author
Christopher T. Benis is an attorney with First Avenue Law Group, PLLC in Seattle. The information contained herein is not legal advice. You are encouraged to consult with your attorney before relying on anything contained herein.
RE Magazine Fall 2025 Digital Issue
Articles
- Message From The President
- Market Statistics — Construction Costs & the Housing Market
- WASHINGTON REALTOR® Profile: Brooks Glenn
- Legal Hotline: WUCIOA — What Is It & Why Do I Care?
- Property Management Q&A — Lease Renewal Notice
- Selling Safely: Agent Self-Defense in 3D!
- We Give a &!#% About Your Success
- Designation Spotlight, MRP: Rich Jacobson