Kshama Sawant is carrying through on one of her promises to supporters as she announced she would not seek reelection to keep her District 3 seat on the Seattle City Council.
Friday, the chair of the council’s Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee will lead debate on her proposed legislation to cap late rent fees at $10 per month. The amount matches a limit put in place for tenants in unincorporated King County in 2021.
“Renters don’t get paid late fees when your landlord delays fixing broken appliances, heating, or mold infestations,” Sawant writes in a message to supporters about the proposed cap. “Renters have to pay rent on time regardless of whether your landlord completed your repairs. Alongside renters’ rights activists, union members, the Stay Housed Stay Healthy coalition, and Socialist Alternative, my office is bringing forward legislation to cap the late fees landlords are allowed to charge their tenants for overdue rent at no more than $10/month.”
A council staff report on the legislative proposal concludes the change won’t cost the city but “potential costs of outreach and enforcement” by the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections were not reflected in the analysis.
According to the analysis, SDCI is already “dealing with a substantial increase in call volume, an increase in response time to inquiries for assistance, and staff at or over capacity.”
“This piece of legislation is an incremental addition to an already large body of work,” the report concludes.
Sawant’s office, meanwhile, says, some Seattle renters “have leases that charge an additional $40 or $50 every day the rent is late” and some landlords hit late paying tenants with additional late fee notice delivery fees. The proposed legislation would also band those delivery fees, by the way.
CHS reported here on Sawant’s efforts to form the proposal in January following her announcement that she was not seeking reelection. Similar limits are already in place around the Puget Sound including a cap at 1.5% of the monthly rent in both Kenmore and Redmond. There has also been efforts to institute a statewide cap.
In 2021, the King County Council’s path to approving a cap included a proposal to exclude smaller landlords from the cap but that amendment was voted down.
Sawant’s committee that will consider the late fee cap legislation includes vice-chair Sara Nelson, and members Debora Juarez, Andrew Lewis, and Tammy Morales.
A cap on late fees would join a host of renter protections solidified by Sawant and the council since the pandemic. But as she winds down her final year on the council, Sawant’s biggest remaining tenants rights campaign promise — rent control in the city tied to inflation — remains unmet.city
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Could she also target mortgages, credit card fee and car loans ?
The vast majority of housing providers do not have those usurious $40 and $50 daily late fees in their rental agreements. Those types of unreasonable fees tend to discourage long term tenancy, which most providers would like to encourage. My rental agreements have a single, reasonable late fee (usually $25-$35) which goes into effect five days after rent is due. I think my approach is by far the most common. Rather than restrict all late rent fees to $10, why not ban repeated daily late fees? That seems more logical, and would still allow housing providers to impose a reasonable penalty, large enough to encourage on time payments, upon residents who pay late. After all, late fees are intended to encourage on time payment and need to be large enough to compel performance. I recently received a $200 late fee on my $4700 rental property mortgage when I paid late. If my lender can charge late fees like that, why should I be limited to $10?
She won’t do this because the goal is not to help renters just punish landlords. If enough landlords leave the market the only solution left is government provided housing which is her preferred state.
Well said – Sawant’s laws enacted have hurt those she has tried to help.
Too bad she failed economics 101.
Congratulations on your Hallmarkian life. This push has nothing to do with your class.
It does, because capping all late fees at $10 benefits him way more than everyone else, if you pay 4k in rent what the fuck is $10 to you? What I’m getting from Glenn’s post is that people like him should be charged more. Kshama always pushes simple solutions to complex problems, even if they benefit the upper class who she professes to be fighting against. Why not figure out a way to keep lower income folks late fees low while allowing the wealthy to be charged more? Because that would be hard…..
it is absolutely targeted straight at her “class”
I think some sort of sliding scale based on income would be a nice approach. $10 is a lot to some people while $200 is a drop in the bucket for others… If the goal is to penalize late payments, this seems like it would be a more equitable approach.
“This legislation isn’t needed because most landlords don’t charge these excessive $40 late fees. For instance, I only charge $35.”
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Not claiming to be brilliant, but I think you’re confused about what I said. The $40 fees I referenced were the daily late fees Sawant claims some landlords charge for each day the rent is late. These are fees that go above and beyond whatever initial late fee is charged when the rent initially becomes late. I think eliminating those daily fees is quite reasonable, but I believe capping the initial late fee at $10 is unreasonable because landlords depend on timely rent payments to pay their mortgages and a reasonable late fee encourages on time payments.
I charge an initial late fee of about $35, but no addItional daily late fees. I hope that is clearer.
Sawant sure gets a lot of positive airtime on this blog and in The Stranger. It reminds me of right wing media’s complicity in creating a certain demagogue. Why not an article titled “Lame duck politician fades into irrelevancy” or “a retrospective: “Did Sawant build a movement or a cult?” or “What has Sawant accomplished for District 3?”
It’s because this is Capitol Hill and we re-elected her 3 times so move to Bothell or get hip to it.
She should do her main job of paving roads and keeping us safe. Hire more cops!
I have no intention of moving to Bothell. I am going to stay and fight for common sense solutions grounded in reality and against the performative ideological b*llshit of zealots and grifters.
Because Capitol Hill Sawant followers are made up of a lot of under achieving stoners who want free stuff.
Do your job of the council. Pave the roads they are terrible and keep us safe. Hire more cops.
Cop hiring is Bruce’s job; Council provided budget and he’s failed to fill positions. Road paving is SDOT’s job, who are also Bruce’s responsibility.
A lot of people misconstrue the Mayor’s responsibilities with the Council and seem to give the Mayor a pass while dumping on the Council. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the strong Mayor form of city government.
In theory, the council has oversight and can provide recommendations for these programs, but this work is generally done via the committees.
I’m still surprised that we have the same number of city council members today as we did in 1910, but with triple the population and a much more complicated society, it’s no wonder that people feel underrepresented. I moved here not too long after the 2013 overhaul, but would have loved to have been here for that discussion/debate.
Less cops not more please.
All of Sawant’s Anti-Landlord laws have worked against those she is seemingly trying to help.
These days in Seattle, Landlords are now extremely cautious and will not rent to anyone with poor credit or poor rental history because it is so difficult to Evict bad tenants.
This new $10 late fee will just make the bar higher.
Landlords are the worst. I have one with multiple offenses in the state of Washington currently trying to evict me because I refused to pay a high rent before my lease was up. No pity for Landlords.
Why does this not surprise me
Fun fact: federally regulated mortgage late fee is regulated to 5% of P&I a month, or probably about 3% of an overall payment. PROPERTY TAX late fee is 19% after a month then 29% after two months
ten dollars is barely an incentive at all – with average seattle rent being something like $2300 per google its less than half a percent.
Agree with other similar posts, I’m a small LL and back when I still self managed (that ended with FIT and Fair chance) I only had to apply the late fee a handful of times. IIRC I had it set at $30. I told tenants as long as the late pay was occasional all they had to do to avoid it was tell me ahead of time they were going to be late and tell me when they could pay and never had trouble with that with most. The ones who paid late I ended up charging the fee on were ones I knew could pay on time but kept forgetting about it til I pushed back a very, very little.
Those are some nice statistics Brian, however, no-one made you get a mortgage or buy property, everyone needs a place to sleep for the night… Do you see how those things are a little bit different and that we might want to have different late-fee structures for each?
I appreciate your anecdotal evidence from your own experiences. Unfortunately not all landlords are as forgiving or understanding. I agree that I don’t think a flat $10 cap is the fix, but there should be some additional guardrails/limits
Sawant is not “still fighting for tenants.” She is fighting for herself and her socialist credibility. Good riddance!