This is another post coming out of my experience with the Housing Justice Project in Thurston County. I’ve seen a couple of these pass through the court room now and so far it has not ended well for anyone involved.
To understand why a Tenant working for their Landlord might have problems you just have to imagine what happens when the relationship goes sour. The Landlord has a lot of control over your life. They control the place you live, your job, and to some extent your future because you may have to ask this person for a housing or work reference.
This is a lot of power to give to someone and avoiding those situations would be a good idea if they weren’t so beneficial. If the relationship stays positive there are a lot of benefits to working for a landlord – from discounted rent to a convenient working at home or barter arrangement. These types of tenant/landlord agreements can be extremely advantageous for both parties.
With that in mind, its important to take precautions t0 ensure you protect yourself. First, if you are about to enter into an arrangement where you are working for your landlord ensure you get a lease. In a lease you will know how much rent is owed per month, how long the tenancy is going to last and other important terms of your tenancy like whether or not you are required to give the landlord a deposit and whether there are fees for late rent.
If the choice is between a year lease vs. a month to month, while a month to month does allow for flexibility, it provides less protection to the Tenant because the Landlord is only required to give the Tenant 30 days written notice before they must move out RCW 59.04.020. Although a Landlord may not retaliate against a Tenant who exercises their rights under the RLTA, it is not retaliation if a Landlord ends the month to month tenancy in a lawful way, giving proper, written 30 days notice. Example: It is not retaliation if you quit your job with the Landlord on Monday and your Landlord gives you 30 days written notice that you have to move out of your house on Tuesday. If you have a lease, then the Landlord cannot terminate the lease early unless you have breached the lease, and that is much harder to prove.
Second, get the work agreement in writing and keep the work schedule in writing and updated. The tenant and landlord should write an agreement which outlines terms like: how much the the tenant will be paid per hour of work and how many hours they should work, whether the tenant will be paid by deductions in rent or whether they will receive cash, and what the tenant should do if they need to work over the maximum hours (do they get the landlord’s permission?), etc. The tenant should keep accurate time sheets and records of the amount of work done and any receipts of payment.
Avoid situations where the Landlord takes rent directly from your paycheck. While on the surface it appears easier if the Landlord just deducts rent from a paycheck, trust me, the effort of sending a rent check will be worth it if there is a dispute about what you are owed or how much rent you should pay. The more separate your work is from your home, the better.
Make sure you get receipts whenever money changes hands. Whether you are getting a paycheck or paying rent, you should get some kind of paper evidence that you have paid. If you do not have a bank account or checks this becomes even more important because there is no record that you paid rent (money orders are not good enough because there is no evidence that you gave the money order to the landlord, all that can be proven is that someone cashed the money order).
If you are in a situation right now where you are being taken advantage of by your employer/landlord you can file a complaint with the Washington State Dept. of Labor and Industries, which works on enforcing worker’s rights.
Post script: In Washington the Residential Landlord Tenant Act (RLTA) (RCW 59.18.040(8)) explicitly states that it does not cover circumstances were there is an “Occupancy by an employee of a landlord whose right to occupy is conditioned upon employment in or about the premises.”
This does not mean that a tenant cannot work for a landlord, rather, it means one cannot have the housing only because they are working for the landlord. For example if you live in the home because of the job or as a part of the job (like a live-in health care provider) the RLTA does not apply. If you are a nanny and rent a home from the family who you work for and its separate from your employment (you are free to live there even if you don’t work for them anymore) the RLTA would apply.
