Free Washington Sublease Agreement

Washington does not tell you whether you may sublet — your lease does. What the RLTA does is treat the subtenant as a real participant in the tenancy: named in the duties, named in the grounds for termination, and named among those who can stop an eviction by paying.

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Watch: Washington Sublease Agreement explained

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RCW 59.18.650 sets out the causes for which a landlord may end a tenancy, and subtenants are written into it. One enumerated cause is that the tenant “continues in possession in person or by subtenant after a default in the payment of rent, and after written notice requiring, in the alternative, the payment of the rent or the surrender of the detained premises has remained uncomplied with” for the period set in RCW 59.12.030(3). A subtenant in occupation is possession by the tenant for this purpose — the tenant cannot say they have gone, and the subtenant cannot say the default is not theirs.

• The property address including unit number, and the county.
• The names of the tenant (as sublessor) and the subtenant, and any other occupants.
• The sublease term, ending on or before your own tenancy ends.
• The rent, the due date, and how it is paid.
• The deposit, who holds it, and the conditions and timing for return.
• Which utilities and services the subtenant pays.
• A reference to the landlord’s written permission and its date.
• An acknowledgment that the subtenant has received the rental agreement.
• A note that a subtenant may pay into court under RCW 59.18.410.
• Signatures and dates from both parties.

• Looking for a Washington sublet statute and building on what you find. RCW 59.18 has no section governing consent to sublet. The clause in your agreement is the rule.
• Thinking subletting takes you out of the Act. RCW 59.18.030 includes a sublessor in the definition of landlord, so the Act’s duties now run in both directions for you.
• Assuming moving out ends your exposure. Under RCW 59.18.650(2)(a) possession continued “in person or by subtenant” after a rent default is cause.
• Never telling the subtenant about RCW 59.18.410. They are expressly among those who may pay into court and have the judgment satisfied and the tenancy restored.
• Ignoring the drug-activity provisions. RCW 59.18.130(6) makes it the tenant’s duty not to allow a subtenant or sublessee to engage in drug-related activity, and findings under RCW 59.18.390 and 59.18.400 remove the bond and set-off routes.

Your rental agreement decides. The Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, RCW chapter 59.18, contains no section governing whether a tenant may sublet, so a clause requiring the landlord’s written permission is effective and a clause prohibiting subletting is effective.

What makes Washington interesting is not the silence on consent but how thoroughly the Act deals with subtenants everywhere else. The legislature clearly contemplated that subleases exist; it simply left the permission question to the parties.

That single word puts a sublessor inside the Act’s landlord obligations. You remain a tenant toward the person you rent from, and you simultaneously become a landlord toward the person you sublet to. Habitability, notice, access and deposit handling are now duties you owe as well as duties you are owed.

People who sublet casually rarely register this. It is the single most useful thing to know before signing a Washington sublease, because it reframes the arrangement from “collecting some rent” into “operating a tenancy”.

This is a genuinely valuable provision for a subtenant, and it is invisible to anyone who has not read the Act. A subtenant whose sublessor has stopped paying the head rent is not simply a bystander watching their home disappear: they are a party interested in the continuance of the tenancy, and the statute lets them pay the arrears and have the judgment satisfied.

Tell your subtenant this exists. It costs you nothing and it may one day be the difference between them losing the unit and keeping it — in a scenario caused by you.

Washington is a just-cause state: RCW 59.18.650 enumerates the reasons a landlord may end a tenancy, refuse to continue it, or end a periodic tenancy. Subtenants appear inside that list.

One of the enumerated causes is that the tenant continues in possession “in person or by subtenant” after a default in the payment of rent, and after written notice requiring either payment or surrender has remained uncomplied with for the period in RCW 59.12.030(3).

The phrase does real work in both directions. A tenant who has moved out and left a subtenant behind is still in possession for this purpose — they cannot treat their physical absence as the end of the tenancy. And the subtenant, who may be paying their own sublease rent perfectly, is nonetheless the means by which possession is continuing during someone else’s default.

RCW 59.18.130 sets out the tenant’s duties, and subsection (6) requires the tenant not to engage in drug-related activity at the rental premises, or allow a subtenant, sublessee, resident, or anyone else to engage in drug-related activity at the premises with the tenant’s knowledge or consent.

The consequences elsewhere are severe and are worth knowing precisely because they cut across the usual protections. Under RCW 59.18.400, where the complaint alleges the tenancy should be terminated because the defendant tenant, subtenant, sublessee or resident engaged in drug-related activity, no set-off is allowed as a defence. Under RCW 59.18.390, where a writ of restitution is based on a court finding of drug-related activity by the tenant, subtenant, sublessee or a person residing at the premises, neither the tenant nor a person in possession may post a bond to retain possession.

For a sublessor, the practical point is that you are answerable for conduct you allowed. For a subtenant, it is that the ordinary routes to hold on to possession are closed off in this specific category.

Because a sublessor is a landlord under RCW 59.18.030, the Act’s deposit machinery applies to the deposit your subtenant gives you, and you owe them the Act’s obligations in respect of it. Separately, the deposit you gave your own landlord remains yours to recover under your own tenancy.

Keep them apart. Do not plan to use the subtenant’s deposit to cover deductions your landlord makes against yours — those are two different accountings, and conflating them is how sublease arrangements end in a dispute that outlasts the tenancy.

With no statutory consent rule, the sublease is carrying the arrangement. It should identify the premises and every occupant, state the term with dates, set the rent and the due date, record the deposit and the conditions for its return, allocate utilities, and reference the landlord’s written permission and its date. Attach or deliver the head lease, and say in the sublease that you have done so.

A sublease is for a temporary departure with an intended return. An assignment transfers your entire remaining interest, and only a release from the landlord ends your liability. A roommate joining you while you stay is an occupancy question your agreement will usually treat separately. Washington gives you no statutory default for any of these, so the document has to say which one you mean.

Because the Act says nothing about consent, its value to someone in a sublease sits in the sections that govern possession, deposits, abandonment and waiver. All four apply to you twice over — as a tenant of your landlord, and as a landlord of your subtenant, since RCW 59.18.030 includes a sublessor in that definition.

This is the answer to the worst sublease scenarios, and it binds a sublessor as much as an owner. If your subtenant will not leave, the route is a court order — not a lock change, not their belongings on the landing. Doing it the other way exposes you to actual damages plus their costs and attorneys’ fees.

Within 30 days after the rental agreement terminates and the premises are vacated — or, where the tenant abandons as defined in RCW 59.18.310, within 30 days after the landlord learns of the abandonment — the landlord must give a full and specific statement of the basis for retaining any of the deposit, together with any refund due. Delivery is personal or by first-class mail to the tenant’s last known address within the 30 days.

And the statement is not just an assertion: the landlord must include copies of estimates received or invoices paid to reasonably substantiate damage charges. As a sublessor holding your subtenant’s deposit, this is your obligation to meet. Take dated photographs at the start and end, and keep the invoices for anything you intend to deduct.

Where a tenant defaults in rent and reasonably indicates by words or actions an intention not to resume the tenancy, the section makes them liable for the abandonment — but with an express proviso that on learning of the abandonment the landlord shall make a reasonable effort to mitigate the damages.

The measure then depends on the tenancy. Month to month: rent for the thirty days following either the date the landlord learns of the abandonment or the date the next regular payment would have fallen due, whichever comes first. Longer than month to month: the lesser of the entire rent for the remainder of the term, or all rent accrued during the period reasonably necessary to re-rent at a fair rental, plus the difference between that fair rental and the agreed rent, plus the landlord’s actual re-renting costs.

In a sublease this cuts both ways. If your subtenant walks out, you owe them a mitigation effort before you can charge the balance. If you walk out on your own landlord, the same limits apply in your favour.

Subsection (1)(b) goes further for agreements entered into in an unlawful detainer action: one requiring the tenant to pay an amount in violation of RCW 59.18.283 or the judgment limits in RCW 59.18.410, or waiving the tenant’s rights under RCW 59.18.410 or any other right afforded by the chapter, is void and unenforceable.

For a sublease, the drafting instruction is direct. Do not write clauses that purport to strip your subtenant of chapter rights — a non-refundable deposit, a waiver of the right to pay into court, a right of entry without notice. Their signature does not make such a clause effective, and including it tells a reader something about the rest of the document.

A sublease rarely arrives on its own. Most people reach one because something else has changed — a job in another city, a relationship ending, a lease with months left on it — so it is worth knowing what the alternatives cost before you commit to this one. Our guide to breaking a lease in Washington sets out the early-exit routes and what each of them exposes you to, and in some situations ending the tenancy outright is cleaner than running a sublease you will have to manage from a distance.

The two disputes that actually follow a sublease are about money and about possession. On money, the deposit is where most of it happens, and the rules that govern what a landlord may take and when it has to come back are set out in Washington security deposit laws — worth reading before you decide what to hold from your subtenant, and before you assume you know what the owner may hold from you.

On possession, the notices and timelines that apply if things go wrong are covered in Washington eviction notice laws. You are the landlord in the sublease relationship, so those rules are as likely to be yours to use as to be used against you.

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