October 2026: first publication.
A Washington commercial landlord holds an automatic lien for up to two months’ unpaid rent on personal property the tenant kept on the premises, under RCW 60.72.010. Selling that property ordinarily requires foreclosure under chapter 60.10 RCW, and any surplus belongs to the tenant.
Search for what to do with a tenant’s abandoned property in Washington and the residential rules come back almost every time: the notice to the last known address, the waiting period, the low-value threshold. Those rules are real. They also do not govern a warehouse in Georgetown or a restaurant space downtown.
The commercial answer sits in a different, older, much shorter chapter, and it runs the other way around. A commercial landlord does not earn a claim on the property by following a procedure. The claim already exists once rent is due, and the window for using it is shorter than most owners expect.
At a glance
- Chapter 59.18 RCW, the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, carries the storage and sale procedure most landlords have read about, including a 45 day wait after notice and a 7 day route for property with a cumulative value of $250 or less (RCW 59.18.310).
- No writing and no recording are needed to create the commercial landlord’s lien (RCW 60.72.010).
- The lien is paramount to all other liens except liens for taxes, general and special liens of labor, and liens of mortgages duly recorded prior to the tenancy.
- Every aspect of a sale, including method, manner, time, place and terms, must be commercially reasonable, and the lienholder must account to the tenant for any surplus (RCW 60.10.030).
- A lien debtor whose lienholder does not follow chapter 60.10 RCW has a right to recover, in any event, an amount not less than ten percent of the original lien claimed (RCW 60.10.060).
Does Washington’s abandoned property law for landlords apply to a commercial lease?
No. Washington splits residential and commercial tenancies into separate schemes, and the storage and sale procedure landlords usually find first sits inside the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act at RCW 59.18.310. The commercial chapter states on its own face that it does not apply to the property of tenants in dwelling houses or apartments, or any other place used exclusively as a home or residence of the tenant and family.
- Washington law sets the residential route in RCW 59.18.310: a landlord may take and store the tenant’s property, must make reasonable efforts to notify the tenant, and may sell or dispose of it after 45 days from the date the notice of sale or disposal is mailed or personally delivered.
- Washington law shortens that wait to 7 days where the property has a cumulative value of $250 or less, but personal papers, family pictures, and keepsakes cannot be sold or disposed of on that shorter timeline.
- Going the other way, RCW 60.72.010 states that the commercial lien chapter does not apply to, and is not enforced against, the property of tenants in dwelling houses or apartments or any other place used exclusively as a home or residence.
- For a conventional lease of office, retail, industrial, restaurant, or warehouse space, chapter 60.72 RCW supplies the landlord’s lien, and RCW 60.72.040 sends its foreclosure to chapter 60.10 RCW rather than to chapter 59.18 RCW.
Exception: Mixed-use buildings and live-work space can carry both characters at once. The residence-only language in RCW 60.72.010 speaks of a place used exclusively as a home, so in our reading it is applied to the specific unit rather than to the building as a whole.
According to RCW 60.72.010, Washington State Legislature, as of September 2026.
Owners may call us after they have already read the residential statute and started counting days against it. What this means: the calendar is the wrong calendar, and the one that actually governs started running when the rent went unpaid, not when a notice went in the mail. Caught in the first few weeks, that is a paperwork correction. Caught after the equipment has been sold, it is a claim.
What lien does a Washington commercial landlord have on property a tenant leaves behind?
Washington law gives any person to whom rent is due a lien for that rent on personal property that has been used or kept on the rented premises by the tenant. No writing and no recording are needed to create it.
- Washington law caps the lien at two months’ rent due, except on a mobile home lot in a mobile home park as defined in RCW 59.20.030, where up to four months may be established (RCW 60.72.010).
- Washington law makes the lien paramount to, and gives it preference over, all other liens except liens for taxes, general and special liens of labor, and liens of mortgages duly recorded prior to the tenancy.
- The lien does not reach property of third persons delivered to or left with the tenant for storage, repair, manufacture, or sale, or held under conditional bills of sale duly filed.
- The lien does not reach property that is exempt from execution by law.
- If property is destroyed by fire or other elements, the lien extends to any money the tenant receives as indemnity for the destruction.
Exception: A lien is not a right of entry. Whether a landlord may enter, change locks, exclude the tenant, or take control of the property turns on the lease, the manner of any surrender or abandonment, an unlawful detainer proceeding, and any bankruptcy filing, none of which RCW 60.72.010 addresses.
According to RCW 60.72.010, Washington State Legislature, as of September 2026.
The part that surprises owners is how little there is to do to have the lien in the first place. There is no filing and no recording, so you are not asking a court for permission to hold a claim, you are asking it to enforce one that already exists. Two months is typically the ceiling. A tenant who walked out owing eight months of rent does not leave you an eight month lien, and the equipment on the floor is not a substitute for the rest of the judgment.
How long does a Washington commercial landlord have to act on the lien?
Washington law bars enforcement of the lien for any rent, or any installment of rent, that has been due for more than two months at the time the foreclosure action is commenced.
| Situation | What RCW 60.72.010 sets |
|---|---|
| Maximum rent the lien secures | Two months’ rent due, or up to four months on a mobile home lot in a mobile home park as defined in RCW 59.20.030 |
| Age limit on enforceable rent | No lien enforced for rent due more than two months when the foreclosure action is commenced |
| Property removed from the premises and not returned | The lien continues as a superior lien on the removed property for ten days from the date of removal, enforceable wherever the property is found |
| Property sold by the tenant | The lien is not lost by the sale, except merchandise sold in the usual course of trade or to purchasers without notice of the tenancy |
| Property in a dwelling or residence | The chapter does not apply and is not enforced against it |
Exception: The statute measures the two months against the commencement of an action to foreclose. Chapter 60.10 RCW also allows a summary foreclosure by notice and sale, which has no filing date, and the statute does not spell out how the commencement rule maps onto that route.
According to RCW 60.72.010, Washington State Legislature, as of September 2026.
“Two months” appears twice in this statute, and the two uses are doing different work. One caps how much rent the lien can secure. The other caps how old that rent can be when a foreclosure action starts. It is not a grace period. It is a deadline, and an owner who spends the summer being reasonable about a payment plan can reach fall holding a claim the statute no longer lets them enforce.
How does a commercial landlord in Washington sell property left behind?
Washington law directs that a landlord’s lien be foreclosed as provided in chapter 60.10 RCW, which offers either a judicial foreclosure action or a summary foreclosure by notice and sale.
- Choose the route. RCW 60.72.040 sends the lien to chapter 60.10 RCW, which allows a judicial foreclosure in the district court where the property is situated if the value of the claim does not exceed the district court’s civil jurisdictional limit, a judicial foreclosure in superior court above that limit, or summary procedure under the chapter (RCW 60.10.020).
- Send notification before any sale. Washington law requires reasonable notification of the time and place of a public sale, or of the time after which a private sale or other disposition will be made, sent to the lien debtor by first-class mail and by registered or certified mail (RCW 60.10.030).
- Send the same notification, except in the case of consumer goods, to any other person who holds a security interest in the collateral and has duly filed a financing statement indexed in the name of the lien debtor in this state, or who is known to the lienholder to hold one. As a practical matter, run and keep a Washington UCC search under the tenant’s exact legal name first, because the notice list depends on what is filed and indexed there.
- Keep every aspect of the disposition commercially reasonable, including the method, manner, time, place and terms, construed as provided in RCW 60.10.070. Before accepting a bid or offer, tell the bidder of any prior lien or security interest and who holds it, or say that the information is unknown.
- Apply the proceeds in the statutory order: first the reasonable expenses of retaking, holding, preparing for sale and selling, including reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal expenses to the extent the agreement provides for them and the law does not prohibit them, then the indebtedness secured by the lien, then any subordinate security interest that makes written demand before distribution is complete. Account to the lien debtor for any surplus, and unless otherwise agreed the lien debtor is not liable for any deficiency from that disposition. This provision governs the lien disposition itself.
Exception: Notification of the sale is not required where the collateral is perishable, threatens to decline speedily in value, or is of a type customarily sold on a recognized market.
According to RCW 60.10.030, Washington State Legislature, as of September 2026.
Most of the disputes we see in this area are about the sale, not about the lien. Here is what tends to go wrong: the equipment moves quickly to a buyer who was already lined up, at a number nobody wrote down, without a letter to the bank that filed a financing statement on it. Each of those steps is defensible standing alone. Together they are hard to describe as commercially reasonable a year later, in a deposition, to a tenant’s lawyer holding an appraisal.
What happens if a landlord disposes of the property without following chapter 60.10 RCW?
A court may order or restrain the disposition on appropriate terms, and where the disposition has already occurred the lien debtor may recover any loss caused by the failure to comply. Washington law sets a floor on that recovery of not less than ten percent of the original lien claimed.
- Washington law extends the right to recover the loss caused by a failure to comply to the lien debtor and to any person entitled to notification, or whose security interest was made known to the lienholder before the disposition (RCW 60.10.060).
- The ten percent minimum runs to the lien debtor specifically. That party has a right to recover, in any event, an amount not less than ten percent of the original lien claimed, which does not turn on proving an actual loss in that amount.
- The Washington Court of Appeals, Division Three, applied the rule that a tenant who voluntarily surrenders possession of personal property as payment for rent due under the lease allows the landlord to take the benefit of the lien without initiating foreclosure proceedings (Peyton Building, LLC v. Niko’s Gourmet, Inc.). That rule turns on a surrender of identified property as payment, so a lockout, an abandonment, or a possession order standing alone is not the same thing.
- In the same opinion the court wrote that the landlord presumably must then credit or pay the tenant any surplus sale proceeds or unsold personal property, within a reasonable time, and may otherwise be liable for conversion.
- In our experience, the surrender language in a stipulated eviction order is where these disputes are settled or created, because it addresses what was handed over and on what terms.
Exception: Where a perfected security interest, a federal tax lien, or a bankruptcy filing is in play, the disposition is no longer governed by chapter 60.10 RCW alone. A bankruptcy filing in particular may impose an automatic stay reaching possession, sale, and the application of proceeds.
According to Peyton Building, LLC v. Niko’s Gourmet, Inc., No. 30840-5-III, Washington Court of Appeals, Division Three, as of April 2014.
The “ten percent floor” gets attention because it does not require the tenant to prove anything about value. What could go wrong: a landlord keeps restaurant equipment and trade fixtures the tenant values at $110,235 to cover two months of rent totaling $15,866, and never accounts for the difference. That is close to the record in Peyton, where the lien itself was never the problem. The landlord won summary judgment in the trial court, and the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment on the amounts kept under the lien and sent the surplus question back for trial.
Where this goes sideways for Seattle landlords
Property left behind is rarely the main event when a commercial tenancy ends. It becomes the main event about a year later, when the tenant’s counsel asks what happened to the equipment and there is no notice, no appraisal, and no accounting to point at. The window and the notification list are the two things that decide it, and both are straightforward while the space is still sitting empty.
K&S Canon assists Seattle commercial landlords and property owners with lease enforcement, commercial eviction, and the disposition of property a tenant leaves on the premises. Call 206-507-4009 or reach the firm through the K&S Canon contact page.