60.72.010 - Liens created -- Priority -- Extent -- Exceptions.

Liens created — Priority — Extent — Exceptions.

Any person to whom rent may be due, his or her executors, administrators, or assigns, shall have a lien for such rent upon personal property which has been used or kept on the rented premises by the tenant, except property of third persons delivered to or left with the tenant for storage, repair, manufacture, or sale, or under conditional bills of sale duly filed, and such property as is exempt from execution by law. Such liens for rent shall be paramount to, and have 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. Such liens shall not be for more than two months' rent due, except that a lien for up to four months' rent due may be established when the tenant is renting a mobile home lot in a mobile home park as defined in RCW 59.20.030. No lien may be enforced for any rent or any installment thereof which has been due for more than two months at the time of the commencement of an action to foreclose such liens, except that a lien may be enforced for rent due for up to four months at the time of the commencement of an action to foreclose the lien when the tenant is renting a mobile home lot in a mobile home park as defined in RCW 59.20.030. No writing or recording shall be necessary to create such lien; and if such property be removed from the rented premises and not returned to the owner, agent, executor, administrator, or assign, the lien shall continue and be a superior lien on the property so removed for ten days from the date of its removal, and the lien may be enforced against the property wherever found. In the event the property contained in the rented premises be destroyed by fire or other elements, the lien shall extend to any money that may be received by the tenant as indemnity for the destruction of the property, nor shall the lien be lost by the sale of the property, except merchandise sold in the usual course of trade or to purchasers without notice of the tenancy. The provisions of this chapter shall not apply to, nor shall it be enforced against, the property of tenants in dwelling houses or apartments or any other place that is used exclusively as a home or residence of the tenant and his or her family.

[1990 c 169 § 3; 1927 c 108 § 1; 1917 c 165 § 1; RRS § 1203-1. Formerly RCW 60.72.010, 60.72.020, 60.72.030.]