A recent Washington Court of Appeals case provides a useful warning about missing some of the formalities required for a valid lease in Washington, but also shows a court willing to step in to save a defective lease, recognizing the potential unfairness in letting a party walk away from what everyone intended to be a binding agreement.

Washington law is unusually stringent in the formal steps required to create a valid lease.  Leases for a term over a year must be in the form of a “deed,” which in practical terms means that:

• the lease must be in writing; 
• the signatures (at least of the landlord) must be acknowledged by a notary, and 
• the parties must attach an adequate legal description to the lease.

Not surprisingly, in the real world landlords and tenants often run afoul of some of these requirements; however, this isn’t necessarily fatal for a lease.

In the Losh case, the parties attached the required legal description for the leased property to the lease, but the legal description was incomplete. The court found that the incomplete legal description rendered the lease invalid, but went on to enforce the lease anyway.  The court noted that the tenant had paid rent and generally acquiesced to the terms of the lease.

While cases like Losh may be comforting to a landlord or tenant trying to enforce a flawed lease, when the parties are preparing and signing a lease it is obviously safer to comply with all of the required formalities so that they don’t have to convince a court later to rescue the lease.