Free Washington Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A Washington commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a workshop — to a tenant who will run a business there. Title 59 holds several chapters: chapter 59.04 covers tenancies generally, chapter 59.12 covers forcible entry and unlawful detainer, and chapter 59.18 is the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act.

Chapters 59.04 and 59.12 are the ones that reach a business tenancy. Section 59.12.030 opens by excepting the limits in RCW 59.18.650 that apply to tenancies under the residential chapter.

Three provisions do the work, and two of them overlap.

Ending a Periodic Tenancy

RCW 59.04.020 provides that where premises are rented for an indefinite time with monthly or other periodic rent reserved, the tenancy is construed as running from month to month, or from period to period on which rent is payable, and is terminated by written notice of thirty days or more preceding the end of any of those months or periods, given by either party to the other.

RCW 59.12.030(2) approaches the same situation differently. A tenant who leased for an indefinite time with periodic rent reserved and stays on after the end of a month or period is in unlawful detainer where the landlord, more than twenty days before the end of that month or period, served notice requiring the tenant to quit at its expiration.

Both sections remain in force. Thirty days satisfies each of them; twenty does not.

Unpaid Rent

RCW 59.04.040 is short. Where a tenant fails to pay rent when due and the landlord notifies the tenant to pay the rent or quit the premises within ten days, the tenancy is forfeited at the end of those ten days unless the rent is paid within them.

More than the tenant. Under RCW 59.12.030, within ten days after service of a notice relating to a condition or covenant of the lease, the tenant, any subtenant in actual occupation of the premises, any mortgagee of the term, or any other person interested in its continuance may perform that condition or covenant and thereby save the lease from forfeiture.

That matters on a financed commercial deal, where a lender holding security over the leasehold has a direct statutory route to protect it.

The section also covers other grounds. A tenant who holds over after the expiration of the term is in unlawful detainer, and where property is leased for a specified term by express or implied contract, written or oral, the tenancy terminates without notice at the expiration of that term. Waste, carrying on an unlawful business, or maintaining a nuisance each carry three days’ notice to quit.

1. Settle the rent and the period it is reserved on, the term, and the outgoings split.
2. State a definite term rather than leaving the letting indefinite, which removes the periodic notice question.
3. If the arrangement will run month to month, plan on thirty days’ notice rather than twenty.
4. List any lender holding security over the leasehold among the parties entitled to notice.
5. Execute the lease and record where notices go for the tenant and any subtenant in occupation.

Title 59 supplies notice and grounds; a Washington commercial lease agreement supplies the deal:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description of the premises and any loading, yard, or parking rights.
• Rent, the period on which it is reserved, and the basis for increases.
• A definite term ending on a stated date, together with any renewal option.
• Conditions and covenants whose breach triggers the cure period.
• Where notice reaches the tenant, any subtenant in occupation, and any leasehold lender.
• Apportionment of taxes, insurance, and utilities, and the rules on transferring the lease.