Washington HOA occupancy limits

The rule is direct. A Washington HOA cannot limit the number of unrelated people who occupy a home. The classic restrictions this voids are the ones that define an allowed household by family relationship, or that cap unrelated housemates at two or three. Those provisions are unenforceable, and in many cases they also run into fair housing law.

The exceptions are about safety and short-term rentals, not relationships. An association can enforce occupant-load limits based on square footage, health and safety provisions from the building code or a local ordinance, and occupancy limits that apply to short-term rentals. What it cannot do is use a family-relationship test to decide who counts as a household.

If you plan to share the home, read these before you make an offer:

• Any covenant defining who may occupy a home by family relationship, which is void.
• Any cap on the number of unrelated occupants, which the statute does not allow.
• Occupant-load or health-and-safety limits, which the HOA can still enforce.
• Board minutes for occupancy disputes or enforcement letters.

Buyers who plan to live with roommates, an unmarried partner, or extended family sometimes find a covenant that seems to forbid it. In Washington, that kind of unrelated-persons limit is void, and a board that still tries to enforce it is overreaching.

An HOA Notes brief reads the occupancy and household provisions against the statute, flags a family-relationship restriction that cannot stand, and cites the page behind each finding.

Washington Revised Code 64.38.170 and 64.90.575 (Unrelated occupant limits void). An association cannot limit or restrict the number of persons who may occupy a dwelling unit on the basis that they are unrelated to each other; restrictions that effectively exclude housemates, domestic partners, or extended household members on account of their family status or relationship to the owner are void under both the HOA Act (RCW 64.38.170) and WUCIOA (RCW 64.90.575); such restrictions may also violate fair housing law. The association may enforce occupancy limits that are based on the number of persons per square foot of living area, in compliance with applicable housing codes; it may enforce non-discriminatory restrictions that relate to health, safety, or structural capacity.

When you read the disclosure packet, watch for only family members related by blood marriage or adoption may occupy any unit, no more than two unrelated persons may reside in any unit, and occupancy limited to owner and immediate family members. HOA Notes flags each of these against the statute and tells you which restrictions are actually enforceable.