Can a Seattle HOA or Condo Association Approve or Reject Your Tenant?

Unlike a New York co-op, where the corporation's board reviews and can deny a prospective tenant directly, Washington's condominium and HOA statutes don't give boards that authority as a matter of state law. RCW 64.34.308, which sets out a condo board's general powers, covers matters like budgets, the declarant control period, and director elections, not tenant approval. The same structural reality applies under RCW 64.38 for non-condo HOAs and RCW 64.90 (WUCIOA) for newer associations.

That doesn't mean a board has no role at all. A declaration can reserve a registration requirement, a notice-and-fee process, or even a review right if the original governing documents specifically grant one, the same way a condo declaration in any state can add restrictions the base statute doesn't require. What it means is a landlord shouldn't assume a Seattle board runs anything resembling a co-op-style approval process unless that specific building's declaration says otherwise.

Seattle's Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, passed in 2017, originally banned landlords from even asking about an applicant's arrest record, conviction record, or criminal history. Three landlords and the Rental Housing Association challenged that inquiry ban in federal court. The Ninth Circuit ruled in March 2023 that banning landlords from asking about or receiving publicly available criminal history information violated the First Amendment. As of 6 June 2023, the Seattle Office for Civil Rights stopped enforcing that specific inquiry ban.

That's a meaningfully different legal landscape than New York City, where the Fair Chance for Housing Act still bars any inquiry into criminal history before a conditional offer. In Seattle, a landlord can now ask.

The 2023 ruling struck down the inquiry ban specifically. Two other pieces of the ordinance remain in effect: landlords still cannot require an applicant to disclose their criminal history, and cannot take an adverse action, denying the application, based on that history. Advertising language that automatically excludes people with a criminal record ("no felons," "clean record required") is also still prohibited.

In practice, that means a landlord can now ask the question, and possibly conduct a sex offender registry check with a documented legitimate business reason, but still cannot make the actual rental decision turn on the answer.

It's easy to assume a rule this specific applies more broadly than it does. It doesn't. King County's own 2025 Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice confirms Seattle is the only city in the county that restricts criminal-history screening this way; unincorporated King County and other cities in the county have no equivalent rule. Washington's statewide Fair Chance Act is also a common point of confusion, it governs employment background checks, not housing.

Whether or not your building's declaration requires anything, keep a written record of your own screening criteria and apply it consistently across applicants. If your application process includes a criminal history question, document that the actual approval or denial decision was based on other criteria, income, credit, references, not the criminal history answer. If the building requires tenant registration, get that process and its fees in writing from the managing agent before you promise a tenant a move-in timeline.

Substantive review means an editor or reviewer checked this article against the current statute text, the Ninth Circuit's 2023 opinion, and the cited third-party guidance. Seattle's Fair Chance Housing enforcement position changed materially in 2023 and could change again with further litigation; verify the Seattle Office for Civil Rights' current enforcement position before relying on this for a screening decision. This is general information, not legal advice. Corrections: compliance@platuni.com