![]() This answer is intended as a courtesy only, and does not constitute an attorney-client relationship between the attorney and the questioner. The unsworn statement must state: (1) that it is certified or declared by the person to be true under penalty of perjury: (2) the date and place of its execution and (3) that it is so certified or declared under the laws of the state of Washington. There are many good quality real estate lawyers in your area if you need them. If the tenant does move out early, you have a duty under both lease law and contract law in this state (not all states) to mitigate your damage, and you can't just sit on the empty property and let damages build up without trying to find a substitute tenant. ![]() The notary requirement pertains to whether the lease is valid. ![]() You can record a notarized lease (like recording a deed) if the property description is sufficient (this is something the tenant would be interested in doing, not necessarily the landlord), but the notary requirement is irrelevant to whether the lease is recordable or not. It doesn't change the terms of the lease it merely ratifies your act of signing. An acknowledgment can be done after the fact (most acknowledgments are done after the fact, actually). The tenant can possibly break the "lease" but he (she) can't so easily break the "contract." I don't see why you can't have your own signature acknowledged now. So maybe you don't have a valid 3-year lease (yet), but if the tenant signed it, you have a contract which just happens to contain the same terms as a lease. Even if a lease fails to satisfy the notary requirement, it is still a contract and enforceable as a contract, according to the case of Seattle-First National Bank v. This is in accordance with another old case, McKennon v Anderson, 49 Wn.2d 55, 298 P.2d 492 (1956). All a tenant has to do is take possession of the property, begin paying rent, and act in compliance with the lease, and when that happens the lease becomes enforceable even if not notarized. Technically a tenant doesn't even have to sign a lease. Notice that it is only the landord's signature, not the tenant's, which must be notarized. ![]() This is because of an an old case which is still good law, holding that an un-notarized lease is no better than an oral lease, and an oral lease is merely a month-to-month tenancy. An attempted lease for 3 years which is not effective because the landlord's signature is not notarized does not become a 12-month lease it becomes a month-to-month tenancy. The reason is that a long term lease is a distant relative of a deed, and a seller's signature on a deed must notarized. But here's a summary: For a lease longer than one year, the landlord's signature must be acknowledged (notarized) in the same manner as a seller's signature on a deed. This is great stuff for lawyers, because the legal principles are murky, and murky principles make for thrilling litigation. ![]()
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