Can you help give us the information we need to fight this landlord's claim?

Full question:

One of our twin daughters moved out of our home and moved in with a 24 year old when she was 16. We did everything we could think of to prevent this, but were told by the police we could do nothing legally to prevent this because our daughter was 16. Our family and her twin sister were devastated. We did everything we could think of to address the "acting out" behavior of our daughter, from family counseling, school counseling, psychiatric counseling, various non-invasive therapies, private schools, private tutoring, vision therapy for dyslexia, etc. to address our daughter's "acting out behavior." Fortunately, after about a year and a half, our daughter moved back home, returned to high school and completed two years of high school in one year, graduating with honors in, one year after her twin sister graduated. Since that time, she has become a very responsible young woman. Yesterday, she received a phone call from the landlord where she and her 24 year old boyfriend lived before she moved back home. Apparently, our daughter had co-signed a lease with her 24 year old boyfriend and (father of three from three different mothers) when she was 17. ( This was the third place she lived with this guy since she left home at 16.) We learned yesterday that the landlord from winter and summer of 2005 has taken our daughter to a collection agency to collect $2400 in rent incurred after our daughter moved out of the apartment. Although, I believe our daughter could not have been legally responsible for the rent because she was a minor when she co-signed the lease agreement, I know our daughter sought out and arranged another renter to take her place when she moved out. In fact, when she decided to move back home, she delayed until she found a replacement to pay rent. Of course, we continued as her parents to be horrified that the law did not protect her from moving out of her home and in with a 24 year old with children from three different mothers. I cannot imagine that the landlord has any legal right to turn our daughter over to a collection agency and try to hold her responsible for $2400 dollars in rent for a time when she had moved back home and was not even a tenant. The fact that our daughter acknowledges that she signed a lease agreement does not seem relevant. She signed the agreement when she was 17, against her parents will. More than that, however, the law failed to protect her by making it legal for her to move out of her home with a good family who loved her dearly and did everything to address her "acting out" behavior. Surely the law does not do her another wrong by allowing this landlord to abuse her again by filing a claim with a collection agency who knows she was a minor at the time she co-signed the lease agreement. Can you help give us the information we need to fight this landlord's claim?

• Category: Landlord Tenant
• Date: 04/07/2025
• State: Washington

Answer:

The following is a WA statute:

RCW 26.28.030

Contracts of minors — Disaffirmance.

 

 

A minor is bound, not only by contracts for necessaries, but also by his other contracts, unless he disaffirms them within a reasonable time after he attains his majority, and restores to the other party all money and property received by him by virtue of the contract, and remaining within his control at any time after his attaining his majority.

A minor child may be declared self-emancipated by a court if the child has left the parents' home and become self-sufficient. A child is never automatically self-emancipated. A child must obtain a court order before he or she is self-emancipated.

Please see the information at the following links:

http://lawdigest.uslegal.com/minors/emancipation-of-minor/6600/