If raising rent on a tenant for a new lease, what kind of information should we include in the letter to protect ourselves.

You will need to make sure the tenant has more than thirty days notice of the rent increase. There is no magical language in a rent increase letter that would prevent the tenants from making any claims regarding the repair issues. On those issues you want to make sure you have a good paper trail of the repairs you have made, the money spent on repairs and the repairmen that did the work. It might be worth spending 1.5 hours with an attorney to make sure your record keeping is adequate if there is a dispute before a problem arises.

The timing matters. Be sure you give them minimum 30 day's notice, timed to coincide with the day rent is due. Sometimes this results in the tenant getting 59 days advance notice, and that is better than accidentally giving them 29 days. Landlords have to make repairs. Tenants have to give notice when something needs repair. In writing. The statutes on retaliation are at RCW 59 18 240 and 250. So long as you wait 90 days you are good. Elizabeth Powell