Community Templates
Purpose: These templates are for Fall City residents and any concerned member of the public to send to state and county officials regarding consumer protection, disclosure, and design-permit issues with residential Large On-Site Sewage Systems (LOSS) in Fall City. This is a template. Revise it, send it as-is, or add your own experience - but only facts you personally observed and can substantiate. Do not characterize the intent of any developer, builder, realtor, or attorney involved in your transaction.
How to use these templates:
Copy the template you wish to send.
Replace anything in [BRACKETS] with your own information.
The optional "Personal Experience" paragraph is for Arrington Court homeowners or anyone with direct experience to share. Other senders can delete it.
Letters from individual residents - even short ones - carry more weight than identical mass mailings. Edit freely.
Send by email, mail, or both. Keep a copy for your records.
TEMPLATE 1 - Letter to the Washington State Attorney General
Topic: Consumer protection review of residential LOSS sales practices; request for pre-purchase disclosure framework.
Send to:
Consumer Protection Division Office of the Attorney General
800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2000
Seattle, WA 98104
File a complaint online: https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/ComplaintForm.aspx
Suggested subject line:Request for Consumer Protection Review - Residential Large On-Site Sewage Systems (LOSS), Fall City, King County
Dear Consumer Protection Division:
I am a resident of Fall City, in unincorporated King County, writing to ask your office to look into how homes served by Large On-Site Sewage Systems (known as a LOSS) are being marketed and sold here, and to help close a disclosure gap that is leaving our neighbors with obligations they did not understand when they bought their homes.
A LOSS is not a household septic system. It is a community wastewater treatment plant, regulated by the Washington Department of Health, that serves multiple homes and is ultimately owned and operated by the homeowners' association. The HOA holds the state operating permit, hires a certified maintenance company, contracts with a public-entity guarantor, samples and reports to DOH on a regulated schedule, and is legally responsible for what the system discharges into the ground. These are real, ongoing, expensive responsibilities - and at the time of purchase, buyers in Fall City are not being told about them in any meaningful way.
Our community has just lived through this at Arrington Court, the first and only residential LOSS development built in Fall City. Seventeen families bought into Arrington Court without seeing the operating permit, the maintenance covenant, the system's design assumptions, or the contracts that would govern their costs and liability for years to come. Some of those documents had not even been finalized at the time the homes closed. The system has struggled almost from the day it began operating, the homeowners' monthly costs roughly doubled when the system transferred to them, and the King County Hearing Examiner has found that the system has likely been creating more than moderate impacts to the underlying aquifer. The full story - with sources - is laid out in a community article published by the Fall City Community Association, which I would encourage your office to read as background. It is available atwww.fallcity.org
What concerns me most is that this is not behind us. Six more Fall City subdivisions with as many as 107 additional homes, are in permitting using the same LOSS model and the same sales pattern. Without intervention, the same disclosure failure that affected our Arrington Court neighbors is going to repeat in each of those communities, on a much larger scale.
[Optional — for Arrington Court homeowners or anyone with direct experience share briefly your own experience that you can substantiate. Do not characterize the intent of the developer, builder, realtor, or attorney involved in your transaction.]
The reason this is a consumer protection matter, in my view, is that buyers cannot self-protect. Washington's standard seller disclosure form does not require LOSS-specific information. Real estate brokers and transactional attorneys generally do not have LOSS training. And once a buyer closes, the market for LOSS operators and guarantors in Washington is so thin that homeowners have essentially no leverage on price or terms. They are responsible for a state-regulated treatment system, in a designated critical aquifer area, on terms that were never put in front of them before they signed.
I would respectfully ask your office to consider three things:
First, investigate how homes served by a LOSS have been marketed and sold in Fall City, and whether the omissions at the point of sale rise to the level of unfair or deceptive practices under the Consumer Protection Act.
Second, require a plain-language LOSS disclosure before any home served by a LOSS is sold. This disclosure should cover the operating permit, the maintenance covenant, the design occupancy and waste-strength assumptions, the operations and guarantor contracts, the HOA's recent LOSS-related costs, and a clear statement that the HOA (not the developer or the State) holds the discharge permit and the associated liability. This could be done through guidance, rulemaking, coordination with the Department of Licensing and the Department of Health, or in partnership with the Northwest Multiple Listing Service to create a standard LOSS addendum.
Third, partner with our community as you take this up. Fall City residents, homeowners at Arrington Court, the FCCA Aquifer Stewards committee, and Fall City Sustainable Growth have spent years documenting how this has unfolded on the ground. We would welcome the opportunity to walk your office through what has happened, share the underlying records, and help inform whatever framework the State puts in place for the homes still to be sold here.
Thank you for your time and for the work your office does on behalf of Washington consumers. I am happy to provide additional information, and I can be reached at the contact information above.
Sincerely,
[Your Name] [Your Address]
TEMPLATE 2 - Letter to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS)
Topic: Request for a LOSS-specific disclosure addendum and member realtor education.
Send to: Northwest Multiple Listing Service Attn: President / General Counsel 12410 SE 32nd Street Bellevue, WA 98005 General contact: communications@nwmls.com
Suggested subject line: Request for LOSS Disclosure Addendum and Realtor Guidance - Residential Large On-Site Sewage Systems
Dear President and General Counsel:
I am a resident of Fall City, in unincorporated King County, writing to ask NWMLS to develop a standard disclosure addendum and broker guidance for residential transactions involving homes served by a Large On-Site Sewage System, or LOSS. We are at the front edge of seven LOSS-served subdivisions in Fall City, and the experience so far has shown that the disclosure tools available to your member brokers today are not sufficient to protect their clients on either side of the transaction.
A residential LOSS is not a household septic system. It is a community wastewater treatment plant regulated by the Washington Department of Health, owned and operated by the homeowners' association of the homes it serves. The HOA holds the state operating permit, hires the certified maintenance company, contracts with a public-entity guarantor, samples and reports on a regulated schedule, and is legally responsible for what the system discharges into the ground. The financial and legal commitments that come with buying into a LOSS community are substantial and ongoing - and they are not adequately captured in Form 17 or in any other disclosure tool a NWMLS broker has on hand today.
Our community has just lived through the consequences of that gap at Arrington Court, the first residential LOSS development in Fall City. Seventeen families closed on homes there starting in early 2022 without seeing the operating permit, the maintenance covenant, the system's design assumptions, or the contracts that would govern their costs and liabilities going forward. Some of those documents had not even been finalized at the time of closing. The system has struggled almost from the day it began operating and monthly costs to homeowners roughly doubled when the system transferred to them from the developer. The Fall City Community Association's Aquifer Stewards committee has published a detailed account of what happened, with sources, that I would encourage your team to read as background. It is available at www.fallcity.org
I want to be clear that I do not believe the realtors or transactional attorneys involved in those sales acted in bad faith. The disclosure tools simply did not exist. Form 17 asks about septic systems, but does not contemplate the regulatory and financial structure of a LOSS, and there is no LOSS-specific addendum or training pathway to fill the gap. Brokers were doing their best to represent their clients with the tools they had.
The reason I am writing now is that this issue is poised to recur, on a much larger scale. Six more Fall City subdivisions - Mt. Si, Cedar 23, Cha Cha, Fall City II (marketed as "River Reach Estates"), Stevens 24, and Hazel - are in permitting under the same LOSS model and as many as 107 additional homes may be sold into these communities over the coming years. NWMLS member brokers will be on both sides of nearly every one of those transactions. They deserve to walk into those listings with proper tools, and their clients deserve to receive consistent, plain-language information before they sign.
[Optional — for Arrington Court homeowners or anyone with direct experience share briefly your own experience that you can substantiate. Do not characterize the intent of the developer, builder, realtor, or attorney involved in your transaction.]
I would respectfully ask NWMLS to consider four steps:
First, develop a standard LOSS Disclosure Addendum for any transaction involving a home served by a LOSS. In plain language, it should give buyers the operating permit, the recorded maintenance covenant, the system's design occupancy and waste-strength assumptions, the operations and guarantor contracts (including pricing, term, and termination terms), the HOA's recent LOSS-related costs, and a clear statement that the HOA - not the developer or the State - holds the discharge permit and the associated liability.
Second, add a LOSS field to MLS listings, so that buyers, buyer's agents, inspectors, and lenders can identify LOSS-served properties from the listing forward.
Third, offer continuing education for member brokers working in LOSS-served communities, covering how a LOSS differs from a household septic system, the HOA's role as permit holder, what the public-entity guarantor does and does not do, and what changes when the property sits in a designated critical aquifer area.
Fourth, coordinate with the Washington State Department of Health and the Office of the Attorney General, both of whom are being asked to look at this as well, so that whatever NWMLS adopts is consistent with any guidance those agencies issue.
I would also welcome the chance to partner with NWMLS as you take this up. Fall City residents, including homeowners at Arrington Court, the FCCA Aquifer Stewards committee, and Fall City Sustainable Growth, have spent years documenting how this has actually played out in practice. We can share recorded documents, DOH correspondence, the relevant Hearing Examiner decisions, and the buyer experience, all of which would help inform a workable addendum and a useful CE module. NWMLS is genuinely well positioned to close a disclosure gap that statute does not currently reach, and to do so on a timeline that will actually help the families still to be sold homes here.
Thank you for your consideration. I am happy to provide additional information and can be reached at the contact information above.
[Your Name]
[Your Address]