Second Substitute House Bill 2590 (69th Legislature, 2026) amends parts of chapter 64.90 RCW and RCW 84.36.675. It modifies definitions in RCW 64.90.010 (including a definition of "limited equity cooperative"), limits the circumstances in which the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (chapter 64.90 RCW) applies, and creates a property tax exemption rule for limited equity cooperatives in RCW 84.36.675. The bill includes an expiration date for the tax exemption amendment. As amended, the chapter generally applies only to common interest communities created on or after July 1, 2018 and to pre-2018 communities that amend their declarations to elect coverage, at least until January 1, 2028. The chapter does not apply to any limited equity cooperative unless that cooperative elects to be subject to the chapter and expressly provides so in its declaration. The bill also limits the chapter’s application for certain small plat or miscellaneous communities with no development right that contain no more than 50 units and that restrict average annual assessments (excluding optional fees) to a specified cap adjusted under RCW 64.90.065. RCW 84.36.675 is amended to establish property tax exemption criteria for real property owned by limited equity cooperatives that provide owned housing for low-income households. If fewer than all dwelling units are occupied by low-income households, a partial exemption is allowed by multiplying assessed value by the fraction of units occupied by low‑income households as of January 1. The amendment to RCW 84.36.675 (section 3 of the act) expires January 1, 2033. The excerpts provided truncate some definitions and other amendment text, so the complete wording of the amended provisions and the full list of chapter sections applicable to specified communities are not included here.

If enacted, limited equity cooperatives would not be automatically governed by Washington’s Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act unless they specifically elect to be, so these co-ops and their members would likely avoid taking on the Act’s routine association duties and regulatory costs (for example, many governance, reserve funding, disclosure, and developer-transition requirements contained in chapter 64.90) until and unless they choose to be covered. Small plat or miscellaneous communities that meet narrow size and assessment-cap conditions can also remain subject only to a short list of provisions, which would reduce compliance obligations for those communities; however, the exact scope of what is waived for co-ops and small communities is not fully spelled out in the provided text. The bill also creates a property tax exemption for limited equity cooperatives that provide owned housing to low-income households, allowing a partial exemption proportional to the share of units occupied by low-income households as of January 1 each year, which would lower property tax bills and operating costs for qualifying co-ops and support affordability; that tax provision, though, expires January 1, 2033. Some implementation details and the full text of the chapter exemptions and the expiration mechanics are not included in the excerpts, so how administrators and cooperatives must document eligibility and apply the exemptions in practice remains unclear.