Washington State · Free

Understand your Washington land-use or tenancy dispute, in plain English.

HarborLaw reads your notices, permits, leases, and deeds against the Washington statutes, county codes, and shoreline regulations that actually apply — and tells you what you're looking at, with citations you can verify.

Start a dispute analysis For legal aid partners ↓

Built for self-represented residents and the legal aid organizations that triage their intakes. Information, not advice — every finding cites the underlying RCW, WAC, or county code.

Where to start

Pick the path that matches your situation.

HarborLaw covers two of the most common civil disputes Washington residents face without a lawyer. Each path takes you through a guided intake and produces a brief tailored to that area of law.

Permit & land-use

I'm in a permit dispute.

A neighbor's permit, a critical-areas notice, a shoreline approval, an easement question, or a denied appeal. We'll walk through what you have, what's missing, and what your deadlines are.

Shoreline and critical-area review
Easement and access analysis
SEPA and notice-of-application checks
21-day LUPA appeal windows

Start permit intake →

Tenancy

I'm a tenant.

A pay-or-vacate notice, an illegal lockout, unsafe conditions, retaliation, or a no-cause eviction. We'll surface the RLTA and local protections that apply to your tenancy.

Notice-validity and timing review
Habitability and repair-and-deduct rules
Retaliation and illegal-lockout patterns
Just-cause and notice-period checks

Start tenant intake →

How it works

Three steps, no legal jargon.

You don't need to know which RCW chapter applies, or whether your county uses an SMP or a CAO. HarborLaw figures out the framework from the documents you upload.

STEP 01

Upload your documents.

Notices, permit applications, deeds, surveys, leases, lease termination notices, county correspondence. PDFs and photos work — OCR handles scanned paper.

STEP 02

We analyze them against Washington law.

The system cross-references your documents against the relevant Revised Code of Washington (RCW) chapters, the Washington Administrative Code (WAC), and your county or city code.

STEP 03

Read your brief.

A plain-English write-up of the issues found, citations to the specific law, deadlines you need to track, and a list of suggested next actions you can take or bring to an attorney.

What HarborLaw checks for

Concrete capabilities, not vague promises.

Every finding is grounded in a specific statute, regulation, or code section. If we can't cite it, we don't claim it.

Shoreline buffer & setback compliance

Distances from the OHWM, vegetation conservation, and Shoreline Master Program designations under RCW 90.58 and the local SMP.

Easement & access review

Reads recorded deeds and surveys to identify ingress/egress rights, dominant and servient estates, and apparent encroachments.

Statutory deadline tracking

21-day LUPA appeal windows, public-comment periods, RLTA notice timelines, and SEPA comment dates — calculated from the dates in your documents.

Missing-document detection

Flags when a notice lacks statutorily required components — SEPA threshold determinations, certified mail proof, RLTA-mandated language.

RCW, WAC, and county-code citations

Every issue links to the specific statute or regulation it relies on, so an attorney, paralegal, or the resident can verify the analysis directly.

Follow-up Q&A on your file

After analysis, ask plain-language questions about your own documents and get answers grounded in what you uploaded.

Sample analysis

A look at what an analysis brief contains.

A redacted, fictional example. Real briefs are longer and tailored to the documents in your file, but this is the shape: prioritized findings, specific citations, and concrete next actions.

Shoreline Substantial Development Permit Application

File: SDP-2025-XXXX — [Sample] County, WA · 14 pages · uploaded by neighbor of applicant

3 issues identified

High Proposed structure encroaches into shoreline buffer. RCW 90.58 · SMP §4.3

The submitted site plan shows a proposed boathouse extending to within roughly 18 feet of the ordinary high water mark. The applicable Shoreline Master Program designation requires a 50-foot vegetative buffer for residential accessory structures. No buffer-reduction variance is included in the application file.

Medium SEPA threshold determination is missing from the file. WAC 197-11 · RCW 43.21C

No DNS, MDNS, or DS appears among the uploaded documents. A project of this scale typically requires SEPA review. Either the determination has not yet been issued, or it was not included in the public file you received. The county is required to make the SEPA file publicly available.

Low Public comment period closes in 7 days. WAC 197-11-502 · local code

The Notice of Application is dated within the past two weeks. Based on the 21-day comment window typical for this permit type, written comments must be received by the county before the deadline shown on the notice. Comments submitted after the close of the comment period are not part of the record.

Suggested next actions

Request the SEPA file from the county planning department in writing — ask specifically for the threshold determination and the environmental checklist.
Submit a written comment before the close of the comment period, citing the buffer-encroachment finding and the absence of a SEPA determination in the public file.
If the permit is approved, the LUPA appeal window is 21 days from the issuance of the final land-use decision (RCW 36.70C.040).

Fictional example. Permit number, county, and document details are illustrative only and do not refer to any real application or party.

For legal aid partners

A free triage and self-help layer for organizations serving Washington residents.

HarborLaw is built to slot into the workflow of organizations like Northwest Justice Project and Pierce County Legal Aid — not to replace counsel, but to absorb the volume of intakes that aren't a fit for representation, and to give paralegals a structured first look at the ones that are.

Free for partner organizations

No license fee, no per-seat cost, no per-analysis cost for legal aid orgs and pro bono clinics serving Washington residents. We'd rather see it used.

Use cases

Client triage at intake, paralegal pre-screening of permit and tenancy files, and a self-help referral when a case doesn't meet representation criteria but the resident still needs to act.

Information, not advice — by design

Every finding cites the underlying statute or regulation. The system is structured to surface what the law says, not to opine on what someone should do. That keeps the unauthorized-practice line clear and gives a reviewing attorney something verifiable.

White-label option

Available for organizations that want HarborLaw embedded in their own intake flow under their own brand and domain. Includes custom intake fields and a referral hand-off back to your case management.

Interested in evaluating, integrating, or just having a conversation? hello@digitalwaterhouse.com

Legal information, not legal advice.

HarborLaw is a civic legal information project by Digital Waterhouse LLC. It does not provide legal advice or representation, and using HarborLaw does not create an attorney-client relationship. All analysis is derived from publicly available Washington State statutes, county codes, and municipal ordinances. For legal advice or representation in Washington, contact one of the free legal aid resources below.

Northwest Justice Project

1-888-201-1014

Pierce County Legal Aid

(253) 383-0519