Free Montana Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Montana residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977 — no deposit cap, a ten-day return deadline most landlords have never heard of, and the signed condition statement that decides whether you can charge for damage at all.

Montana Mont. Code Ann. ch. 70-24 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Montana residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Montana Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1977, codified at Mont. Code Ann. Title 70, chapter 24 — with security deposits carved out into a completely separate chapter, 70-25, that predates the Act by three years. That split is the single most useful thing to know about Montana. It is why Montana has no deposit cap yet the strictest deposit procedure in the Mountain West; why the landlord must hand over a signed written statement of condition at move-in or lose the right to charge for damage; why there are two return deadlines rather than one, at ten days and thirty days; and why cleaning charges cannot be deducted until the tenant has been given written notice and twenty-four hours to put it right. Add an eight-branch eviction notice ladder, a one-month ceiling on early-termination damages, and three amendments passed by the 2025 legislature, and a generic multi-state template is wrong in Montana in about a dozen places at once. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each rule as the statute actually reads, verified section by section against the Montana Code Annotated on 6 August 2026.

Complete the fields below to generate a Montana residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the end-of-term election and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Montana section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a Montana move-in / move-out checklist, which is the practical way to build the condition statement Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206 demands.

Montana recognises the standard range of residential arrangements, and the type determines how the tenancy ends. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period; a periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice. Under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(2)(e), where the rental agreement does not provide otherwise, the tenancy is week to week in the case of a roomer who pays weekly rent and month to month in all other cases. That default is why an informal arrangement to pay monthly rent creates a month-to-month tenancy by operation of law, with the whole of chapter 24 attached to it, even when nothing was signed.

Beyond those, a room or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting one room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease transfers the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable, and Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-305 governs a tenant’s transfer of the premises; and a lease-to-own bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy and should be drafted with counsel because the purchase terms sit outside chapter 24. Montana also has an entirely separate statute for mobile home park tenancies at Title 70, chapter 33, which mirrors chapter 24 section for section but is not the same law — if the tenant owns the home and rents the lot, this form is the wrong one.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-104 then excludes eight arrangements from chapter 24 entirely, and the list is worth reading before you assume the Act applies: residence at a public or private institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service, including all housing provided by the Montana university system; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organisation in a structure operated for the organisation; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; occupancy by a condominium owner or a cooperative proprietary lease holder; occupancy primarily for commercial or agricultural purposes; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises; and occupancy outside a municipality under a rental agreement that includes hunting, fishing or agricultural privileges along with the dwelling. That last one is distinctly Montanan, and it is a live issue on ranch properties.

One further drafting point. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-204 deals with what happens when only one party signs. If the landlord never signs a written agreement the tenant signed and delivered, acceptance of rent without reservation gives it the same effect as if the landlord had signed. If the tenant never signs one the landlord signed and delivered, acceptance of possession and payment of rent without reservation does the same. But subsection (3) adds a sting: an agreement given effect that way is effective for only one year, however long a term it states. A three-year lease that one side never signed is a one-year lease.

There is no statutory maximum. Read Title 70, chapter 25 end to end — definitions at 70-25-101, application at 70-25-102, the anti-waiver rule at 70-25-103, and the six operative sections from 70-25-201 to 70-25-206 — and no cap appears anywhere. Chapter 24 does not supply one either. Montana genuinely leaves the amount to the market.

What the chapter does instead is define a deposit so broadly that there is no way to structure around it. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-101(4) says a security deposit is value given, in money or its equivalent, to secure the payment of rent or to secure payment for damage to and cleaning of the leasehold premises — and then adds two presumptions. If the lease or an agreement incident to it requires the tenant to provide or maintain any deposit for part or all of the term, that deposit must be presumed to be a security deposit. And a fee or charge for cleaning and damages, no matter how designated, is presumed to be a security deposit. The familiar workaround — call it a non-refundable cleaning fee and chapter 25 will not reach it — does not work in Montana. It is a deposit, it must be accounted for on the chapter 25 timetable, and it is refundable to the extent it is not properly applied.

The definitions section is worth reading for two more terms. “Cleaning expenses” means the actual and necessary cost of cleaning for needs not attributable to normal wear brought about by the tenant’s failure to return the premises to the condition it was in at the time of renting. “Leasehold premises” is wider than the unit: it includes all common areas, recreational facilities, parking areas and storage facilities the tenant has access to, plus all personal property owned or controlled by the landlord whose use is permitted to the tenant. Damage to a shared laundry room is inside the deposit analysis. The deeper treatment lives in our Montana security deposit laws guide.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-103 removes the escape hatch: any provision of a leasehold agreement, oral or written, that is contrary to chapter 25 is invalid, and any attempted waiver of the chapter by the tenant is invalid. A Montana lease cannot shorten the deadlines, cannot convert the deposit into something else, and cannot ask the tenant to give up the chapter.

It is a separate signed document the landlord must hand over at the start of the tenancy, and without it the landlord generally cannot charge for damage or cleaning at all. This is the Montana rule that most deserves to be on the front page of a lease template, and it is on none of them.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206(1) provides that any person engaged in the rental of property for residential purposes who requires a security deposit shall furnish to each tenant, in conjunction with execution of a lease or creation of a tenancy, a separate written statement as to the present condition of the premises intended to be let. The statute is specific about what it must contain. Subsection (2) requires at least: a clear and concise statement of the present condition of the premises known to the landlord or the landlord’s agent, or which should have been known upon reasonable inspection; a statement indicating the fact if the premises have never previously been let; and the signature of the landlord or the landlord’s agent. Not the tenant’s signature — the landlord’s. It is the landlord’s representation about the condition of the unit.

Subsection (1) adds a second entitlement that no ranking template mentions: at the written request of the tenant, the landlord must provide a copy of the written list of damage and cleaning charges, if any, that was given to the tenant of the immediately preceding leasehold agreement for the same premises. A prospective tenant can therefore ask what the last tenant was charged for, and the landlord must answer.

Then subsection (3), which is the reason this section matters more than any other in the chapter. A person renting residential property who fails to furnish the tenant with the required written statement is barred from recovering any sum for damage to or cleaning of the leasehold premises unless that person can establish, by clear and convincing evidence, that the damage occurred during the tenancy in question and was caused by the tenant occupying the premises or the tenant’s family, licensees or invitees. Clear and convincing evidence is a materially higher standard than the ordinary preponderance standard that would otherwise apply, and it is being demanded of the party who chose not to document the starting condition. In practice a landlord without a condition statement is arguing about a carpet stain with no baseline and an elevated burden of proof.

The form above therefore makes this an explicit choice rather than an assumption, and the generated lease states the consequence in whichever direction you answer. Build the statement itself with our Montana move-in / move-out checklist, sign it, and give the tenant a copy the same day the lease is signed — the statute says “in conjunction with execution”, not “within a reasonable time”.

Ten days or thirty days, and which one applies depends on whether anything is owed. Montana is one of very few states with a genuine two-track deadline, and the shorter track is the one landlords miss.

The thirty-day track. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-202(1)(a)(i) requires each landlord, within thirty days subsequent to the termination of a tenancy or within thirty days subsequent to a surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises, whichever occurs first, to provide the departing tenant with a written list of any rent due and any damage and cleaning charges the landlord alleges are the tenant’s responsibility — brought only after the cleaning-notice provisions of 70-25-201 have been followed. Delivery of the list must be accompanied by payment of the difference, if any, between the deposit and the permitted charges. Note the trigger is whichever occurs first: a surrender the landlord accepts starts the clock even if the stated term has not expired.

The ten-day track. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-202(1)(b)(i) then provides that if after inspection there are no damages to the premises, no cleaning required, and no rent unpaid, and if the tenant can demonstrate that no utilities are unpaid by the tenant, the landlord shall return the security deposit within ten days. Four conditions, all of which must hold. This is the ordinary outcome of a well-run tenancy with a good tenant, which is exactly why it catches conscientious landlords: they inspect, find nothing wrong, and then take three weeks to send a cheque they owed in ten days.

How it must be delivered. Since Chapter 656, Laws of 2025 — House Bill 444, which carried an immediate effective date — delivery of the refund may be accomplished by electronic fund transfer, cash, cheque or other forms of refund, or by mailing the deposit to the new address the tenant provided or, if none was provided, to the tenant’s last-known address. Delivery of the written list must be noticed under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-108, which is the chapter 24 notice section: actual knowledge, delivery at the landlord’s place of business, electronic mail to an address given in the rental agreement (complete only on a read receipt or a non-automatic reply), or hand delivery or mailing with a certificate of mailing or by certified mail — in which case service is considered made three days after the date of mailing. Build the itemisation with our Montana security deposit itemization form and send the money with our Montana security deposit return letter.

The penalty is forfeiture, not a multiple. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-203 is one sentence long and it is the most consequential sentence in the chapter: any landlord who fails to provide the departing tenant with a written list of damage and cleaning charges as required by 70-25-202 shall forfeit all rights to withhold any portion of the security deposit for the damages or cleaning charges. There is no discretion, no cure, and no proportionality. A landlord with a genuine and provable damage claim who simply never posted the list has no right to withhold anything for it.

Wrongful withholding. Where the landlord did send a list but withheld too much, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-204(1) makes the landlord liable in a civil action for an amount equal to the sum determined to have been wrongfully withheld or deducted, and the court may award attorney fees to the prevailing party in its discretion. Critically, the landlord has the burden of proving the damages caused by the tenant — the tenant does not have to prove the unit was undamaged. Subsection (2) then blocks a premature suit: the tenant may not sue until the landlord has given a written denial of the sum alleged to be wrongfully detained, or thirty days have passed since termination, or thirty days have passed since surrender and acceptance, or ten days have passed since the landlord indicated there were no damages, cleaning needs, unpaid rent or unpaid utilities.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-205 protects the tenant who moves on without leaving a forwarding address: failure by the departing tenant to provide the landlord with a new address in writing does not bar the tenant from recovering what the landlord owes. And 70-25-202(1)(c) protects the landlord in the mirror image: it is not a wrongful withholding to mail the funds to a departed tenant’s last-known address where the tenant never gave a new one, though the landlord remains liable for the amount due.

Only after giving the tenant written notice of exactly what was left undone and twenty-four hours to fix it. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(3) is a procedural gate on cleaning deductions that has no analogue in most states, and Chapter 656, Laws of 2025 rewrote it.

Subsection (3)(a) starts with a substantive limit: cleaning charges may not be imposed for normal maintenance performed on a cyclical basis by the landlord, as noted by the landlord at the time the tenant occupies the space, unless the landlord is forced to perform that maintenance because of the tenant’s negligence. Annual carpet cleaning that the landlord does anyway is not the tenant’s charge. It then adds the gate: cleaning charges may not be deducted until written notice has been given to the tenant, and that notice must include the cleaning not accomplished by the tenant and the additional amount and type or types of cleaning that need to be done to bring the premises back to its condition at the time of renting. A generic “unit left dirty” line item does not satisfy the section.

Subsection (3)(b) supplies the clock. After delivery of the notice under Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-108, the tenant has twenty-four hours to complete the required cleaning, unless the rental agreement has already been terminated under 70-24-427 and the landlord has a pending claim filed in court. If the notice is mailed by certified mail, service is considered to have been made three days after the date of mailing — which means a certified-mail cleaning notice effectively gives the tenant four days, not one.

Subsection (3)(c) covers the tenant who is already gone. A tenant who fails to notify the landlord of the intent to vacate, or who vacates without notice, relieves the landlord of the notice requirement and the landlord may deduct cleaning charges directly. Alternatively — and this is the 2025 addition — the landlord may leave a copy of the notice in a conspicuous location in the rental unit and notify the tenant by e-mail, phone or text, and notice is then considered delivered. Montana has quietly modernised its deposit service rules, and a form drafted before 2025 will not reflect it.

One more mechanic sits in the same section. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(2) provides that at the request of either party the premises may be inspected within one week prior to termination of the tenancy. Either party. A tenant may demand a pre-move-out walk-through, and a landlord who conducts one has documented the condition while the tenant can still act on it. The form above carries an option that writes this right into the lease.

Rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place the parties agreed. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(3) states the rule, and subsection (2) supplies the defaults where the lease is silent: the tenant pays the rental value for use and occupancy as determined by the landlord; rent is payable at the landlord’s address or using electronic funds transfer to an account designated for the payment of rent by the landlord; periodic rent is payable at the beginning of a term of a month or less and otherwise in equal monthly instalments at the beginning of each month; and rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day, which is what makes a prorated first or final month lawful.

Montana sets no statutory grace period and no cap on late fees. There is no residential late-fee section in chapter 24 at all. The practical limits are contractual and judicial: the fee must be in the lease to be chargeable, and a fee out of proportion to the landlord’s actual loss invites a challenge as an unenforceable penalty rather than a genuine pre-estimate of damages. Late charges are expressly recoverable from the security deposit under Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(1), which is one reason to state them clearly. Our Montana late fee laws guide covers the drafting in more detail, and our Montana late rent notice handles the first contact.

What Montana does now prohibit is a fee based on how the rent is paid. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(4), added by Chapter 768, Laws of 2025 — House Bill 810, also effective on passage and approval — provides that a landlord may not charge an additional fee based on rent payment type, except to recoup an electronic bank fee incurred for electronic payment. Card surcharges and portal convenience fees are the target. A landlord may pass through an actual bank fee for an electronic payment; a landlord may not price paying by card above paying by cheque. Every ranking Montana template still carries a payment-methods clause drafted before this change.

For a dishonoured payment, Montana looks outside the landlord-tenant title. Mont. Code Ann. 27-1-717(2) makes the issuer of a check, draft, converted check, electronic funds transfer or order liable to the payee for a service charge of not more than thirty dollars, after a written demand mailed to the address on the instrument or the issuer’s last-known address. Subsection (3) allows a separate civil action for the service charge plus the greater of one hundred dollars or treble the amount of the instrument, but subsection (4) makes that remedy available only after a written demand served not less than ten days before the action, and only if the issuer failed to tender the amount demanded.

Montana has no rent-control statute, and MCA 7-1-111(26) denies a local government unit any power to control the amount of rent charged for private residential property. It does have a change-of-terms statute, though it sits outside chapter 24: MCA 70-26-109 provides that in a month-to-month letting the landlord may, on written notice given at least fifteen days before the expiration of the month, change the terms of the lease — rent included — to take effect at the expiration of the month, and the notice operates of itself to make those terms part of the lease if the tenant holds over. On a fixed-term lease rent cannot change mid-term unless the lease says so. On a periodic tenancy the prudent practice is still thirty days, because that is the notice 70-24-441 would require to end the tenancy if the tenant refuses the new rent; see our Montana rent increase laws guide and the Montana rent increase notice.

Up to one month’s rent, and an agreed figure may not exceed that. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(2)(f) is the most under-reported provision in the Montana Act, and it invalidates the liquidated-damages clause carried by most multi-state templates.

The subsection reads that if either party terminates the rental agreement without cause prior to the expiration date of the lease term, the aggrieved party is entitled to monetary damages up to one month’s rent or an amount that is agreed on in the rental agreement, which may not exceed one month’s rent. Two things follow. First, the ceiling is statutory: a clause fixing early-termination damages at two months’ rent, or at the whole remaining term, is not enforceable in Montana on its face. Second, it runs both ways — a tenant whose landlord terminates without cause mid-term has the same claim.

The subsection then adds the mitigation link: landlords shall follow 70-24-426(3) and are entitled to rent from defaulting tenants only up to the date a new tenancy starts or the date the rental agreement term expires. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-426(3) requires the landlord, on abandonment, to make reasonable efforts to rent the unit at a fair rental; if the landlord re-lets for a term beginning before the original agreement expires, the original agreement terminates as of the date of the new tenancy, and if the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the agreement terminates as of the date the landlord had notice of the abandonment.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-422(6) blocks the obvious workaround. Subsection (5) lets a landlord recover treble damages where a tenant’s noncompliance is purposeful — but subsection (6) provides in terms that treble damages may not be recovered for the tenant’s early termination of the tenancy. A landlord cannot recharacterise an early move-out as purposeful noncompliance to escape the one-month ceiling. Our Montana breaking-lease laws guide covers the situations in which a tenant may leave with no liability at all.

At least twenty-four hours, and a notice posted on the main entry door counts. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-312(1) opens by putting the duty on the tenant: a tenant may not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord or the landlord’s agent entering to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors.

Subsection (3)(a) then supplies the limit. A landlord may not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant, and except in the case of an emergency, or unless it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least twenty-four hours’ notice of the intent to enter and may enter only at reasonable times. Subsection (3)(b) adds the delivery method that most summaries omit: in addition to the methods in Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-108, a tenant has notice of the intent to enter if the landlord conspicuously posts the landlord’s intent to enter on the main entry door of the dwelling unit. A dated photograph of that posting is the cheapest evidence a Montana landlord can create, and our Montana notice to enter form produces the document to post.

Subsection (2) permits entry without consent in the case of an emergency. Subsection (4) is the closed list: the landlord has no other right of access except pursuant to court order, as permitted by Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-425 and 70-24-426(2), or when the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises. Section 70-24-425 is the repair-after-tenant-default power; 70-24-426(2) allows entry at times reasonably necessary during an absence of the tenant in excess of seven days.

Subsection (5) runs the other way and is frequently forgotten by tenants: a tenant may not remove a lock or replace or add a lock not supplied by the landlord without the landlord’s written permission, and a tenant who does must provide the landlord with a key so the landlord retains the access chapter 24 provides.

Where a landlord gets it wrong, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-410 gives the tenant a choice of remedies: for an unlawful entry, a lawful entry made in an unreasonable manner, or repeated otherwise-lawful demands for entry that have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant, the tenant may either obtain injunctive relief to prevent the recurrence of the conduct or terminate the rental agreement, and in either case may recover actual damages. Our Montana landlord entry laws guide works through the fact patterns.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-303 places seven duties on the landlord, and it is one of the sections a careless reader gets wrong, because the Montana Code publishes it as two complete versions on the same page. The version in force today is marked “(Temporary)”, opens “Subject to 27-1-1603”, and terminates 1 January 2031; a second version marked “(Effective January 2, 2031)” drops that opening. Reading the second block first produces a statement of Montana habitability law that is not in force for another five years.

Under the version in force, the landlord shall: comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety in effect at the time of original construction, in all dwelling units where construction was completed after 1 July 1977; make repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition, except where 70-24-321 makes it the tenant’s responsibility; keep all common areas clean and safe; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by the landlord; provide and maintain receptacles for ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste and arrange for removal, unless the rental agreement provides otherwise; supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable heat between October 1 and May 1, except where the building is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose or heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the tenant’s exclusive control; and install an approved carbon monoxide detector and an approved smoke detector.

The heat window is a Montana-specific detail worth stating precisely: the duty runs October 1 to May 1, not year-round. And the detector duty at 70-24-303(1)(g) allocates responsibility in two stages — the landlord installs both detectors and verifies at the commencement of the rental agreement that they are in good working order, and the tenant maintains them in good working order during the rental period. Subsection (5) then provides that the landlord is not liable for damages caused by the failure of either detector. Where the code duty in subsection (1)(a) is greater than any other listed duty, subsection (2) makes the code duty control.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-321 sets the tenant’s duties: comply with tenant obligations under building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; keep the occupied part of the premises as reasonably clean and safe as its condition permits; dispose of ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste in a clean and safe manner; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; use all facilities and appliances reasonably; conduct themselves and require others on the premises with their consent to conduct themselves so as not to disturb neighbours’ peaceful enjoyment; and use the living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and dining room reasonably. That last subsection carries a right most tenants do not know they have: it does not preclude the tenant from operating a limited business or cottage industry on the premises, subject to state and local law, if the landlord consents in writing — and the landlord may not unreasonably withhold consent if the business is operated within the landlord’s reasonable rules.

Subsections (2) and (3) are the serious ones. A tenant may not destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises or permit anyone to do so. And a tenant may not engage or knowingly allow any person to engage in activity creating a reasonable potential that the premises may be damaged or destroyed or that neighbouring tenants may be injured, including criminal production or manufacture of dangerous drugs under Mont. Code Ann. 45-9-110, operation of an unlawful clandestine laboratory under 45-9-132, gang-related activity, unlawful possession of a firearm, explosive or hazardous or toxic substance, or any other activity prohibited by law. Both carry three-day notices, and a 70-24-321(3) termination gets an accelerated five-business-day court hearing.

When the landlord does not repair, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-406 gives the tenant three routes. The ordinary route: deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement terminates on a date not less than thirty days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in fourteen days — a two-stage clock that summaries routinely collapse into one. The emergency route: where the noncompliance results in a case of emergency and the landlord fails to remedy within three working days after written notice of the situation and of the tenant’s intention to terminate, the tenant may terminate. The repeat route: where substantially the same noncompliance recurs within six months, the tenant may terminate on at least fourteen days’ written notice.

Repair and deduct sits at 70-24-406(1)(b): after notice and a reasonable time in which the landlord has not made the repairs, the tenant may make repairs that do not cost more than one month’s rent and deduct the cost from rent; where the repair is required in a case of emergency and the landlord has not acted, the tenant may have it made only by a person qualified to make the repairs. The tenant may also recover actual damages and obtain injunctive relief under subsection (2), and on termination the landlord must return all security recoverable under chapter 25.

For an interruption of services, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-408 lets the tenant procure heat, hot water, running water, electricity, gas or other essential services and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent, recover damages based on the diminution in fair rental value, or procure reasonable substitute housing and be excused from rent for the period of noncompliance — but not also proceed under 70-24-406 or 70-24-407 for the same breach. For fire or casualty, 70-24-409 lets the tenant vacate immediately and give written notice of termination within fourteen days, or vacate the unusable part with a proportionate rent reduction. See our Montana habitability laws guide for the evidentiary side.

Running the other way, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-425 lets the landlord fix the tenant’s default: where the tenant’s noncompliance with 70-24-321 affects health and safety and can be remedied by repair, replacement of a damaged item or cleaning, and the tenant fails to comply as promptly as an emergency requires or within fourteen days after written notice, the landlord may enter, cause the work to be done in a workmanlike manner, and submit an itemised bill for the actual and reasonable cost as rent on the next rent date.

For a tenancy without a fixed term, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-441 sets the notice periods. Either party may terminate a week-to-week tenancy by written notice given at least seven days before the termination date specified in the notice, and a month-to-month tenancy by giving the other, at any time during the tenancy, at least thirty days’ notice in writing prior to the date designated in the notice. Subsection (3) adds that the tenancy terminates on the designated date without regard to the expiration of the period for which rents are to be paid, and that unless otherwise agreed rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day. So a thirty-day notice in Montana does not have to land on a rent date, and the tenant pays only to the designated day. Our Montana lease termination laws guide, the Montana tenant notice to vacate and the Montana notice of non-renewal cover the mechanics.

At the end of a fixed term, Montana renews the tenancy by default. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-205 provides that if the landlord and tenant fail to establish a default extension period for the lease in the rental agreement, and neither party gives a thirty-day written notice to the other to terminate the tenancy before the rental agreement’s original termination date, the tenancy continues on a month-to-month basis. This is a genuine trap for a landlord who assumed a twelve-month lease simply expires: it does not, unless the lease says what happens or somebody gives notice. The form above makes the election explicit.

Holdover exposure is severe. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-429(1) lets the landlord bring an action for possession where the tenant remains without consent after expiration or termination. Subsection (2) provides that where the term is longer than month-to-month, the landlord terminated with cause, and the tenant’s holdover is purposeful and not in good faith, the landlord may recover not more than three months’ periodic rent or treble damages, whichever is greater. Subsection (3) goes further: where the tenancy is month-to-month, the landlord terminated without cause on a lawful thirty-day notice, and the tenant remains after the termination date, the holdover is purposeful by operation of the statute and the same measure applies. Subsection (4) shortens the answer time in a possession action to five business days after service, exclusive of the date of service. Subsection (5) provides that if the landlord consents to continued occupancy, 70-24-201(2)(e) applies and the tenancy becomes periodic.

Montana has no servicemember termination provision inside chapter 24 — military tenants rely on the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act instead. That is worth knowing because multi-state templates frequently carry a state-specific military clause with no Montana authority behind it.

Three days, five days or fourteen days, and Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-422 sets eight distinct branches. This is the section every ranking summary compresses into “three or fourteen days”, and the compression is where evictions fail.

The mechanics first. Under 70-24-422(1), for a noncompliance with the rental agreement or with 70-24-321, the landlord delivers a written notice to the tenant pursuant to 70-24-108 specifying the acts and omissions constituting the noncompliance, stating that the rental agreement will terminate, and stating that the tenant shall vacate on a date not less than the minimum number of days after receipt provided for in the section. If the noncompliance is remediable by repairs, the payment of damages or the landlord’s written approval, and the tenant remedies it before the date specified, the rental agreement does not terminate.

• Unauthorised pet — 3 days. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-422(1)(b).
• Unauthorised persons residing in the unit — 3 days. 70-24-422(1)(c).
• Verbal abuse of the landlord by a tenant — 3 days. 70-24-422(1)(f), and the agreement does not terminate if the tenant adequately remedies the noncompliance.
• Every other noncompliance — 14 days. 70-24-422(1)(d) is the residual branch.
• Repeat of substantially the same act or omission within 6 months — 5 days. 70-24-422(1)(e).
• Nonpayment of rent — 3 days. 70-24-422(2): if rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within three days after written notice of the nonpayment and of the landlord’s intention to terminate, the landlord may terminate.
• Destroying, defacing, damaging, impairing or removing part of the premises — 3 days. 70-24-422(3), for a violation of 70-24-321(2).
• Creating a reasonable potential of damage or injury — 3 days. 70-24-422(4), for a violation of 70-24-321(3).

Two more provisions sit in the same section. Subsection (5) lets the landlord recover actual damages and obtain injunctive relief for any noncompliance, and treble damages where the tenant’s noncompliance is purposeful, subject to the early-termination carve-out in subsection (6). Subsection (7) preserves the landlord’s alternative: the landlord is not bound by this section if the landlord elects to use the thirty-day no-cause notice under 70-24-441. On a month-to-month tenancy a landlord who does not want to litigate the cause can simply serve thirty days — though doing so after a protected complaint is exactly what 70-24-431 presumes to be retaliation.

Our Montana three-day notice to pay rent or quit, notice to cure or quit and unconditional quit notice handle the three tracks, and our Montana eviction notice laws guide covers service.

Then the court timetable, which is unusually fast. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-427(2)(a) requires an action for possession to be heard within ten business days after the tenant’s appearance or the answer date stated in the summons — or within five business days where the agreement was terminated for a 70-24-321(3) hazard. The same periods apply on appeal to the district court. Subsection (2)(b) puts a damages hearing within forty-five days after possession and rent are adjudicated. Subsection (4) requires the court to rule within five days after the hearing and, if possession is granted, to issue a writ of possession and a writ of assistance immediately, which the sheriff executes within five business days of receiving it. Note also that 70-24-427 is the possession section, not the retaliation section — several published Montana summaries cite it for retaliation, and it says nothing about retaliation at all.

What a landlord may never do is take possession outside that process. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-428 provides that except in the case of abandonment, surrender, or as permitted in the chapter, a landlord may not recover or take possession by action or otherwise, including purposeful diminution of services by interrupting heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas or other essential services. And Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-411 prices the breach: on an unlawful removal or exclusion, or a purposeful interruption of those services, the tenant may recover possession or terminate the agreement and, in either case, recover not more than three months’ periodic rent or treble damages, whichever is greater, plus the return of all security and prepaid rent.

Finally, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-421 protects a tenant with a genuine grievance: in an action for possession based on nonpayment, or for rent while the tenant is in possession, the tenant may counterclaim for any amount recoverable under the agreement or the chapter, the court may order rent paid into court from time to time, and if no rent remains due after applying the section, judgment must be entered for the tenant in the action for possession.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-430 sets out a genuine procedure — and subsection (9) requires the landlord to ensure that the terms of the section are included in plain and understandable language as a notification upon termination of the lease or rental agreement. That is an affirmative drafting duty, and the generated lease discharges it by reproducing the procedure in plain terms.

The procedure branches on how the tenancy ended. If it terminated by court order, the personal property is considered abandoned and the landlord may dispose of it immediately as allowed by law. If it terminated in any other way, the landlord needs clear and convincing evidence that the tenant has abandoned all personal property left on the premises, and at least forty-eight hours must have elapsed since the landlord obtained that evidence; the landlord may then remove the property and immediately dispose of anything hazardous, perishable or valueless. The statute defines each of those: “hazardous” is potentially or actually flammable, a biohazard, or otherwise capable of inflicting personal harm; “perishable” is anything requiring refrigeration or any food item with a marked expiration date; and “valueless” is anything of insubstantial resale value — but expressly does not include personal photographs, jewellery or other small items that are irreplaceable. An item clearly labelled “rent to own” or “leased” may be discarded only with confirmation from the lessor that no lien exists.

For everything else, the landlord must inventory and store all abandoned property reasonably believed to be valuable in a place of safekeeping and exercise reasonable care for it, and may charge a reasonable storage and labour charge plus the cost of removal, or use a commercial storage company at actual cost. The landlord must then make a reasonable attempt to notify the tenant in writing, by certificate of mailing or certified mail to the last-known address, stating that at a specified time not less than ten days after mailing the property will be disposed of if not removed. If the tenant responds in writing on or before that day that they intend to remove the property and then does not do so within seven days after delivery of the response, the property is conclusively presumed abandoned. A tenant who does collect must pay the allowed storage costs first.

Disposal is by public or private sale under Mont. Code Ann. 30-9A-610 or the sheriff’s sale provisions of Title 25, chapter 13, part 7, or by destruction where the landlord reasonably believes the value is so low that the cost of storage or sale exceeds it. From the proceeds the landlord may deduct the reasonable costs of notice, storage, labour and sale and any delinquent rent or damages, and must remit the balance to the tenant with an itemised accounting; if the tenant cannot be found after due diligence, the balance goes to the county treasurer and, if unclaimed for three years, reverts to the county general fund. The landlord is not responsible for loss resulting from storage unless caused by the landlord’s purposeful or negligent act, and is liable for actual damages on a purposeful violation.

Separately, Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-426(1) lets the landlord recover actual damages where the rental agreement required notice of an anticipated extended absence in excess of seven days under 70-24-322 and the tenant did not give it, and subsection (2) permits entry at times reasonably necessary during such an absence.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-202 lists four provisions a rental agreement may not contain. A rental agreement may not provide that a party:

• Agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies under Title 70, chapter 24. This is the broad one, and it swallows most “tenant waives” boilerplate.
• Authorises any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement.
• Agrees to the exculpation or limitation of liability resulting from the other party’s purposeful misconduct or negligence, or to indemnify the other party for that liability or for the costs or attorney fees connected with that liability.
• Must provide an electronic mail address as a condition of entering into the agreement. Added in 2017. A party may voluntarily provide one if the agreement contains a provision allowing a party to elect to receive notice by electronic mail.

That fourth item is the one currently violated by almost every online lease builder, which collects an email address as a mandatory field before it will produce a document. Montana permits the address only as an election, and the lease this page generates asks for it as an option and says so on its face.

The penalty sits at Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-403. A provision prohibited by 70-24-202 that is included in a rental agreement is unenforceable. And if a party purposefully uses a rental agreement containing provisions known by the party to be prohibited, the other party may recover, in addition to actual damages, an amount up to three months’ periodic rent. That is a real number attached to a real risk for anyone reusing a lease they know contains a waiver clause.

Two related powers round this out. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-404 lets a court refuse to enforce a rental agreement or any provision of it that it finds unconscionable as a matter of law, or enforce the remainder without that provision, and do the same for an unconscionable settlement in which a party waives a chapter 24 right — but subsection (2), added in 2021, provides that such a finding may not be based on a lease responsibility that the tenant maintain the unit under 70-24-321 or that the landlord maintain the premises under 70-24-303. And Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-203 provides that neither a rental agreement nor a document related to it may permit the receipt of rent free of the obligation to comply with 70-24-303 — a landlord cannot contract out of habitability by taking rent “as is”.

Not one-sidedly — the statute makes every fee award reciprocal whatever the lease says. Montana handles fee-shifting differently from both of the common patterns, and getting it right is worth doing precisely.

Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-442(1) provides that in an action on a rental agreement or arising under this chapter, reasonable attorney fees, together with costs and necessary disbursements, may be awarded to the prevailing party notwithstanding an agreement to the contrary. Subsection (2) defines “prevailing party” as the party in whose favor final judgment is rendered. Three consequences follow. First, a Montana landlord does not need a fee clause to recover fees; the statute supplies the power. Second, a clause purporting to award fees only to the landlord does not achieve that, because the statute overrides an agreement to the contrary and runs to whichever party wins. Third, a clause purporting to bar fees altogether is equally ineffective for the same reason.

So the honest drafting is a reciprocal prevailing-party clause, which is what the option in the form emits and the only version it will emit. Anything narrower is decoration that a court will disregard.

Two neighbouring rules complete the picture. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-202(3) separately voids any clause under which a party indemnifies the other for the costs or attorney fees connected with liability for that other party’s own purposeful misconduct or negligence — so an indemnity dressed up as a fee clause fails on its own terms, and carries the up-to-three-months’-rent penalty in 70-24-403. And the deposit chapter has its own, narrower rule: under Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-204(1) a court hearing a wrongful-withholding claim may award attorney fees to the prevailing party in its discretion, and the landlord bears the burden of proving the damages the tenant caused.

Five under state law, two of them triggered by the landlord’s own knowledge, plus one federal. The rankers all say “five required disclosures” and then list a different five, so it is worth setting out what each authority actually says.

Owner and manager identification — Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-301. The landlord, or a person authorised to enter into the rental agreement on the landlord’s behalf, must disclose to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy the name and address of the person authorised to manage the premises, and of the owner of the premises or a person authorised to act for the owner for the purpose of service of process and receiving notices and demands. It must be kept current and in writing, and it binds any successor landlord, owner or manager. Subsection (3) supplies the sanction: a person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each person who is a landlord for service of process, for receiving notices and demands, and for performing the landlord’s obligations under the chapter and the agreement, including expending all rent collected for that purpose. A management company that omits the owner’s details assumes the owner’s duties.

Written statement of condition — Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206. Required wherever a security deposit is taken, separate, signed by the landlord, and a condition precedent to charging for damage or cleaning. Covered in full above.

Abandoned-property terms — Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-430(9). The landlord must ensure the terms of the abandoned-property section are included in plain and understandable language as a notification upon termination of the lease or rental agreement. Putting them in the lease itself is the safer reading and costs nothing.

Contamination notice — Mont. Code Ann. 75-10-1305. This one surprises out-of-state landlords, and it changed in 2025. An owner of inhabitable property known by the owner to have been used as a clandestine methamphetamine or fentanyl drug lab, or to have been contaminated from consumption of methamphetamine or fentanyl, must notify any subsequent occupant in writing of that fact if the property has not been remediated to the standards established in 75-10-1303 by a certified contractor. Subsection (3) requires the notice to occur before agreement to the lease. An owner who has remediated may instead give notice that a certified contractor has submitted documentation that the property meets the standard, and under subsection (4) an owner who does so gains statutory immunity from an action based on the presence of methamphetamine. Chapter 367, Laws of 2025 — Senate Bill 201 — is what added fentanyl throughout, so any Montana template that says methamphetamine only is already behind the statute.

Mold — Mont. Code Ann. 70-16-703, and the part everybody gets backwards. Several ranking pages describe a “mandatory statutory mold disclosure statement” that Montana landlords must serve. That is not what the section says. Subsection (1) provides that a mold disclosure statement may be provided on at least one document executed prior to or contemporaneously with an offer for the rental of inhabitable real property, and sets out a long prescribed paragraph the landlord may use. It is permissive, and its function is a safe harbour: under subsection (3) a landlord who provides that statement, provides for disclosure of any prior testing and any subsequent mitigation, and discloses any knowledge of mold, is not liable in any action based on the presence of or propensity for mold.

What is mandatory is subsection (2), and it is knowledge-triggered. Whenever a landlord or an agent has knowledge that a building has mold present, the landlord shall, prior to or upon entry into the lease, disclose the presence of the mold to the renter. Whenever a landlord knows that a building has been tested for mold, the landlord shall advise the tenant that testing occurred and provide a copy of the results if available, together with evidence of any subsequent mitigation or treatment. So: no universal form to serve, but a real duty the moment you know something. The generator emits the subsection (2) disclosure and explains the subsection (1) immunity, so a landlord who wants the safe harbour knows to add the prescribed statement as well.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet and any known records or reports. Not a Montana rule, but it applies in Montana and carries federal penalties. Our Montana lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Montana does not require a radon disclosure, a flood-risk disclosure, a bed bug disclosure, an asbestos disclosure, a military ordnance proximity disclosure, a shared-utility disclosure, a demolition notice or a sex-offender registry notice in a residential lease. Every one of those comes from another state’s statute book. Including a voluntary disclosure does no harm; citing a Montana section for it does, because it signals a document nobody has checked against the Montana Code.

No, and Montana attaches a rebuttable presumption that does real work. The section is Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-431 — not 70-24-427, which several published Montana summaries cite by mistake and which is in fact the landlord’s action for possession.

Under 70-24-431(1) a landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent, by decreasing services, or by bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession after the tenant has (a) complained of a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health and safety to a governmental agency charged with enforcement of a building or housing code; (b) complained to the landlord in writing of a violation under 70-24-303; or (c) organised or become a member of a tenant’s union or similar organisation. Note the word “in writing” in branch (b): a verbal complaint to the landlord about a broken furnace does not, by itself, engage the section, though a complaint to the county does under branch (a).

Subsection (3) is the operative part. In an action by or against the tenant, evidence of a complaint within six months before the alleged act of retaliation creates a rebuttable presumption that the landlord’s conduct was in retaliation — and the statute defines the term, which most states do not: “rebuttable presumption” means the trier of fact is required to find the existence of the fact presumed unless and until evidence is introduced that would support a finding of its nonexistence. The burden of production shifts to the landlord. The presumption does not arise if the tenant made the complaint after notice of a proposed rent increase or diminution of services, which is the statute’s answer to a strategic complaint.

Subsection (2) gives the tenant the remedies in 70-24-411 — possession or termination plus not more than three months’ periodic rent or treble damages, whichever is greater — and a defense in any retaliatory possession action. Subsection (4) preserves three landlord routes notwithstanding all of that: where the code violation was caused primarily by lack of reasonable care by the tenant, the tenant’s family or others on the premises with the tenant’s consent; where the tenant is in default in rent; or where compliance with the code requires alteration, remodelling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of use of the unit. Subsection (5) confirms that bringing such an action does not release the landlord from liability under 70-24-405.

The practical lesson for a landlord serving a thirty-day no-cause notice under 70-24-441 is simple: check whether anything in the last six months looks like a protected complaint before you serve it, because the presumption will be against you.

• Never delivering the move-in condition statement. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-206 bars recovery for damage or cleaning without it, absent clear and convincing evidence. It is the single most expensive omission a Montana landlord can make.
• Applying the thirty-day deadline to a clean tenancy. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-202(1)(b) gives you ten days where nothing is owed and no cleaning is required.
• Deducting cleaning charges without the written notice first. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-201(3) requires the notice and a twenty-four-hour window before any cleaning deduction.
• Calling it a non-refundable cleaning fee. Mont. Code Ann. 70-25-101(4) presumes it to be a security deposit however it is designated.
• Assuming the whole eviction ladder is three days. Only six of the eight branches in Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-422 are three days; the residual branch is fourteen and a six-month repeat is five.
• Writing a liquidated-damages clause above one month’s rent. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(2)(f) caps no-cause early-termination damages at one month, and an agreed figure may not exceed it.
• Charging a card or portal convenience fee. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-201(4), added in 2025, prohibits a fee based on rent payment type except to recoup an actual electronic bank fee.
• Making an email address a required field. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-202(4) makes that a prohibited provision, and Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-403 attaches up to three months’ rent to purposeful use of a known prohibited clause.
• Letting a fixed term lapse in silence. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-205 rolls the tenancy to month-to-month automatically unless the lease sets a default extension period or somebody gives thirty days’ notice.
• Serving a landlord-only attorney-fee clause. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-442 awards fees to the prevailing party notwithstanding an agreement to the contrary, so the clause runs both ways whatever it says.
• Citing 70-24-427 for retaliation. Retaliation is Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-431; 70-24-427 is the landlord’s action for possession.
• Reading the wrong version of the habitability section. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-303 is published in two versions; the one effective 2 January 2031 is not the law today.
• Skipping the abandoned-property terms. Mont. Code Ann. 70-24-430(9) requires them to be given in plain language on termination, and the procedure has 48-hour, 10-day and 7-day steps that a landlord who improvises will get wrong.
• Importing a radon, flood or bed bug disclosure. None is required in Montana, and citing a Montana section for one is a tell that the lease was never checked against the code.
• Using this form for a mobile home lot. Where the tenant owns the home and rents the space, Title 70, chapter 33 governs, not chapter 24.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. Montana gives a landlord an unusually fast route to a possession hearing — ten business days, or five for a hazard termination — but it also front-loads paperwork the landlord cannot fix later, and it caps what a landlord can recover when a tenant simply walks away at one month’s rent. Both of those shift the cost of placing the wrong tenant onto the landlord. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and our Montana tenant screening laws guide covers what you may and may not consider. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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