Delaware · Landlord Forms

Free Delaware Landlord Forms

Every Delaware landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the Delaware Code section and the deadline that triggers it — including the sixty-day termination rule that catches out almost every landlord arriving from another state.

Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. Delaware rewards precision more than most states, because its Residential Landlord-Tenant Code — Title 25 of the Delaware Code — regulates things other codes leave to the lease: how much a late fee can be, where you must keep an office, what happens if you accept a late rent payment, and a mandatory summary document you have to hand every new tenant. Section 5101(a) then makes the point unavoidable: any rental agreement, whether written or oral, is unenforceable insofar as it conflicts with the Code. In Delaware you cannot draft around the statute.

The short version

Nonpayment of rent — a written demand giving not less than five days, § 5502.
Breach of a material rule or covenant — at least seven days to remedy, § 5513. If a substantially similar breach recurs within one year, you may rely on the original notice.
Ending a month-to-month tenancy takes sixty days, § 5106(d) — and the sixty days do not start until the first day of the month after you actually give notice.
Entry — forty-eight hours notice, and only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., § 5509.
Security deposit — capped at one month’s rent where the agreement runs a year or more; returned within twenty days; double the amount wrongfully withheld if you miss it, § 5514.
Late fees are capped at five per cent of the monthly rent and cannot be charged within five days of the due date, § 5501.
You must give every new tenant the Attorney General’s Code Summary, § 5118. If you do not, the tenant may plead ignorance of the law as a defence.
Court — summary possession in the Justice of the Peace Court, with a mandatory eviction diversion step before the hearing.

5 daysPay-or-quit notice

48 hoursNotice before entry

20 daysDeposit return

60 daysMonth-to-month notice

The Sixty-Day Rule, and Why It Is Really Ninety

This is the Delaware provision that produces the most wasted notices, because landlords assume the thirty days that most states use. Delaware requires sixty, from either side, and it applies in two places.

Under § 5106(c), a landlord may terminate a fixed-term agreement by giving a minimum of sixty days’ written notice before the term expires. The tenant may do the same. Under § 5106(d), either party may end a month-to-month tenancy on a minimum of sixty days’ written notice.

The sixty days do not run from the day you serve the notice. Section 5106(d) states that the sixty-day period begins on the first day of the month following the day of actual notice. Serve on the second of March and the clock starts on the first of April, so the tenancy does not end until the end of May — nearly ninety days from the day you handed over the paper. Landlords who serve a “sixty-day notice” on the fifteenth of a month and count sixty calendar days are consistently a month short, and the notice fails.

There is a related trap in § 5107, which governs renewal on modified terms. A landlord who wants to renew with changes — a rent increase being the usual case — must give a minimum of sixty days’ written notice before expiry, specifying the modifications. The tenant then has a decision to make, and the default runs against them: a tenant who does not reject the modifications at least forty-five days before expiry is deemed bound by them. For a landlord that is a genuinely useful mechanism; for a tenant it is a deadline that arrives quietly. Our Delaware lease termination laws guide sets out both sequences with worked dates.

Why a Delaware Lease Cannot Drift From the Code

Section 5101(a) states that any rental agreement, whether written or oral, shall be unenforceable insofar as the agreement or any provision thereof conflicts with any provision of this Code, and is not expressly authorized herein. That sentence does more work in Delaware than its length suggests, and it changes how you should think about every form on this page.

The consequence is that a Delaware lease is not a place to negotiate around the statute. A clause setting a ten per cent late fee does not create a ten per cent late fee; it creates an unenforceable clause, and the five per cent cap in § 5501 applies regardless. A clause purporting to allow entry on twenty-four hours’ notice does not shorten the forty-eight hours in § 5509. A clause requiring ninety days’ notice from the tenant while the landlord gives sixty does not survive § 5106, which sets the same period for both sides.

Note also the second limb: the provision must not conflict with the Code and must not be one the Code does not expressly authorise. That is a stricter test than the usual “anything not prohibited is permitted” assumption, and it is the reason a generic multi-state lease template is a poor fit for Delaware. Where a term matters to you, check that the Code actually contemplates it rather than assuming silence means permission.

Every Delaware Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy

Alphabetical form lists are how most sites present this, and they are the least useful arrangement, because a landlord almost never arrives knowing the name of the document they need. They arrive knowing what has happened. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy, and each entry names the Delaware Code section that makes the form necessary and the deadline it starts.

STAGE 1

Starting the tenancy

Delaware residential lease agreement — the master document. Remember § 5101(a): a term that conflicts with the Code is unenforceable however clearly it is drafted, so a Delaware lease is a place to record choices the Code permits, not to override the ones it does not.
The Attorney General’s Summary of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code — required by § 5118 and covered in its own section below. This one is not our form; it is the state’s, and you must obtain and deliver the current version.
Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not Delaware law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
Move-in / move-out condition checklist — not required by statute, and the most valuable optional form on the page. With a twenty-day return deadline and a double-damages penalty behind it, a signed move-in record is what makes a deduction defensible.

STAGE 2

During the tenancy

Notice to enter the property — § 5509, at least forty-eight hours, and entry only between eight in the morning and nine at night.
Rent increase notice — Delaware has no rent control, but a mid-tenancy increase runs through § 5107, so the operative period is sixty days before expiry, with the tenant’s forty-five-day rejection window inside it.
Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder, not a statutory notice. It starts no clock and does not substitute for the § 5502 demand.

STAGE 3

When the tenant breaches

Five-day notice to pay rent or quit — § 5502. The statute sets a floor of five days after the notice was given or sent; you may give more, and in some circumstances you should.
Notice to cure or quit — § 5513, at least seven days to remedy a breach of a rule or covenant material to the agreement. The notice must identify the rule breached and warn that failure to remedy may lead to termination and eviction.
Unconditional quit notice — for conduct Delaware does not require you to allow a cure for, and for the repeat-breach situation described below.

STAGE 4

Ending the tenancy without fault

Notice of non-renewal — § 5106(c), sixty days before the term expires.
Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side, and it carries the same sixty days with the same first-of-next-month start.

STAGE 5

After the tenant moves out

Security deposit itemisation — § 5514, the written list of damages that must go out inside the twenty-day window.
Security deposit return letter — the covering document that goes with the refund.

The Form Delaware Requires That You Probably Do Not Have

Section 5118 is short, easy to miss, and unique among the states in this group. In full, it provides that a summary of the Landlord-Tenant Code, as prepared by the Consumer Protection Unit of the Attorney General’s Office or its successor agency, shall be given to the new tenant at the beginning of the rental term. And then it supplies the consequence: if the landlord fails to provide the summary, the tenant may plead ignorance of the law as a defence.

Read that consequence carefully, because it is unusual. The penalty is not a fine. It is that a tenant who was never given the Summary can defend a case by saying they did not know the law — a defence that is otherwise unavailable to anyone. In a contested Delaware summary possession action that can be decisive, and it arises from a document that costs nothing to hand over. Obtain the current Summary from the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Unit and give it to every new tenant at the start of the term, and keep a signed acknowledgment that you did.

We do not host this form and would not want to: it is the state’s document, it is revised as the Code changes, and a stale copy would be worse than none. This is one of the few places on any of our state pages where the right advice is to go and get the official version.

Rent, Late Fees and the Office-in-County Rule

Delaware is one of comparatively few states to regulate late fees by statute rather than leaving them to the lease, and § 5501 does three separate things landlords need to know.

First, the cap: a late charge shall not exceed five per cent of the monthly rent. Not five per cent per week, not five per cent compounding — five per cent of the monthly rent, full stop.

Second, the grace period: the late charge shall not be imposed within five days of the agreed time for payment of rent. So rent due on the first cannot attract a late fee until the sixth.

Third, and most easily overlooked, the office-in-county requirement.

Section 5501 requires the landlord to maintain, in the county where the rental unit is located, an office or other permanent place for receipt of payments where rent may be timely paid. Failure to maintain such an office extends the agreed time for payment of rent by three days. That is a substantive change to the rent due date triggered entirely by the landlord’s own arrangements. An out-of-state owner with no Delaware county presence has, in effect, given every tenant three extra days — which in turn shifts when a late fee may be charged and when a five-day demand can validly be served. No competing page on this query mentions it.

Section 5501 also requires a landlord who accepts cash rent to give a receipt within fifteen days. Our Delaware late fee laws guide works through the interaction between the cap, the grace period and the office rule.

Nonpayment: the Acceptance Trap in Section 5502

The five-day demand under § 5502 is straightforward enough — a written demand for payment, notifying the tenant that unless payment is made within a stated period of not less than five days after the notice was given or sent, the rental agreement terminates. What is not straightforward, and what ends more Delaware cases than any drafting error, is what happens next if the tenant pays.

If the tenant pays all rent due before you have initiated an action, and you accept that payment without a written reservation of rights, you may not then bring summary possession. Accepting the money is treated as ending the matter. If you intend to accept a payment but preserve the right to proceed — for example on a repeat late-payer — the reservation of rights must be in writing and must accompany the acceptance. A verbal caveat, or a reservation added afterwards, is not what the section describes.

This is the single most useful thing a Delaware landlord can know about nonpayment, and it cuts both ways. Handled deliberately it lets you take partial recovery without losing the case. Handled casually — banking a cheque because it arrived — it ends the case you were about to file. See our Delaware eviction notice laws guide for the sequence in full.

The Seven-Day Cure Notice and the One-Year Repeat Rule

Where the breach is not about money, § 5513 governs. The landlord must notify the tenant in writing of a breach of any rule or covenant material to the agreement, and must allow at least seven days for remedy or correction. The notice has content requirements that matter: it must identify the rule or covenant violated, and it must warn that failure to remedy within the seven days may result in termination of the agreement and eviction proceedings. A notice that describes the annoyance but does not name the term breached is doing only half the job.

The provision landlords most often miss sits at the end of the section.

If the tenant commits a substantially similar breach within one year, the landlord may rely upon the original notice as grounds for initiating summary possession. There is no need to serve a fresh seven-day notice and no second cure period. That makes the first notice a durable asset: serve it properly, keep it, and diarise the one-year window. It also means a landlord who never bothers with the first notice loses far more than seven days — they lose the ability to act quickly on the recurrence twelve months later.

The practical discipline is to serve a correct § 5513 notice even when you expect the tenant to fix the problem, precisely because its value is mostly in what it enables later.

Security Deposits in Delaware

Section 5514 sets a cap that is tied to the length of the agreement rather than being flat: no landlord may require a security deposit in excess of one month’s rent where the rental agreement is for one year or more. Shorter agreements are treated differently, but Delaware then closes the obvious loophole.

For a month-to-month tenancy that runs past a year, the section requires the landlord, after the expiration of one year, to immediately return, as a credit to the tenant, any security deposit amount in excess of one month’s rent. So a larger deposit taken at the start of a rolling tenancy has a shelf life. A landlord holding two months’ deposit on a month-to-month tenant of eighteen months is out of compliance and may not know it, because nothing triggers a reminder.

Pet deposits are separate and are capped independently: no landlord may require a pet deposit in excess of one month’s rent, regardless of the duration of the rental agreement. That is a genuine additional sum rather than something carved out of the security deposit, and the “regardless of duration” wording means the pet cap does not track the security-deposit tiering. Our Delaware pet and ESA laws guide covers where a pet deposit may not be charged at all.

Twenty days, and double damages

The return deadline is twenty days from the expiration or termination of the rental agreement — among the shortest in the country, and materially shorter than the thirty, forty-five or sixty days landlords may be used to elsewhere. If you are not entitled to any part of the deposit, the whole sum must be remitted within that window. If you are withholding, the written list of damages must go out within it too.

The penalty is stated plainly: failure to remit the deposit, or the difference between the deposit and the amount set out in the list of damages, within twenty days entitles the tenant to double the amount wrongfully withheld. Combined with a twenty-day clock, this is the Delaware provision most likely to turn a routine move-out into a claim. Our Delaware security deposit laws guide sets out the permitted withholding categories.

Entry, Repairs and Retaliation

Section 5509 requires the tenant not to unreasonably withhold consent for the landlord to enter to inspect, make necessary repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply agreed services, or show the unit to prospective purchasers, mortgagees or tenants. Against that, the landlord must give at least forty-eight hours’ notice of intent to enter and may enter only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

The express time window is the part worth pausing on, because most state codes say “reasonable times” and leave it there. Delaware fixes the hours. An entry at seven in the morning is outside the statute however much notice was given, and a contractor let in at ten at night is a problem whatever the lease says. Repairs requested by the tenant are excepted from the notice requirement, as are emergencies. Where a tenant unreasonably refuses access, § 5510 supplies the landlord’s remedy rather than authorising self-help entry. See our Delaware landlord entry laws guide.

Retaliation carries one of the heaviest penalties in the code

Section 5516 prohibits retaliatory acts, and the protected conduct is broad: the tenant has complained in good faith of a condition constituting a code violation; a government authority has filed a violation notice; the tenant has organised or is an officer of a tenants’ organisation; or the tenant has pursued or is pursuing any legal right or remedy arising from the tenancy.

The remedy is three months’ rent or treble the damages sustained, whichever is greater, together with the cost of the suit. That is a substantial exposure attached to timing rather than intent, and it is why the sequencing discipline matters: document the ground for any notice before a complaint arrives where you can, keep the correspondence, and be able to show that a termination decision predated a repair request rather than following it.

Holdover Tenants

Section 5515 gives the landlord a remedy where a tenant stays on after termination without consent: the tenant shall pay to the landlord a sum not to exceed double the monthly rental under the previous agreement, computed and pro-rated on a daily basis, for each day the tenant remains in possession.

Two features are worth noting. It is a ceiling — “not to exceed” — rather than an automatic doubling, so it is claimed and assessed rather than simply charged. And it is pro-rated daily, which means a holdover of a few days produces a proportionate figure rather than a whole extra month. Landlords sometimes bill a full doubled month for a three-day overstay; that is not what the section provides.

Delaware Court Forms and Justice of the Peace Court

A Delaware eviction is a summary possession action in the Justice of the Peace Court. That court has a civil jurisdiction limit of twenty-five thousand dollars, and an individual may appear without an attorney — attorneys are permitted, but self-representation is expressly allowed, which is why the court publishes so much self-help material.

Step	Form or requirement	Notes
Pre-suit notice	No official state form	The § 5502 and § 5513 notices are drafted by the landlord — which is why the fillable notices above exist.
Start the case	J.P. Civ. Form No. 1 — Complaint	The standard civil complaint form, used for summary possession as well as ordinary civil claims.
Complaint contents	Set by § 5707	The Code prescribes specific information that must appear in a summary possession complaint. Check it against your draft before filing.
Representation	Form 50 — Certificate of Representation	Where an attorney or authorised representative appears.
Service	By the Court	The Court formally serves the summons and complaint on the tenant under Justice of the Peace Court Civil Rule 4.
Before the hearing	Eviction diversion	Completion of the diversion programme is required, and any mediation conference must be completed at least forty-eight hours before the hearing.
Appeal	Form 32 — Notice and Allowance of Appeal	Specific to landlord-tenant summary possession. A written request to appeal must be made within five days of the judgment.

We have deliberately not published a Delaware filing fee. The Justice of the Peace Court publishes a civil fee schedule, but no figure appeared on the pages we verified, and a fee is exactly the kind of number that is quoted confidently and wrongly across this search result. Ask the Court for the current summary possession filing fee rather than relying on any page — including this one — for it.

The eviction diversion requirement deserves emphasis because it changes the practical timeline and almost no commercial page covers it. Delaware does not go straight from filing to hearing. A mediation step sits in between, and it must be finished at least forty-eight hours before the hearing date. Build that into your expectations rather than discovering it after filing.

The Delaware Summary Possession Timeline

Landlords usually want to know not just which form, but how long the whole thing takes. Delaware’s answer is shaped by two features that most states do not have: the notice periods at the front are longer than average, and a mandatory mediation step sits between filing and hearing.

Step	Who acts	How long	Form or authority
Confirm the rent was actually due	Landlord	Before anything — add three days if you keep no county office	§ 5501
Serve the pre-suit notice	Landlord	Day zero	§ 5502 demand, or § 5513 notice
Notice period runs	Tenant may pay or cure	Not less than five days for rent; at least seven days for a rule or covenant breach	—
Decision point on any payment offered	Landlord	Before filing	Accepting without a written reservation of rights ends the action (§ 5502)
File the complaint	Landlord	Once the notice period has fully run	J.P. Civ. Form No. 1, contents per § 5707
Service of summons and complaint	The Court	Court-managed	Justice of the Peace Court Civil Rule 4
Eviction diversion and mediation	Both parties	Must be completed at least forty-eight hours before the hearing	Diversion programme
Hearing and judgment	Court	Varies by court and docket	—
Appeal window	Tenant or landlord	Five days from judgment, in writing	Form 32

Two observations follow from that shape. First, the front of a Delaware case is where the time goes when the ground is not rent: a sixty-day termination under § 5106 that begins on the first of the following month means a no-fault possession case is a quarter-year project before it reaches a courtroom. Second, the diversion step is not a formality to be waived by agreement — plan for it, and treat the forty-eight-hour rule as a real deadline rather than a guideline.

We have deliberately not published figures for how long the Court takes between filing and hearing. That interval depends on the court location and the state of its docket, it is not fixed by statute, and it is precisely the sort of number that circulates confidently and wrongly. Ask the Justice of the Peace Court for its current listing times.

What the Tenant Can Do Back

Every form on this page has a counterpart on the tenant’s side, and a landlord who understands the return fire serves better notices. In Delaware five provisions do most of the work, and four of them are triggered by landlord administration rather than by bad faith.

Double the deposit. The twenty-day deadline in § 5514 is short, and missing it entitles the tenant to double the amount wrongfully withheld. This is the most frequently triggered penalty in Delaware practice, and it is triggered by a calendar slip.
Ignorance of the law as a defence. Under § 5118 a tenant who was never given the Attorney General’s Code Summary may plead that they did not know the law. No other state in this group hands a tenant a defence for a landlord’s paperwork omission.
The acceptance bar. Under § 5502 a tenant who pays in full before the action is initiated, and whose payment is accepted without a written reservation of rights, has ended the matter. A tenant who understands this will pay at the courthouse door.
Retaliation. Section 5516 gives three months’ rent or treble damages, whichever is greater, plus costs. The protected acts are broad enough that most tenants who have recently complained about anything are inside them.
The rent due date itself. A tenant who establishes that the landlord keeps no office in the county has moved the due date three days under § 5501, which can retrospectively invalidate both a late fee and a five-day demand.

Self-help is the one area where Delaware offers a landlord no shortcut at all. Changing the locks, removing a door, or shutting off water or power to force a tenant out is not a Delaware remedy in any circumstance, and it converts a straightforward possession case into a claim against the landlord. The summary possession action in the Justice of the Peace Court is the route, and a § 5510 remedy — not self-help entry — is what answers a tenant who unreasonably refuses access.

Which Delaware Form Do I Need?

Work down this list and stop at the first line that matches your situation. The section reference tells you which statute you are acting under, which in turn fixes your deadline.

The tenant has not paid rent. Serve the § 5502 demand giving not less than five days. Check first whether you maintain an office in the county — if not, the rent was due three days later than you think.
The tenant has paid up before you filed. If you accept it without a written reservation of rights, you cannot then bring summary possession. Decide deliberately.
The tenant has breached a material rule or covenant. Serve the § 5513 notice giving at least seven days, naming the rule and warning of termination.
The same breach has recurred within a year. You may rely on the original § 5513 notice and proceed — no fresh cure period.
Nobody is at fault and you want the tenancy to end. Sixty days under § 5106, remembering the clock starts on the first of the following month.
You want to renew on different terms. Sixty days under § 5107, with the tenant’s forty-five-day rejection window inside it.
You need to get into the property. Forty-eight hours under § 5509, and only between eight in the morning and nine at night.
The tenant has moved out. Twenty days to remit the deposit or send the list of damages. Double the wrongfully withheld amount if you miss it.
The tenant has stayed on past termination. Section 5515 allows up to double the monthly rent, pro-rated daily — claimed, not simply charged.
The notice period has expired and the tenant is still there. File J.P. Civ. Form No. 1 in the Justice of the Peace Court, check § 5707 for the required contents, and expect the diversion step.

How to Fill Out a Delaware Five-Day Notice

Delaware publishes no official form for the pre-suit demand, so there is no state template to fall back on and no clerk to catch an error before you file.

Check the office-in-county question first. If you do not maintain an office or permanent place for receipt of payments in the county, § 5501 extends the time for payment by three days, and a demand served on the old assumption is premature.
Name every tenant on the agreement. A demand addressed to one of two named tenants is contestable.
Identify the premises exactly as the agreement does, including the unit number.
State the rent owed as a figure and the period it covers. If you are including a late charge, confirm it is within the five per cent cap and was not imposed inside the five-day window.
Give a period of not less than five days after the notice is given or sent, and state the date the period ends rather than leaving the tenant to count.
State the consequence — that unless payment is made within that period, the rental agreement terminates.
Decide your position on part-payment now, in writing. If you would accept a partial payment while preserving your right to proceed, prepare the written reservation of rights before the money arrives, not after.
Date it, sign it, and record how and when it was given or sent. The period runs from that act, so the record is the anchor for everything that follows.

What Happens If the Form Is Wrong

Not every error is fatal, and it helps to know which are. A defect that shortens a tenant’s statutory period — a four-day demand, a sixty-day notice counted from the wrong date, a filing made before the period expired — goes to your right to bring the action at all, and is the kind of problem that gets the case dismissed and restarted. Because Delaware’s sixty-day clock starts on the first of the following month, miscounting it is the commonest way a Delaware notice fails, and it fails by roughly a month rather than by a day.

A defect that lengthens a period, or gives the tenant more information than the statute requires, generally works in the tenant’s favour and creates no problem for the landlord. Errors of identity sit in between: a misspelled name or transposed unit number can usually be cured by amendment where it is obvious who and what was meant, but it hands the tenant an argument and costs a hearing.

Two Delaware-specific failures are worth naming separately because they are not really form errors at all. Failing to give the § 5118 Code Summary hands the tenant a defence that no amount of careful drafting recovers. And accepting rent without a written reservation of rights extinguishes the action entirely, however perfect the notice that preceded it.

What This Page Does Not Have

We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Delaware landlords also commonly want a rental application, a sublease or assignment agreement, a rent receipt, and an abandoned-property notice. Those are not yet published as Delaware-specific forms, and we have not linked placeholders for them.

Two further scoping notes specific to Delaware. The § 5118 Code Summary is the state’s document and must be obtained from the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Unit — we do not reproduce it, because a superseded copy would be worse than none. And a rent receipt is not merely good practice here: § 5501 requires one within fifteen days whenever cash rent is accepted, so if you take cash you need a receipt process even though we do not yet publish the form.

Common Delaware Landlord Form Mistakes

Counting sixty days from the day of service. The period begins on the first day of the month following actual notice, so a mid-month notice is effectively a ninety-day notice.
Using thirty days to end a month-to-month tenancy. Delaware requires sixty from either side.
Never handing over the Attorney General’s Code Summary. Section 5118 makes the omission a defence for the tenant.
Banking a late rent payment without a written reservation of rights. Under § 5502 that bars the summary possession action.
Charging a late fee above five per cent, or inside five days of the due date. Both are outside § 5501.
Forgetting the office-in-county rule. No county office means rent is due three days later than the lease says.
Holding more than one month’s deposit on a month-to-month tenancy that has run past a year. The excess must be credited back immediately.
Treating the pet deposit as part of the security deposit cap. It is separate and capped independently.
Missing the twenty-day deposit deadline. It is one of the shortest in the country and carries double damages.
Entering before eight in the morning or after nine at night. Section 5509 fixes the hours, not just the notice.
Billing a full doubled month for a few days of holdover. Section 5515 is a daily pro-rated ceiling.
Assuming filing goes straight to a hearing. The eviction diversion step comes first.

Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Delaware Form Sites

Delaware produces the most striking result of any state we have looked at. The deepest page competing on this query is the Justice of the Peace Court’s own narrative guide — roughly six and a half thousand words of procedural law, with barely a dozen form links and no form index at all. It ranks on a forms query while being pure law. Behind it sit subscription lease packets and a membership-walled association directory listing about a dozen Delaware form titles with no Delaware law on the page whatsoever.

That gap is the whole opportunity, and it is why this page is built the way it is: a real per-form index organised by stage of the tenancy, with the statutory trigger and deadline attached to each document, and the law spine underneath it. Nobody currently does both.

Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial, and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.

Delaware Landlord Forms: FAQ

What forms are required to start an eviction in Delaware?

A written pre-suit notice — a five-day demand under § 5502 for unpaid rent, or a seven-day notice under § 5513 for a material breach of a rule or covenant — and then J.P. Civ. Form No. 1, the complaint, filed in the Justice of the Peace Court. Section 5707 prescribes what the summary possession complaint must contain.

How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in Delaware?

Sixty days from either side under § 5106(d), and the sixty-day period begins on the first day of the month following the day of actual notice. Notice given mid-month therefore produces close to ninety days in practice.

What is the Delaware notice period for nonpayment of rent?

Not less than five days after the notice was given or sent, under § 5502. If the landlord does not maintain an office in the county for receipt of payments, § 5501 extends the time for payment of rent by three days, which moves when the demand can validly be served.

Must a Delaware landlord give the tenant a summary of the Landlord-Tenant Code?

Yes. Section 5118 requires the summary prepared by the Consumer Protection Unit of the Attorney General’s Office to be given to the new tenant at the beginning of the rental term. If the landlord fails to provide it, the tenant may plead ignorance of the law as a defence.

Can a Delaware landlord accept late rent and still evict?

Only with a written reservation of rights. Section 5502 provides that where a tenant pays all rent due before the landlord has initiated an action and the landlord accepts it without a written reservation of rights, the landlord may not then initiate summary possession.

How much notice must a Delaware landlord give before entering?

At least forty-eight hours under § 5509, and entry is permitted only between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Repairs requested by the tenant and emergencies are excepted from the notice requirement.

What is the Delaware security deposit cap?

One month’s rent where the rental agreement is for one year or more, under § 5514. On a month-to-month tenancy that runs past a year, any amount above one month’s rent must immediately be returned to the tenant as a credit. A pet deposit of up to one month’s rent may be taken separately, regardless of the duration of the agreement.

How long does a Delaware landlord have to return a deposit?

Twenty days from the expiration or termination of the rental agreement — one of the shortest deadlines in the country. Failure to remit the deposit, or the difference between it and the amount in the list of damages, entitles the tenant to double the amount wrongfully withheld.

Is there a late fee cap in Delaware?

Yes. Under § 5501 a late charge may not exceed five per cent of the monthly rent, and may not be imposed within five days of the agreed time for payment. Delaware regulates this by statute rather than leaving it to the lease.

What happens if a tenant stays after the tenancy ends in Delaware?

Section 5515 allows the landlord a sum not to exceed double the monthly rent under the previous agreement, computed and pro-rated on a daily basis for each day the tenant remains. It is a ceiling that is claimed and assessed, not an automatic doubling, and it is pro-rated daily rather than by the month.

What is the penalty for retaliating against a Delaware tenant?

Under § 5516 a tenant may recover three months’ rent or treble the damages sustained, whichever is greater, together with the cost of the suit. Protected acts include good-faith code complaints, organising or being an officer of a tenants’ organisation, and pursuing any legal right arising from the tenancy.

Which court hears Delaware evictions, and is mediation required?

The Justice of the Peace Court, which has a civil jurisdiction limit of twenty-five thousand dollars and permits self-representation. Delaware requires completion of an eviction diversion programme, and any mediation conference must be completed at least forty-eight hours before the hearing. An appeal must be requested in writing within five days of the judgment.

Related Delaware Guides

Delaware landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
Delaware eviction notice laws — the notice periods and summary possession.
Delaware security deposit laws — the twenty-day rule and double damages.
Delaware lease termination laws — the sixty-day rule with worked dates.
Delaware breaking lease laws — early termination and holdover exposure.
Delaware rent increase laws — renewal on modified terms under § 5107.
Delaware late fee laws — the five per cent cap and the office rule.
Delaware landlord entry laws — forty-eight hours and the fixed hours.
Delaware habitability laws — the landlord’s repairing obligations.
Delaware pet and ESA laws — pet deposits and assistance animals.
Delaware tenant screening laws — background checks and adverse action.

About the Author

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team

Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. For this page we worked from the Delaware Code itself on the state’s official code site and from the Justice of the Peace Court’s own material, rather than from secondary summaries — several of which give thirty days for a termination the Code sets at sixty, and none of which mentions the office-in-county rule or the mandatory Code Summary.

Updated 2026

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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Delaware landlord-tenant law and Justice of the Peace Court procedure, not legal advice. Statutory periods and court requirements change, and we have deliberately not published a filing fee because we could not verify a current figure. Confirm the current requirements with the Justice of the Peace Court or with a Delaware attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.