Tennessee · Landlord Forms

Free Tennessee Landlord Forms

Every Tennessee landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the Tennessee Code section and the deadline that triggers it — starting with the question that decides which law applies to you at all: which county the property sits in.

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. Tennessee is the state where a single page of general advice is most likely to be wrong for you, because Tennessee does not have one landlord-tenant law. It has two, and which one governs your property depends on a population figure fixed by statute.

The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act applies only in counties with a population over 75,000 according to the 2010 federal census (Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-102(a)). Everywhere else, a landlord operates under § 66-7-109 and the forcible entry and detainer provisions in Title 29 chapter 18. Section 66-7-109(g) says so in terms: nothing in that section applies to rental property in a county governed by the URLTA. Note the date carefully — the threshold is pegged to the 2010 census, not the 2020 one, so the list of covered counties is fixed by statute and does not move as populations change.

The short version

  • Which law applies depends on your county’s 2010 census population — over seventy-five thousand means the URLTA.
  • Nonpayment of rent — fourteen days either way, under § 66-28-505 in URLTA counties or § 66-7-109 elsewhere.
  • Other lease breaches — fourteen days in URLTA counties, but thirty days in non-URLTA counties. This is the biggest practical difference between the two regimes.
  • Repeat breach — seven days if substantially the same act recurs within six months (URLTA).
  • Serious misconduct — three days, with no right to cure.
  • Grace period and late fee are both statutory — five days, then a cap of ten per cent of the rent past due.
  • There is no statutory deadline to return a security deposit, and no cap on the amount. What Tennessee regulates instead is the account and the move-out walk-through.
75,000County threshold (2010 census)
14 daysPay-or-quit
5 days / 10%Grace period, late fee cap
30 daysMonth-to-month (URLTA)

Two Regimes, Side by Side

The practical differences are narrower than you might expect on rent and much wider on everything else.

SituationURLTA counties (over 75,000, 2010 census)All other counties
Nonpayment of rent14 days after receipt — the breach is one “remediable by the payment of rent, the cost of repairs, damages, or any other amount due” (§ 66-28-505(a))14 days for neglect or refusal to pay rent due and in arrears, upon demand (§ 66-7-109)
Other lease default14 days30 days
Damage beyond normal wear and tearWithin the 14-day framework14 days
Repeat of substantially the same act within 6 months7 days—
Violent act, drug activity, dangerous behaviour, unauthorised subtenant3 days, no cure right (§ 66-28-517)3 days (§ 66-7-109(d),(f))
Month-to-month termination30 days before the periodic rental date, same for both parties (§ 66-28-512)No statute located — see the honest note below
Week-to-week termination10 daysNo statute located

The fourteen-day cure period is ONE number, not two — and this is the most common error in Tennessee landlord writing. Section 66-28-505 requires the notice to state that the agreement terminates “upon a date not less than fourteen (14) days after receipt of the notice”. There is no thirty-day outer date in the current statute. A great many pages state a 14/30 cure-then-terminate split for Tennessee; that is the pre-2011 text, changed by Acts 2011 chapter 272. Anyone working from an older code page will publish it wrong, and a notice drafted on that basis gives the tenant sixteen days they are not entitled to. That costs you time rather than the case — but it is worth knowing which number is real.

An honest gap on non-URLTA termination

We could not locate a statute setting the notice period to end a month-to-month tenancy in a non-URLTA county. Section 66-28-512 applies only in URLTA counties; § 66-7-109 addresses defaults rather than no-fault termination; and § 66-7-107, which is frequently cited for this, is a drug-related tenancy provision and not a periodic-tenancy statute. Secondary sources assert a common-law thirty days equal to the rental period, and that may well be right — but we could not verify it against statutory text, so we are not publishing it as law. If your property is in a smaller county, take advice on this specific point rather than assuming.

Every Tennessee Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy

Alphabetical form lists are the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.

STAGE 1

Starting the tenancy

  • Tennessee residential lease agreement — the master document, and it does more work here than in most states because Tennessee sets no deposit cap and no deposit return deadline. Since 1 January 2025 it must also carry contact details for the management agent and the owner or agent authorised to accept service of process.
  • Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not Tennessee law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
  • Move-in / move-out condition checklist — genuinely essential in Tennessee, because § 66-28-301 builds the deposit process around a joint walk-through and a signed listing of damage rather than around a return deadline.
STAGE 2

During the tenancy

  • Notice to enter the property — used as good practice and to satisfy a lease term. Tennessee’s entry rule is consent-based rather than notice-based; see the section below before assuming twenty-four hours.
  • Rent increase notice — Tennessee has no rent control. In a URLTA county the operative constraint is the § 66-28-512 thirty-day termination period.
  • Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Useful for documenting the five-day grace period, but it starts no statutory clock.
  • Sublease Agreement
STAGE 3

When the tenant breaches

STAGE 4

Ending the tenancy without fault

STAGE 5

After the tenant moves out

Three Days for Serious Misconduct

Section 66-28-517 gives the landlord a three-day route with no right to cure, and it is drawn more tightly than the equivalent in many states. The grounds are a wilful or intentional violent act; conduct constituting or threatening a real and present danger to health, safety or welfare; the creation of hazardous or unsanitary conditions; and an unauthorised subtenant who refuses to vacate. Where the landlord proceeds on this basis the tenant’s only recourse is injunctive relief — there is no cure and no reinstatement by payment.

In non-URLTA counties § 66-7-109(d) and (f) mirror this with three days for violent acts, drug-related criminal activity and dangerous behaviour, and for unauthorised subtenants who refuse to leave. A separate sixty-day rule applies to federally assisted senior facilities under § 66-7-109(i). Our Tennessee eviction notice laws guide sets out the grounds in detail.

Entry: There Is No General Notice Period

This is the Tennessee rule most commonly misstated, and the error runs the opposite way from usual — sources invent a rule where the statute creates almost none.

Section 66-28-403 sets no general notice period for entry. Access is consent-based: the tenant “shall not unreasonably withhold consent” to the landlord entering for the permitted purposes. The much-quoted twenty-four hour rule is narrow — it applies only to entry within the final thirty days of the tenancy to show the unit to prospective tenants, and only where the right of access is set out in the rental agreement. The statute specifies no permitted hours at all. It does impose a standard that sits alongside all of this: the landlord “shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant.”

Entry without consent is permitted in an emergency — defined as “a sudden, generally unexpected occurrence or set of circumstances demanding immediate action” — and where utilities are shut off through no fault of the landlord, on abandonment or surrender, where the tenant is deceased, incapacitated or incarcerated, and by court order. Because the statute supplies so little, the lease is where a Tennessee landlord should set the entry terms. See our Tennessee landlord entry laws guide.

Security Deposits: No Cap, No Return Deadline, but Real Duties

Tennessee sets no maximum on a residential security deposit and requires no interest on it. More surprisingly, and contrary to a great deal of published guidance:

Section 66-28-301 contains no explicit deadline to return the deposit. The two figures usually quoted are not return deadlines at all. The thirty days is the damage-discovery window in subsection (g), and the sixty days is the tenant-non-response window in subsection (f). Do not rely on a page telling you Tennessee requires return within thirty days. What the section does regulate is the account, the move-out walk-through and the listing — and those carry the real consequences.

What Tennessee does require

  • A dedicated account. The deposit must be held in an account used only for that purpose, at a bank or lending institution regulated by the state or a United States agency (§ 66-28-301(a)).
  • A prompt walk-through. Once the tenant gives written notice of intent to vacate, the landlord must give notice within five days; the walk-through takes place on the day the tenant completely vacates or within four calendar days of vacating.
  • A signed listing. Landlord and tenant walk the property together and compile a comprehensive listing of presently ascertainable damage with estimated repair costs, which both sign.
  • A discovery limit. Physical damage is recoverable only if discovered before the earlier of thirty days after the tenant vacated or abandoned, or seven days after a new tenant takes possession (§ 66-28-301(g)).
  • A sixty-day cut-off in the landlord’s favour. If the landlord sends notification that a refund is due and receives no response within sixty days from the sending, the landlord may retain the deposit free of the tenant’s claim (§ 66-28-301(f)).

The penalty is structural rather than monetary: a landlord who did not place the deposit in a compliant account and did not provide a listing of damages is not entitled to retain any portion of it. Our Tennessee security deposit laws guide works through the walk-through sequence.

Grace Period, Late Fees and Returned Payments

Tennessee regulates both, which many states do not, and the figures are precise.

Section 66-28-201(d) gives a five-day grace period, running from the day the rent was due to the day a fee for late payment may be charged, and caps the fee at ten per cent of the amount of rent past due — expressed as “any charge or fee, however described”, so renaming it does not escape the cap. There is a courtesy rule too: if the last day of the grace period falls on a Sunday or a legal holiday, no late fee may be imposed provided the rent is paid the next business day.

The grace period governs when a FEE may be charged, not when eviction may begin. The two are separate tracks, and § 66-28-505 confirms it by providing that a notice waiver “shall not reduce the tenant’s grace period as provided in § 66-28-201”. A landlord may be entitled to serve a fourteen-day notice while still being barred from charging a late fee, and vice versa.

Returned payments sit outside the landlord-tenant act entirely: § 47-29-102 permits a handling charge not to exceed thirty dollars. Section 66-28-201 contains no bad-cheque provision at all. See our Tennessee late fee laws guide.

Serving Notices in Tennessee

Section 66-28-106 provides that a party has notice if they have actual knowledge of it or have been given written notice, and that notice goes to the last known or designated address in the lease. Beyond that the statute is remarkably sparse: it enumerates no delivery methods at all — no hand delivery, no mail, no posting, no electronic service.

Two consequences follow. There is no add-days-for-mailing rule, and the URLTA notice periods run from receipt rather than from mailing, so the practical requirement is provable delivery. And because nothing is prescribed, the sensible course is a method that produces evidence: hand delivery with a witness, or certified mail with return receipt alongside ordinary first-class mail.

A citation to watch for. Section 66-28-105 is frequently cited as though it governed how a landlord delivers notice to a tenant. It does not — it is Jurisdiction and service of process, dealing with general sessions and circuit court jurisdiction and with service on non-resident landlords through the secretary of state. You may also see a claim that a 2023 amendment to § 66-28-105 created an electronic-notice consent regime, with revocation rights and opt-out language required in every notice. We could find no statutory basis for that, and the section is about something else entirely. Treat it as unsupported.

Court, Costs and What They Actually Charge

An eviction in Tennessee is a forcible entry and detainer action in the General Sessions Court. Section 29-18-112 sets out a statutory form of warrant, but note that the language is permissive — a warrant “may be issued… in the following form” — rather than mandatory.

General sessions civil jurisdiction runs to twenty-five thousand dollars under § 16-15-501(d)(1), with an important carve-out: forcible entry and detainer cases are excluded from that cap and carry unlimited original jurisdiction.

Two figures worth correcting. First, you will see it claimed that the general sessions limit is fifteen thousand dollars in Anderson, Davidson, Hamilton or Knox counties. No such county-specific dollar cap appears in § 16-15-501; the section’s county-specific provisions are population-bracket grants of subject-matter jurisdiction, not dollar limits. Second, the statutory base filing fee of forty-two dollars under § 8-21-401 bears little relation to what you will pay: Davidson County posts a detainer cost of one hundred forty-five dollars and seventy-five cents — fifty dollars clerk, fifty-two dollars sheriff and forty-three dollars seventy-five cents litigation tax — plus fifty-two dollars for each additional defendant. Fees are county-set; ask your clerk.

We have not published a statewide Tennessee eviction form number, because the state courts site sits behind a browser-validation wall we could not read, and the county lists we could see name documents such as “Detainer Warrant” and “Writ of Possession” without form numbers. That is consistent with county-issued forms lacking statewide numbering, but we did not see the administrative office’s own list, so we are not asserting it.

What Changed, and What Has Not

Public Chapter 907 of 2024, in force since 1 January 2025, amended § 66-28-302 to require landlords to provide contact information: names, telephone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses for the management agent and for the owner or agent authorised to accept service of process. A tenant may request missing information, and remedies follow if the landlord does not comply within ten days. If your lease template predates 2025, this is the clause to add.

One change is signed but NOT yet law. Public Chapter 606 of 2026 prohibits landlords restricting a residential tenant’s lawful possession, carrying, transport or storage of firearms and ammunition on the leased premises, in vehicles in parking areas, or in transit. It has been signed — but it takes effect on 1 January 2027 and applies to agreements entered into, amended, extended or renewed on or after that date. It is not a current landlord duty and should not be treated as one.

Against those additions, the core is stable: no 2024, 2025 or 2026 change to any Tennessee notice period. The amendment history for § 66-28-505 ends at 2019, § 66-7-109 at 2023, § 66-28-301 at 2012 and § 66-28-102 at 2021.

Which Tennessee Form Do I Need?

  1. First, establish your county’s status. Over seventy-five thousand on the 2010 census means URLTA. Everything below depends on it.
  2. The tenant has not paid rent. Fourteen days either way. Check separately whether the five-day grace period has run before charging a late fee.
  3. The tenant has breached the lease in another way. Fourteen days in a URLTA county; thirty in a non-URLTA county.
  4. The same breach has recurred within six months. Seven days in a URLTA county.
  5. There is violence, drug activity, a real and present danger, or an unauthorised subtenant refusing to leave. Three days, no cure.
  6. Nobody is at fault and the tenancy should end. Thirty days in a URLTA county; take advice in a non-URLTA county, because we could not verify a statutory period.
  7. You need to get into the property. There is no general statutory period — follow the lease, and remember the narrow twenty-four hour rule for showings in the last thirty days.
  8. The tenant has given notice to vacate. Give walk-through notice within five days and walk the property on the move-out day or within four calendar days.
  9. The notice period has run. File the detainer warrant in the General Sessions Court for the county.

What Happens If the Form Is Wrong

The distinctively Tennessee failure is using the wrong regime’s period. A thirty-day cure notice in a URLTA county is over-generous and merely slow; a fourteen-day cure notice in a non-URLTA county is sixteen days short and goes to your right to bring the action. Because the county threshold is invisible from the lease itself, this is an error that repeats quietly across a portfolio spanning several counties.

The second is the deposit account. Tennessee’s penalty is not a multiplier but a forfeiture of the right to retain anything, and it is triggered by an administrative failure — not holding the money in a dedicated compliant account — rather than by any dispute about damage.

As everywhere, a notice that lengthens a period or gives more information than required creates no problem for the landlord. An over-generous notice costs days; an under-generous one costs the filing.

What This Page Does Not Have

We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Tennessee 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 Tennessee-specific forms.

We have also declined to publish four things other pages state confidently: a statewide court form number, a statewide detainer filing fee, a non-URLTA month-to-month notice period, and a current list of URLTA counties. On the last of these, two secondary sources gave conflicting lists — seventeen counties and eighteen — and no official list was locatable. Your county clerk or a Tennessee attorney can confirm your status in a single call, and that is a better answer than a list we cannot stand behind.

Common Tennessee Landlord Form Mistakes

  • Assuming one Tennessee rule. The county threshold decides which act applies.
  • Checking the county against the 2020 census. The statute is pegged to 2010.
  • Using a 14/30 cure-then-terminate split. That is the pre-2011 text; the current URLTA cure is one number, fourteen days.
  • Using fourteen days for a general default in a non-URLTA county. It is thirty.
  • Publishing or relying on a general twenty-four hour entry rule. It applies only to showings in the final thirty days, where the lease provides for access.
  • Believing Tennessee requires a deposit return within thirty days. There is no statutory return deadline.
  • Keeping the deposit in a general account. That alone can forfeit the right to retain any of it.
  • Missing the five-day walk-through notice after the tenant gives notice to vacate.
  • Charging a late fee above ten per cent of the rent past due, or inside the five-day grace period.
  • Citing § 66-28-105 for notice delivery. It is a jurisdiction and service-of-process section.
  • Treating the 2026 firearms act as current law. It takes effect on 1 January 2027.

Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Tennessee Form Sites

The Tennessee results are dominated by subscription form packages, with the deepest ranking page a paid landlord-tenant forms product and the usual membership-walled association directory listing about a dozen Tennessee form titles with no Tennessee law attached.

The deeper problem on this query is not depth but currency and structure. A page that states a single Tennessee notice period is wrong for roughly half the state’s counties, and a page repeating the 14/30 cure split is quoting law that changed in 2011. Both errors are common in this search result. Every figure on this page was read from the Tennessee Code and cross-checked between two independent publishers, with the amendment history read in each case.

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.

Tennessee Landlord Forms: FAQ

Does the same landlord-tenant law apply everywhere in Tennessee?

No. The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act applies only in counties with a population over seventy-five thousand according to the 2010 federal census (§ 66-28-102(a)). Other counties are governed by § 66-7-109 and Title 29 chapter 18. Because the threshold is pegged to the 2010 census, the list does not change as populations grow.

How many days is a Tennessee notice to pay rent or quit?

Fourteen days in both regimes — under § 66-28-505(a) in URLTA counties and under § 66-7-109 elsewhere.

Is the Tennessee cure period fourteen days or thirty?

In a URLTA county it is fourteen days — one number, not a split. The notice states that the agreement terminates on a date not less than fourteen days after receipt. The 14/30 structure many sources publish is the pre-2011 text, changed by Acts 2011 chapter 272. In a non-URLTA county a general lease default takes thirty days.

When can a Tennessee landlord give three days’ notice?

Under § 66-28-517 for a wilful or intentional violent act, conduct constituting a real and present danger to health, safety or welfare, hazardous or unsanitary conditions, or an unauthorised subtenant refusing to vacate. There is no right to cure and the tenant’s only recourse is injunctive relief. Section 66-7-109(d) and (f) mirror this in non-URLTA counties.

How much notice must a Tennessee landlord give before entering?

There is no general statutory notice period. Section 66-28-403 is consent-based — the tenant may not unreasonably withhold consent. The twenty-four hour rule applies only to entry in the final thirty days of the tenancy to show the unit to prospective tenants, and only where the rental agreement sets out the right of access. No permitted hours are specified.

Is there a security deposit cap in Tennessee?

No. Section 66-28-301 sets no maximum, and no interest is required.

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

There is no explicit statutory return deadline. The thirty days often quoted is the damage-discovery window in § 66-28-301(g), and the sixty days is the tenant-non-response window in subsection (f). What the statute requires instead is a dedicated account, notice within five days of the tenant’s notice to vacate, and a joint walk-through with a signed listing of damage.

What happens if a Tennessee landlord does not use a separate deposit account?

A landlord who did not deposit the money in a compliant account and did not provide a listing of damages is not entitled to retain any portion of the deposit. The penalty is a forfeiture of the right to withhold, triggered by administrative failure rather than by any dispute about damage.

Does Tennessee have a grace period and a late fee cap?

Yes, both. Section 66-28-201(d) gives a five-day grace period before a late fee may be charged and caps the fee at ten per cent of the rent past due, however the charge is described. If day five falls on a Sunday or legal holiday, no fee may be imposed provided rent is paid the next business day.

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

In a URLTA county, thirty days before the periodic rental date, the same for landlord and tenant (§ 66-28-512); week-to-week takes ten days. For a non-URLTA county we could not locate a statutory period and are not publishing one — take advice on that specific point.

What is the small claims limit in Tennessee?

General sessions civil jurisdiction runs to twenty-five thousand dollars under § 16-15-501(d)(1), and forcible entry and detainer cases are excluded from that cap entirely. The frequently repeated fifteen-thousand-dollar limit for certain named counties has no basis in the section.

What did Tennessee change for landlords in 2025?

Public Chapter 907 of 2024, effective 1 January 2025, amended § 66-28-302 to require landlords to provide names, telephone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses for the management agent and for the owner or agent authorised to accept service of process, with remedies if the landlord does not supply missing information within ten days.

Related Tennessee Guides

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 read the Tennessee Code across two independent publishers and checked the amendment history on every section — which is how we can say the URLTA cure period is one number rather than the 14/30 split that much of this search result still publishes, and why we do not repeat a deposit return deadline the statute does not contain.

Updated 2026

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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Tennessee landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. Which statute governs your property depends on your county’s 2010 census population, and we have deliberately omitted a county list, a statewide court form number, a filing fee and a non-URLTA month-to-month notice period because we could not verify them from a primary source. Confirm the current requirements with the clerk of the General Sessions Court for your county or with a Tennessee attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.