Free Oregon Month-to-Month Rental Agreement

ORS 90.427 is the longest and most demanding periodic-tenancy section in this wave, and its structure is unusual. A tenant may end a month-to-month tenancy at any time on thirty days’ written notice. A landlord may do the same — but only during the first year of occupancy. Once that year has passed, ORS 90.427(3)(c) allows a landlord to terminate only for a tenant cause under a named list of sections, or for one of four qualifying landlord reasons, and the qualifying-reason route carries ninety days’ notice, a stated reason with supporting facts, and a payment to the tenant.

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Watch: Free Oregon Month-to-Month Rental Agreement explained

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An Oregon month-to-month agreement has to be read against a statute that changes what the landlord may do on the tenancy’s first anniversary. That single fact shapes everything else: the occupancy start date is the most consequential piece of information in the document, because it decides whether a landlord has a thirty-day no-cause route or must find a cause, give ninety days and write a cheque. ORS 90.427 also converts a fixed term that ends after the first year into a month-to-month tenancy by default, so a good many Oregon periodic tenancies began life as year leases. The generator above records the occupancy start date and where the tenancy stands against the first-year line.

• The date the tenant’s occupancy began — the fact the whole of ORS 90.427 turns on
• The full names of the landlord and of every adult tenant, since the first-year definition reaches any of the tenants
• The address of the premises, including the unit number
• The rent, the interval it covers, and the day it falls due
• That a tenant may terminate at any time on thirty days’ written notice
• That a landlord’s no-cause route ends with the first year of occupancy
• Whether the dwelling is in the same building or on the same property as the landlord’s primary residence with not more than two units, which engages subsection (8)
• The address each party sends notice to
• The security deposit, where it is held, and what the tenant is told about its return
• Which utilities and services each party pays for, and the pet, smoking and guest rules

• Treating thirty days as the landlord’s period generally. It is the first-year period only. After the first year ORS 90.427(3)(c) removes the no-cause route rather than lengthening it — except where subsection (8) applies to a landlord living on a property of not more than two units.
• Serving a qualifying-reason notice without the payment. ORS 90.427(6)(a)(C) requires payment of one month’s periodic rent at the time the landlord delivers the notice, unless the landlord has an interest in four or fewer residential dwelling units.
• Giving ninety days but not the reason and supporting facts. (6)(a)(A) requires both to be specified in the notice. A bare ninety-day notice does not satisfy the subsection.
• Assuming a new tenant restarts the first year. (1)(a) defines the first year of occupancy as all periods in which any of the tenants has resided in the unit for one year or less.
• Underestimating the penalty. Under (9)(a) a landlord who terminates in violation of the relevant subsections is liable for three months’ rent in addition to actual damages, and the tenant has a defence to an action for possession.

It depends entirely on who is giving it and how long the tenant has lived there.

• A tenant, at any time: written notice not less than thirty days before the date designated in the notice — ORS 90.427(3)(a).
• A landlord, during the first year of occupancy: written notice not less than thirty days before the designated date — ORS 90.427(3)(b). No cause is needed.
• A landlord, after the first year of occupancy: ORS 90.427(3)(c) permits termination only for a tenant cause, or for a qualifying landlord reason on ninety days’ notice with a payment.

A week-to-week tenancy sits outside this structure: under ORS 90.427(2), either party may terminate it on written notice given at least ten days before the termination date specified in the notice.

This is the provision that makes Oregon different from every other state on this site. In Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Virginia a landlord ending a periodic tenancy gives a period of notice and needs no reason. In Georgia the landlord’s period is longer than the tenant’s, but the route exists. In Oregon, after the first year of occupancy, the no-cause route is simply gone.

ORS 90.427(3)(c) leaves two doors. The first is a tenant cause, with notice as specified in a list of nine other sections — ORS 86.782(6)(c) on a sale of property, 90.380(5) on renting a dwelling in violation of building or housing codes, 90.392 on termination for cause, 90.394 on failure to pay rent, 90.396 on acts or omissions justifying termination twenty-four hours after notice, 90.398 on drug or alcohol violations, 90.405 on a tenant keeping an unpermitted pet, 90.440 on a group recovery home, and 90.445 on a tenant who commits a criminal act of physical violence. Each has its own notice requirements, and ORS 90.427 does not restate them — nor have we read them for this page, so nothing here should be taken as a statement of what any of those sections requires.

The second door is a qualifying landlord reason under subsections (5) and (6), and that is where most of the section’s weight sits.

ORS 90.427(5) permits a landlord to terminate a month-to-month tenancy at any time on written notice of not less than ninety days if one of four things is true:

• Demolition or conversion. The landlord intends to demolish the dwelling unit, or to convert it to a use other than residential use, within a reasonable time.
• Repairs or renovations. The landlord intends to undertake repairs or renovations within a reasonable time and either the premises is unsafe or unfit for occupancy, or the dwelling unit will be unsafe or unfit for occupancy during the work.
• Landlord or immediate family moving in. The landlord intends for the landlord or a member of the landlord’s immediate family to occupy the dwelling unit as a primary residence — and the landlord does not own a comparable unit in the same building that is available for occupancy at the same time the tenant receives the notice.
• Sale to an owner-occupier. The landlord has accepted an offer to purchase the dwelling unit separately from any other dwelling unit, from a person who in good faith intends to occupy it as their primary residence, and has provided the notice together with written evidence of the offer to purchase not more than 120 days after accepting the offer.

Two of these carry conditions that are easy to overlook. The move-in reason fails if the landlord owns a comparable unit in the same building that is available at the same time — the statute will not let a landlord displace a tenant from one unit while an equivalent one stands empty. And the sale reason requires the written evidence of the offer to go to the tenant with the notice, inside the 120-day window.

“Immediate family” is defined at ORS 90.427(1)(b) and is wider than it first looks: an adult related by blood, adoption, marriage or domestic partnership as defined in ORS 106.310 or similar law elsewhere; an unmarried parent of a joint child; a child, grandchild, foster child, ward or guardian; and a child, grandchild, foster child, ward or guardian of any person in the first two categories.

ORS 90.427(6)(a) imposes three requirements on a landlord terminating under subsection (5), and all three are mandatory:

• Specify the reason for the termination and supporting facts. Not the reason alone — the facts that support it.
• State that the rental agreement will terminate on a designated date not less than ninety days after delivery of the notice.
• Pay the tenant an amount equal to one month’s periodic rent, at the time the landlord delivers the notice.

The timing of the payment is the part that surprises people. It is not a deduction from the deposit, and it is not settled on move-out; the subsection ties it to delivery of the notice.

ORS 90.427(6)(b) supplies the only exception: the payment requirement does not apply to a landlord who has an ownership interest in four or fewer residential dwelling units subject to the chapter. Note that this is measured in dwelling units, not in buildings, properties or tenancies.

ORS 90.427(9)(a) provides that a landlord who terminates a tenancy in violation of subsection (3)(c)(B), (4)(c), (5), (6) or (7) is liable to the tenant in an amount equal to three months’ rent in addition to actual damages sustained as a result of the termination, and that the tenant has a defence to an action for possession.

Subsection (9)(b) attaches a limitation period: the tenant is entitled to that recovery if the tenant commences an action asserting the claim within one year after the tenant knew or should have known that the landlord terminated in violation of the section.

Set that against the holdover exposures elsewhere in this wave and the direction is striking. Arizona and Kentucky attach a multiplier to a tenant who holds over; New Mexico, like Oregon, does not. But Oregon’s headline penalty runs the other way entirely, against a landlord who terminates improperly.

A large share of Oregon’s periodic tenancies were not created as such. Under ORS 90.427(4)(c), where the specified ending date of a fixed term falls after the first year of occupancy, the fixed term tenancy becomes a month-to-month tenancy on expiry, unless one of three things happens: the landlord and tenant agree a new fixed term; the tenant gives written notice not less than thirty days before the specified ending date or the date designated in the notice, whichever is later; or the landlord has a qualifying reason and gives notice under subsections (5) to (7).

Where the fixed term’s ending date falls within the first year of occupancy, ORS 90.427(4)(b) allows the landlord to terminate without cause on written notice not less than thirty days before the specified ending date, or thirty days before the date designated in the notice, whichever is later.

So the year-lease-to-periodic transition is automatic in Oregon rather than a matter of the parties’ conduct, and the tenancy that results carries the occupancy history with it. That is why the occupancy start date, rather than the date the month-to-month arrangement began, is the fact to record.

ORS 90.427(7) allows a landlord to stop a fixed term from rolling into a month-to-month tenancy, on ninety days’ notice, where the tenant has committed three or more violations of the rental agreement within the preceding twelve-month period and the landlord gave a written warning notice at the time of each violation.

The warning notices have to have done specific work. Each must specify the violation, state that the landlord may choose to terminate at the end of the fixed term if there are three violations within a twelve-month period preceding the end of the term, and state that correcting the third or subsequent violation is not a defence to termination under the subsection. The ninety-day notice itself must state the termination date, specify the reason and supporting facts, and be delivered concurrently with or after the third warning.

This is a route that has to be built over a year, notice by notice. A landlord who issued three informal complaints without the prescribed wording has not created it retrospectively.

ORS 90.427(8) carves out a category from the first-year cliff entirely. Where the dwelling unit is located in the same building or on the same property as the landlord’s primary residence, and the building or property contains not more than two dwelling units, the landlord may terminate after the first year of occupancy:

• for cause, with notice as described in the same nine sections; or
• without cause on not less than sixty days’ written notice; or
• without cause on not less than thirty days’ notice where the unit is purchased separately from any other dwelling unit, the landlord has accepted an offer from a person who in good faith intends to occupy it as a primary residence, and the landlord has provided the notice and written evidence of the offer within 120 days of accepting it.

So a landlord living in a duplex retains a no-cause route after the first year, at sixty days rather than thirty, and does not need a qualifying reason or a relocation payment. Whether subsection (8) applies is therefore one of the most consequential questions about an Oregon tenancy, and it is a question of fact about the building the agreement should answer on its face.

ORS 90.427(12)(a) confirms that a notice given under subsection (2), (3)(a) or (b), (8)(a)(B) or (C) or (8)(b) need not state a reason for the termination.

Subsection (12)(b) then allows the party giving such a notice to include an explanation without having to prove it, and provides that the explanation does not give the recipient a right to cure — provided the notice states three things: that it is given without stated cause; that the recipient does not have a right to cure the reason for the termination; and that the person giving the notice need not prove the reason in a court action.

This is a sensible provision that solves a real problem. A landlord who wants to explain why, out of ordinary courtesy, would otherwise risk converting a no-cause notice into a for-cause one and handing the tenant a cure right. The three statements are what keep the explanation an explanation.

ORS 90.427(10) is short and often missed: the tenancy terminates on the date designated and without regard to the expiration of the period for which, by the terms of the tenancy, rents are to be paid. Unless otherwise agreed, rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day.

That is the opposite of the position in most of this wave. Arizona and New Mexico tie the termination to a periodic rental date; Utah requires the notice to demand possession at the expiration of the month or period; Washington measures the tenant’s notice preceding the end of a period. Oregon deliberately unhooks the ending from the rent cycle and pro-rates the rent instead.

ORS 90.427(11) provides that where the tenant remains in possession without the landlord’s consent after the rental agreement has expired or been terminated, the landlord may bring an action for possession, and may recover any actual damages resulting from the holding over — including the value of any rent accruing from the expiration or termination until the landlord knows or should know that the tenant has relinquished possession. Where the landlord consents to the continued occupancy, ORS 90.220(7) applies instead.

Note the measure: actual damages, with no multiplier and no fixed number of months. Oregon puts its multiplier on the landlord’s side, in subsection (9).

ORS 90.427(3)(c) offers a landlord past the first year two doors, and they are not variations on one theme. Confusing them is the most consequential mistake available under this section, because each carries its own notice, its own content requirements and its own cost.

A tenant cause under (3)(c)(A) is about something the tenant has done or failed to do. ORS 90.427 does not set the notice for it; it points at nine other sections, each with its own machinery — failure to pay rent at ORS 90.394, acts or omissions justifying termination twenty-four hours after notice at ORS 90.396, drug or alcohol violations at ORS 90.398, an unpermitted pet at ORS 90.405, and so on. What each of those requires is a question for the section itself; we have not read them, and this page does not state their periods or whether any of them allows a tenant to cure.

A qualifying landlord reason under (3)(c)(B) is about something the landlord intends to do with the property. The tenant has done nothing wrong, which is why the statute charges the landlord ninety days, a written statement of the reason and the supporting facts, and a payment of one month’s rent. There is nothing for the tenant to cure, because there is no allegation against them.

The practical consequence is that a landlord cannot substitute one for the other when the first proves inconvenient. A landlord who cannot make out a cause does not thereby acquire a qualifying reason, and a landlord with a genuine qualifying reason gains nothing by dressing it up as a complaint about the tenant — that route turns the case into a dispute about the tenant’s conduct, which the qualifying-reason route avoids entirely. The three-months’-rent liability in subsection (9) attaches to getting this wrong.

The same distinction runs through subsection (8) for a landlord living on a two-unit property, which likewise separates the for-cause route from the without-cause one and applies different notice to each.

ORS 90.427(13) removes almost the whole of this section from one category of tenancy: subsections (2) to (9) do not apply to a month-to-month tenancy subject to ORS 90.429, or to any other tenancy created by a rental agreement subject to ORS 90.505 to 90.850.

That range covers manufactured dwelling and floating home facilities, and the exclusion is not a minor carve-out. Subsections (2) to (9) are the week-to-week period, the tenant’s thirty days, the landlord’s first-year thirty days, the first-year cliff itself, the fixed-term rules, the four qualifying reasons, the ninety-day notice with its supporting facts and payment, the three-strikes route and the three-months’-rent penalty — nearly everything this page describes.

Note the boundary precisely, because the section draws it precisely: the exclusion reaches subsections (2) to (9). Subsections (10) to (12) — the rule that a tenancy ends on the designated date without regard to the rent period, the holdover provision, and the no-reason-required rules — are not carved out by (13).

So if the premises are a space in a manufactured dwelling park or a moorage for a floating home, none of the analysis above is the governing law and the tenancy runs on its own statutory regime instead. It is worth establishing which category a tenancy falls into before reading any further into ORS 90.427, because the section itself says the answer changes everything.

The published version of ORS 90.427 carries Notes of Decisions beneath the section text. Those notes are a publisher’s summaries of court decisions, not enacted language, and this page treats them accordingly: what follows is described as case law to be checked, not quoted as statute. We have read the summaries rather than the opinions themselves.

• Local relocation-assistance ordinances are not preempted. The notes report Owen v. City of Portland, 305 Or App 267 (2020), affirmed on other grounds at 368 Or 661 (2021), as holding that this section does not preempt a local ordinance requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance to tenants in certain circumstances. That matters a great deal in practice: satisfying ORS 90.427(6)(a)(C) does not answer a separate local relocation-assistance obligation, so a landlord in a city that has one may owe it on top.
• What matters is when the termination occurs, not when the notice went out. The notes report Rider v. Carranza, 306 Or App 616 (2020), on the applicability of the provisions restricting no-cause terminations, as turning on the date the termination of the tenancy occurs rather than the date the notice of termination is delivered. The annotation is about which date decides whether the provisions apply at all; we have not read the opinion, so this page does not extend it further than that.
• A tenant needs no reason. Skourtes v. Schaer, 36 Or App 659 (1978), review denied, is reported for the proposition that a tenant may terminate a month-to-month residential tenancy at any time, for any reason or for no reason — consistent with ORS 90.427(3)(a) and (12)(a).
• But a tenant who gives notice and then stays can be evicted. The same case is reported as holding that a landlord may evict a tenant who terminates the tenancy and then wrongfully remains in possession beyond the termination date. A tenant’s own notice binds the tenant.

The Portland point deserves emphasising for anyone using this form in a city rather than in rural Oregon. A landlord who satisfies ORS 90.427(6)(a) to the letter may still owe more under a local ordinance, and the state statute does not displace it.

The occupancy start date first, and separately from the date of the agreement, because ORS 90.427 hangs on it. Then the names of every tenant, since the first-year definition reaches any of them. Then whether the property is one the landlord lives on with not more than two units, which decides whether subsection (8) applies. The generator above collects all three alongside the ordinary terms.

Everything else follows the usual pattern: rent and its interval, the deposit and where it is held, the utilities split, and the pet, smoking and guest rules. On the deposit, see Oregon security deposit laws for what may be withheld and the accounting deadline. Because a periodic tenancy holds nothing still, rent changes arise more often than on a fixed term — see Oregon rent increase laws. And where a notice is disputed or ignored, Oregon eviction notice laws covers the process that follows, which in Oregon will examine not only the notice period but whether the landlord had a route to give the notice at all.

A periodic tenancy is the arrangement where rent changes most often, because there is no fixed term holding the number still. The notice a rent change takes is a separate question from the notice that ends the tenancy, and the two are easily confused — so they are worth reading together. Our guide to Oregon rent increase laws covers how a rent change works on a periodic tenancy here.

The deposit is the other thing a month-to-month tenancy makes harder, because the tenancy can end on short notice and the clock for returning the money starts running the moment it does. Oregon security deposit laws cover what a landlord may deduct and the deadline for accounting for the rest — a deadline that is easy to miss when a tenancy can end at any point in the year rather than at the end of a lease term.

If the notice is ignored, ending a tenancy stops being a paperwork question and becomes a court one. Oregon eviction notice laws set out the notices that come next and how they must be served. A termination notice and an eviction notice are different documents doing different jobs, and serving the wrong one is one of the more common ways a straightforward ending turns into a contested case.

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