Free Iowa Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Iowa residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Iowa Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — the two-month deposit cap, the 30-day return clock that starts on the tenant’s address, and the attorney-fee clause Iowa prohibits in both directions.

Iowa Iowa Code ch. 562A 2-Month Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Iowa residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Iowa Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, codified at Iowa Code chapter 562A and applicable to every rental agreement entered into, extended or renewed after January 1, 1979 under Iowa Code 562A.37. Iowa adopted the uniform act early and then amended it in ways that make a generic template genuinely dangerous here. Iowa caps the deposit at two months’ rent and dictates where the money must sit — in a federally insured institution, never commingled. Its 30-day return clock does not start when the tenant moves out; it starts when the tenant’s mailing address arrives. Iowa is one of a small number of states that caps late fees by statute, on a two-tier scale keyed to the rent. It requires three state disclosures, one of them a federal Superfund listing check that almost no template asks about. And Iowa prohibits the attorney-fee clause that most lease templates carry by default — symmetrically, in both directions — while separately letting a court award those same fees by statute. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as the statute actually reads.

Complete the fields below to generate an Iowa residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the depository institution, the Superfund listing answer and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Iowa 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 an Iowa move-in / move-out checklist, because Iowa Code 562A.12(3) puts the burden of proving any withholding on the landlord by a preponderance of the evidence.

Iowa recognizes the standard range of residential arrangements, and the type determines how the tenancy ends. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms, though under Iowa Code 562A.34(3) either party must still give at least thirty days’ notice before the end of the term to stop it rolling on. A periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice. Under Iowa Code 562A.9(5), where the rental agreement does not fix a definite term, the tenancy is week-to-week in the case of a roomer who pays weekly rent and month-to-month in every other case. 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 562A attached to it, even when nothing was signed.

Iowa’s definition of a roomer is unusually precise and worth knowing, because it decides which default applies. Iowa Code 562A.6(14) defines a roomer as a person occupying a dwelling unit that lacks a major bathroom or kitchen facility, in a structure where one or more major facilities are used in common by occupants of that unit and other units — a bathroom facility meaning a toilet or either a bath or shower, and a kitchen facility meaning a refrigerator, stove or sink. A tenant in a conventional studio is not a roomer; a tenant in a rooming house sharing a bathroom generally is.

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 to the landlord, and is only available where the lease permits it; and a lease-to-own agreement bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy and should be drafted with counsel, because occupancy under a contract of sale is excluded from chapter 562A entirely. A commercial lease is not governed by chapter 562A at all, and a manufactured or mobile home community is governed by its own act at Iowa Code chapter 562B rather than by 562A.

Iowa Code 562A.5 excludes several residential situations from the act by its own terms, and the list is longer than most states’: residence at an institution incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counseling or religious service; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser or the purchaser’s successor; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the part of a structure operated for the organization’s benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment in and about the premises; occupancy by a condominium owner or a cooperative proprietary lessee; occupancy under a rental agreement covering premises used primarily for agricultural purposes; and occupancy in housing owned by a nonprofit providing transitional housing for people released from drug or alcohol treatment, and housing for homeless persons. The section opens with a crucial qualifier: these arrangements escape the act unless created to avoid the application of this chapter.

No more than two months’ rent. Iowa Code 562A.12(1) provides that a landlord shall not demand or receive as a security deposit an amount or value in excess of two months’ rent. That is a hard statutory ceiling and, unlike Alabama’s one-month cap, Iowa attaches no exceptions at all — not for pets, not for alterations, not for a thin credit file.

Two definitional points decide how the cap actually bites. First, Iowa Code 562A.6(12) defines a rental deposit as a deposit of money to secure performance of a residential rental agreement, other than a deposit which is exclusively in advance payment of rent. Prepaid rent that is genuinely rent is therefore outside the deposit analysis; a refundable sum held against damage or default is inside it, whatever the lease calls it. Second, the statute speaks of “an amount or value”, which reaches non-cash security as well as cash.

Practically, that means a refundable pet deposit counts toward the two months rather than sitting beside it. The form above therefore records the pet deposit separately for clarity but expects the total to stay inside the ceiling. The deeper treatment lives in our Iowa security deposit laws guide.

In a federally insured bank, savings and loan association or credit union, and never mixed with the landlord’s own money. This is the Iowa rule most often missing from lease templates, and it is not optional.

Iowa Code 562A.12(2) requires all rental deposits to be held by the landlord for the tenant — the tenant who is a party to the agreement — in a bank, savings and loan association or credit union insured by an agency of the federal government. Rental deposits shall not be commingled with the personal funds of the landlord. Notwithstanding Iowa Code chapter 543B, deposits may be held in a trust account, which may be a common trust account and which may be interest-bearing.

The interest rule is a small Iowa quirk that surprises people in both directions. Any interest earned on a rental deposit during the first five years of a tenancy is the property of the landlord. The implication for a long tenancy is that interest earned after the fifth year is not, which is why the statute bothers to say it. The form above captures the depository institution so the lease states on its face where the money sits — useful evidence if commingling is ever alleged.

There is also a succession rule. Under Iowa Code 562A.12(5), when the landlord’s interest in the dwelling unit ends the landlord must within a reasonable time transfer the deposit, or any remainder after lawful deductions, to the successor in interest and notify the tenant of the transfer and the transferee’s name and address — or return it to the tenant. Doing that relieves the outgoing landlord of further liability. Iowa Code 562A.12(6) then gives the tenant twenty days after written notice of the amount being transferred or assumed to object; silence limits the successor’s obligation to the stated amount, and the notice must contain a stamped envelope addressed to the successor.

Thirty days, running from two events rather than one. Iowa Code 562A.12(3) requires the landlord, within thirty days from the date of termination of the tenancy and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions, to return the rental deposit or furnish the tenant a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding it or any portion of it. Where any portion is withheld for restoration of the dwelling unit, the statement must specify the nature of the damages.

The statute limits what may be withheld to amounts reasonably necessary for three purposes: to remedy the tenant’s default in the payment of rent or other funds due under the agreement; to restore the dwelling unit to its condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted; and to recover expenses incurred in acquiring possession from a tenant who does not act in good faith in failing to surrender and vacate after noncompliance and notification. Nothing else qualifies. And Iowa Code 562A.12(3)(b) puts the burden of proving the reason for withholding, by a preponderance of the evidence, squarely on the landlord.

Then the sanction. Iowa Code 562A.12(4) provides that a landlord who fails to provide a written statement within thirty days of termination of the tenancy and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions shall forfeit all rights to withhold any portion of the rental deposit. It is not a penalty measured against the amount wrongly withheld; it is a total forfeiture of the right to withhold anything. A landlord entitled to keep every dollar for genuine damage, who mails the statement on day thirty-one, keeps nothing.

The same subsection cuts the other way, and this half is almost never covered by ranking Iowa pages: if no mailing address or delivery instructions are provided to the landlord within one year from the termination of the tenancy, the rental deposit reverts to the landlord and the tenant is deemed to have forfeited all rights to it. A tenant who vanishes without leaving an address has a year, and then the money is gone.

Finally, bad faith. Iowa Code 562A.12(7) subjects a landlord who retains a deposit or any portion of it in bad faith to punitive damages not to exceed twice the monthly rental payment, in addition to actual damages. Use the Iowa security deposit itemization form to build the written statement and the Iowa deposit return letter to send it, and send both early.

Rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place the parties agreed — and Iowa is one of the few states that caps the late fee by statute.

Iowa Code 562A.9(3) supplies the defaults where the lease is silent: rent is payable at the dwelling unit, periodic rent is payable at the beginning of any term of one month or less and otherwise in equal monthly installments at the beginning of each month, and rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day. That last clause is what makes a prorated first or final month lawful. Where there is no agreement on amount at all, Iowa Code 562A.9(2) makes the tenant liable for the fair rental value of the use and occupancy.

Iowa sets no statutory grace period. If rent is due on the first, it is late on the second unless the lease creates a grace period. What Iowa does have — and what most multi-state templates get wrong — is a hard ceiling on the late fee itself. Iowa Code 562A.9(4) provides that for rental agreements in which the rent does not exceed seven hundred dollars per month, the agreement shall not provide for a late fee exceeding twelve dollars per day or a total of sixty dollars per month. For agreements in which rent is greater than seven hundred dollars per month, the ceiling is twenty dollars per day or a total of one hundred dollars per month.

Read that carefully, because it contains two limits, not one. There is a per-day maximum and an independent per-month maximum, and the monthly figure binds even where the daily accrual would produce more. A lease that provides for a fee above either ceiling is providing for something Iowa Code 562A.9(4) forbids. Our Iowa late fee laws guide covers the drafting in more detail.

Returned-payment charges come from a different statute and carry a condition landlords routinely miss. Iowa Code 554.3512 lets the holder of a dishonored check, draft or order assess against the maker a surcharge not to exceed thirty dollars — but the surcharge shall not be assessed unless the holder clearly and conspicuously posts a notice at the usual place of payment, or in the billing statement, stating that a surcharge will be assessed and its amount. No posted notice, no surcharge. The section also bars the surcharge where the dishonor is because the maker stopped payment under Iowa Code 554.4403.

Thirty days in writing, and the increase cannot take effect before the current agreement expires. This one sits in a place nobody looks for it — the disclosure section, not the termination section.

Iowa Code 562A.13(5) provides that each tenant shall be notified, in writing, of any rent increase at least thirty days before the effective date, and that the effective date shall not be sooner than the expiration date of the original rental agreement or any renewal or extension of it. So a rent increase mid-term is not merely a breach of contract in Iowa; the statute independently forbids the effective date.

Two consequences follow. On a fixed-term lease, the earliest a lawful increase can bite is the day after the term ends, with the written notice out at least thirty days before that. On a month-to-month tenancy, the thirty days run to the effective date, and in practice a landlord aligns the notice with the periodic rental date so the increase and the renewed term start together. Iowa has no rent control and no statewide cap on the size of an increase, but Iowa Code 562A.36(2) makes a rent increase within a year of a good-faith code complaint presumptively retaliatory — rebuttable by evidence that legitimate costs of owning, maintaining or operating the unit have risen and the increase is commensurate. Our Iowa rent increase notice form produces a dated notice, and Iowa rent increase laws covers the timing.

At least twenty-four hours, and only at reasonable times. Iowa Code 562A.19(1) provides that the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord entering to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors.

Iowa Code 562A.19(3) then states the rule and its two exceptions in one sentence: the landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant, and except in case of emergency or if it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least twenty-four hours’ notice of intent to enter and enter only at reasonable times. The impracticability exception is unusual and should not be read broadly — it addresses situations where notice genuinely cannot be given, not situations where it is inconvenient. Iowa Code 562A.19(2) separately allows entry without the tenant’s consent in case of emergency.

Iowa Code 562A.19(4) closes the list: the landlord has no other right of access except by court order, as permitted by Iowa Code 562A.28 and Iowa Code 562A.29, or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises.

The enforcement half lives at Iowa Code 562A.35, and it is what makes the notice rule real. If the landlord makes an unlawful entry, or a lawful entry in an unreasonable manner, or repeated demands for entry which are otherwise lawful but have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant, the tenant may obtain injunctive relief to prevent recurrence or terminate the lease and, in either case, recover actual damages not less than an amount equal to one month’s rent plus reasonable attorney fees. The floor matters: the tenant does not have to prove a month’s worth of loss. The section is reciprocal — a tenant who refuses lawful access exposes themselves to injunctive relief or termination plus actual damages and fees. Our Iowa notice to enter form produces a dated notice that documents compliance, and Iowa landlord entry laws covers the edge cases.

Iowa Code 562A.15(1)(a) places six duties on the landlord: comply with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; 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 appropriate receptacles and conveniences accessible to all tenants for the central collection and removal of ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste and arrange for their removal; and supply running water and reasonable amounts of hot water at all times and reasonable heat. Where the code duty is greater than another listed duty, the code duty controls. The section also relieves the landlord of liability for injuries caused by objects or materials the tenant placed in the common areas the tenant uses.

Iowa allows a limited transfer of two of those duties, and the conditions are strict. For a single family residence — defined at Iowa Code 562A.6(15), and including a unit sharing a wall provided it has direct street access and shares neither heating facilities, hot water equipment nor any other essential facility — Iowa Code 562A.15(2) lets the parties agree in writing that the tenant will perform the waste-removal and water-and-heat duties and specified repairs, maintenance, alterations and remodeling, but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith. For any other dwelling unit, Iowa Code 562A.15(3) allows only specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations or remodeling, and only where the agreement is in good faith, is set out in a separate writing signed by the parties and supported by adequate consideration, and does not diminish the landlord’s obligation to other tenants. Iowa Code 562A.15(4) forbids treating performance of that separate agreement as a condition of the lease.

Iowa Code 562A.17 sets the tenant’s seven duties: comply with obligations primarily imposed on tenants by building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; keep the occupied part of the premises as clean and safe as its condition permits; dispose of ashes, rubbish, garbage and other waste in a clean and safe manner; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; use all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, in a reasonable manner; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises nor knowingly permit anyone to do so; and act in a manner that will not disturb a neighbor’s peaceful enjoyment. Iowa adds a sharp edge the uniform act does not: where damage, defacement, alteration or destruction by the tenant is intentional, the tenant may be criminally charged with criminal mischief under Iowa Code chapter 716.

When the landlord does not repair, the tenant follows Iowa Code 562A.21(1): deliver written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and stating that the agreement terminates on a date not less than seven days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in seven days. If the landlord adequately remedies it in time, the lease continues. If substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months, the tenant may terminate on at least seven days’ written notice unless the landlord has exercised due diligence and effort to remedy. The tenant may not terminate for a condition caused by the deliberate or negligent act of the tenant, a family member, or another person on the premises with the tenant’s consent. Iowa Code 562A.21(2) adds damages and injunctive relief, plus reasonable attorney fees where the landlord’s noncompliance is willful, and Iowa Code 562A.21(4) requires the return of all prepaid rent and security on termination. A dated habitability record is what makes that notice credible.

The landlord has a mirror-image remedy. Under Iowa Code 562A.28, where the tenant’s noncompliance with Iowa Code 562A.17 materially affects health and safety and can be remedied by repair, replacement or cleaning, and the tenant fails to act as promptly as an emergency requires or within seven days after written notice specifying the breach, the landlord may enter, cause the work to be done competently, and bill the actual and reasonable cost, or its fair and reasonable value, as rent on the next date periodic rent is due.

Yes, in two defined ways — and neither is a general licence to withhold rent.

The first is the essential-services route. Iowa Code 562A.23(1) applies where, contrary to the rental agreement or Iowa Code 562A.15, the landlord deliberately or negligently fails to supply running water, hot water, heat or essential services. The tenant gives written notice specifying the breach and may then procure reasonable amounts of those services during the period of noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable cost from the rent; or recover damages based on the diminution in fair rental value; or recover rent already paid for the period of noncompliance on a pro rata basis. A tenant who proceeds under this section may not also proceed under Iowa Code 562A.21 as to that breach, and the rights do not arise until notice has been given or where the tenant or the tenant’s household caused the condition.

The second is narrower and is a defence rather than a right. Iowa Code 562A.27(4) provides that in an action by a landlord for possession based on nonpayment of rent, proof by the tenant of four things is a defence, and the amount the tenant spent is deducted from the rent claimed. All four must be established: that the landlord failed to comply either with the rental agreement or with Iowa Code 562A.15; that the tenant notified the landlord at least seven days before the rent due date of an intention to correct the condition at the landlord’s expense; that the reasonable cost of correcting it is equal to or less than one month’s periodic rent; and that the tenant in good faith caused the condition to be corrected before receipt of the landlord’s written notice of intention to terminate for nonpayment. Miss any one and the defence fails.

Neither route lets a tenant simply stop paying. A tenant already in a possession or rent action may instead counterclaim under Iowa Code 562A.24 for any amount recoverable under the lease or the chapter; where the tenant is in possession the court may order accrued and accruing rent paid into court, and where the tenant is not in possession no rent need be paid in. A defence or counterclaim that is without merit and not raised in good faith exposes the tenant to the landlord’s reasonable attorney fees.

For a tenancy without a fixed term, Iowa Code 562A.34 sets the notice periods, and the week-to-week figure is the one templates get wrong. Either party may terminate a week-to-week tenancy by written notice given at least ten days prior to the termination date specified in the notice — not seven. A month-to-month tenancy takes written notice at least thirty days prior to the periodic rental date specified in the notice. A tenancy having a term longer than month-to-month takes written notice at least thirty days prior to the end of the first or any subsequent term specified in the notice, which is why a twelve-month Iowa lease still needs a non-renewal notice to stop it continuing.

If the tenant remains in possession without the landlord’s consent after expiration or termination, the landlord may bring an action for possession, and where the holdover is willful and not in good faith the landlord may in addition recover the actual damages sustained and reasonable attorney fees under Iowa Code 562A.34(4). Note the shape of that award: it is actual damages, not a multiple of the rent, which differs from several neighbouring states. If the landlord consents to continued occupancy, Iowa Code 562A.9(5) applies and the arrangement becomes week-to-week or month-to-month according to the roomer test.

Iowa Code 562A.25 handles fire and casualty. Where the dwelling unit or premises are damaged or destroyed to an extent that enjoyment is substantially impaired, the tenant may immediately vacate and notify the landlord in writing within fourteen days of an intention to terminate, in which case the lease terminates as of the date of vacating; or, if continued occupancy is lawful, vacate the unusable part with rent reduced in proportion to the diminution in fair rental value. On termination the landlord returns all prepaid rent and security recoverable under Iowa Code 562A.12, accounting as of the date of the casualty.

Iowa Code 562A.22 covers the opposite failure. If the landlord does not deliver possession at the commencement of the term as Iowa Code 562A.14 requires, rent abates until possession is delivered and the tenant may terminate on at least five days’ written notice with all prepaid rent and security returned, or demand performance and sue for possession and damages. A willful, bad-faith failure to deliver possession adds actual damages and reasonable attorney fees.

Iowa has no early-termination-fee statute and no servicemember termination provision inside chapter 562A — military tenants rely on the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and on Iowa Code 29A.101 for state service. Both points matter because multi-state templates frequently carry a state-specific early-termination addendum with no Iowa authority behind it. Our Iowa breaking-lease laws guide covers when a tenant may leave without liability, Iowa lease termination laws covers the notice mechanics, and the Iowa notice of non-renewal and Iowa tenant notice to vacate produce the documents.

Three days for unpaid rent, seven days to cure anything else, and three days with no cure at all for a clear and present danger. Iowa Code 562A.27 governs the first two tracks.

For nonpayment, Iowa Code 562A.27(2) provides that if rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay it within three days after written notice by the landlord of the nonpayment and of the landlord’s intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not paid within that period, the landlord may terminate. Use the Iowa three-day notice to pay rent or quit, and consider sending an Iowa late rent notice first if you would rather keep the tenancy.

For any other material breach, or a noncompliance with Iowa Code 562A.17 materially affecting health and safety, Iowa Code 562A.27(1) requires written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and stating that the agreement will terminate on a date not less than seven days after receipt if the breach is not remedied in seven days. If the breach is remediable and the tenant adequately remedies it before the specified date, the agreement does not terminate. The Iowa notice to cure or quit handles this track.

The sentence that follows in the same subsection is the one rankers omit. If substantially the same act or omission which constituted a prior noncompliance of which notice was given recurs within six months, the landlord may terminate the rental agreement upon at least seven days’ written notice specifying the breach and the date of termination — with no obligation to offer a further chance to remedy. A tenant who cures a violation and repeats it inside six months has used up the cure right for that behaviour. The Iowa unconditional quit notice is the document for a repeat violation.

Iowa Code 562A.27A adds a separate, faster track for a clear and present danger to the health or safety of other tenants, the landlord, the landlord’s employees or agents, or other persons on or within one thousand feet of the landlord’s property. A single three days’ written notice of termination and notice to quit, stating the specific activity and setting out the statutory exemptions, lets the landlord sue for possession under Iowa Code chapter 648, with the tenant given at least three days’ notice of the hearing to contest it. The statute lists physical assault or its threat, illegal use or threatened illegal use of a firearm or other weapon or possession of an illegal firearm, and possession of a controlled substance without a valid prescription. It also says in terms that the mere possession or storage of a firearm by a tenant in the rented dwelling unit does not constitute a clear and present danger. Where the activity is another person’s, the tenant is exempt if they sought a protective order, reported the conduct to law enforcement or the county attorney, or wrote the statutory trespass letter and copied law enforcement — and gave the landlord written proof before suit.

Iowa Code 562A.27(5) carves out one more path: a municipal housing agency under Iowa Code chapter 403A may issue a thirty-day notice of lease termination for a violation of a federal regulation governing the tenant’s eligibility or continued participation in a public housing program, with no right or opportunity to remedy, where the notice cites the federal regulation as authority.

What a landlord may never do is take possession outside the court process. Iowa Code 562A.33 provides that a landlord may not recover or take possession by action or otherwise, including willful diminution of services by interrupting electric, gas, water or other essential service, except in case of abandonment, surrender, or as permitted in the chapter. Iowa Code 562A.26 then prices the breach: the tenant may recover possession under Iowa Code 648.1(1) or terminate the lease and, in either case, recover actual damages, punitive damages not to exceed twice the monthly rental payment, and reasonable attorney fees. Iowa Code 562A.31 separately makes a landlord’s lien on the tenant’s household goods unenforceable unless perfected before January 1, 1979, and abolishes distraint for rent outright. Our Iowa eviction notice laws guide covers the court stage.

By one of three methods for a termination notice, and the posting method requires mailing as well. Iowa is unusually prescriptive here, and service defects sink more Iowa evictions than substantive defects do.

Iowa Code 562A.29A applies to a notice of termination under Iowa Code 562A.27(1), (2) or (5), a notice of termination and notice to quit under Iowa Code 562A.27A, a landlord’s notice of termination under Iowa Code 562A.34(1), (2) or (3), and a notice to quit required by Iowa Code 648.3. Those notices must be served by delivery evidenced by an acknowledgment of delivery signed and dated by a resident of the dwelling unit who is at least eighteen years of age — which is deemed to notify all tenants of the unit — or by personal service under rule of civil procedure 1.305, or by posting on the primary entrance door of the dwelling unit and mailing by both regular mail and certified mail to the address of the unit or to the tenant’s last known address. A posted notice must be posted within the applicable time period and must include the date it was posted. Notice served by mail is deemed completed four days after it is deposited and postmarked, whether or not the recipient signs for it.

Posting alone is not service. Neither is a single mailing. The statute pairs them deliberately, and the four-day mail rule means a landlord counting a three-day nonpayment period from the postmark is counting seven days of exposure, not three.

All other notices under chapter 562A are served under Iowa Code 562A.8, which is broader: a landlord may use hand delivery to the tenant, an acknowledgment of delivery, personal service, mailing by both regular and certified mail, posting on the primary entrance door, or any method that results in the notice actually being received. A tenant serving the landlord may use hand delivery to the landlord or the agent designated under Iowa Code 562A.13, an acknowledgment of delivery, personal service, delivery to an employee or agent at the landlord’s business office, both-mail mailing, or any method resulting in actual receipt. Iowa Code 562A.8A computes all chapter time periods under Iowa Code 4.1(34).

Iowa Code 648.3 supplies the other half of the eviction sequence. Three days’ notice to quit must ordinarily be given in writing before a forcible entry and detainer action on any ground except Iowa Code 648.1(1). But the statute expressly relieves a landlord who has given the tenant three days’ notice to pay rent and has terminated the tenancy under Iowa Code 562A.27(2) from serving a further notice to quit. Landlords who serve two three-day notices in sequence are usually serving one more than the statute requires; landlords who serve none at all on a non-rent ground have no case.

Iowa Code 562A.20 lets the rental agreement require the tenant to notify the landlord of an anticipated extended absence from the premises not later than the first day of the absence. That is an opt-in clause, which is why the form above offers it as a checkbox. Where the lease contains it and the tenant willfully fails to give the notice, Iowa Code 562A.29(1) lets the landlord recover actual damages.

During an absence of the tenant in excess of fourteen days, Iowa Code 562A.29(2) permits the landlord to enter the dwelling unit at times reasonably necessary. This is one of the statutory access routes preserved by Iowa Code 562A.19(4), so it operates without the twenty-four-hour notice that governs ordinary entry.

If the tenant abandons the dwelling unit, Iowa Code 562A.29(3) requires the landlord to make reasonable efforts to rent it at a fair rental. The mitigation machinery is precise. If the landlord rents the unit for a term beginning before the expiration of the rental agreement, the agreement is deemed terminated as of the date the new tenancy begins. The agreement is deemed terminated by the landlord as of the date the landlord has notice of the abandonment if the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts to re-rent at a fair rental, or if the landlord accepts the abandonment as a surrender. For a month-to-month or week-to-week tenancy, the term of the agreement for this purpose is deemed to be a month or a week as the case may be — which caps the exposure sharply on a periodic tenancy.

Chapter 562A does not itself supply a notice-and-reclaim procedure for personal property the tenant leaves behind, and a landlord should not assume one exists by analogy to another state. The duty to mitigate at Iowa Code 562A.4(1) applies to the aggrieved party generally, and Iowa Code 562A.33 continues to bar self-help repossession while the tenancy is alive. Document what was left, photograph it, and take advice before disposing of anything of value.

Iowa Code 562A.11(1) lists four provisions a rental agreement may not contain, and the framing is what makes Iowa different: the subsection says a rental agreement shall not provide that the tenant or landlord does any of the following, and paragraphs (c) and (d) speak of “the other party”. The prohibition is symmetric. A rental agreement may not provide that a party:

• Agrees to waive or to forego rights or remedies under chapter 562A — with one narrow carve-out, for rental agreements covering single family residences on land assessed as agricultural land and located in an unincorporated area.
• Authorizes a person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement.
• Agrees to pay the other party’s attorney fees. This is the one that catches almost everyone.
• Agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the other party arising under law, or to indemnify the other party for that liability or the associated costs.

Iowa Code 562A.11(2) adds a fifth prohibition that applies only to federally assisted landlords. Where the landlord receives rental assistance under a United States Department of Agriculture multifamily housing rental assistance agreement, or housing assistance payments under a Department of Housing and Urban Development section 8 contract, a rental agreement shall not contain a provision or impose a rule requiring a person to agree, as a condition of tenancy, to a prohibition or restriction on the lawful ownership, use or possession of a firearm, a firearm component, or ammunition within the tenant’s specific rental unit. The landlord may impose reasonable restrictions in common areas so long as they do not circumvent the subsection, and the tenant must exercise reasonable care in storage. The subsection does not apply to prohibitions required by federal or state law. Iowa Code 562A.16(3) is its companion: except in cases of willful, reckless or gross negligence, a landlord is not liable in a civil action for injury, death or damage arising out of an occurrence involving a firearm the landlord is required to allow under Iowa Code 562A.11.

Iowa Code 562A.11(3) supplies the sanction. A prohibited provision included in a rental agreement is unenforceable. If a landlord willfully uses a rental agreement containing provisions known by the landlord to be prohibited, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained plus not more than three months’ periodic rent plus reasonable attorney fees. Note the trigger: it is not enough that the clause is in the lease; the landlord must have used the lease willfully knowing the provision is prohibited. A landlord using a stock template downloaded from a form site is, after reading a page like this one, no longer able to claim ignorance.

It is worth being precise about what the fee ban does not mean, because the rule is often overstated in both directions. Iowa awards attorney fees in residential disputes constantly — it simply awards them by statute rather than by contract. Iowa Code 562A.12(8) says the court may, in any action on a rental agreement, award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party. On top of that, a tenant recovers fees for a landlord’s willful noncompliance under Iowa Code 562A.21(2), for unlawful ouster or utility cutoff under Iowa Code 562A.26, for abuse of access under Iowa Code 562A.35(2), for retaliation under Iowa Code 562A.36(2), and for a violation of the emergency-assistance protections under Iowa Code 562A.27B(3). A landlord recovers fees for a tenant’s willful noncompliance under Iowa Code 562A.27(3), for a meritless bad-faith defence under Iowa Code 562A.24(1), for refusal of lawful access under Iowa Code 562A.35(1), and on a willful bad-faith holdover under Iowa Code 562A.34(4). Iowa Code 562A.6(9) defines “reasonable attorney fees” as fees determined by the time reasonably expended by the attorney and not by the amount of the recovery. Those awards survive; a lease clause purporting to create fee-shifting does not. The lease this page generates therefore contains no attorney-fee clause at all, and says so expressly.

Two more protections sit outside the prohibited-provisions section but function the same way. Iowa Code 562A.27B forbids a landlord to prohibit or limit a tenant’s or resident’s right to summon law enforcement or other emergency assistance for a victim of abuse, a victim of a crime, or an individual in an emergency, or to impose penalties, fines, fees or eviction for exercising it — and states that any waiver of that subsection is contrary to public policy and is void, unenforceable, and of no force or effect. A violation entitles the tenant or resident to a civil penalty equal to one month’s rent, actual damages, reasonable attorney fees, court costs and injunctive relief. And Iowa Code 562A.7 lets a court refuse to enforce any provision, or any settlement waiving a chapter right, that was unconscionable when made.

Three under state law, plus one federal. That is the complete list, and it is both shorter and stranger than most templates suggest.

Manager and owner identification — Iowa Code 562A.13(1). The landlord, or a person authorized to enter into a 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 authorized to manage the premises, and of an owner of the premises or a person authorized to act for and on behalf of the owner for the purpose of service of process and for receiving and receipting for notices and demands. Iowa Code 562A.13(2) requires the information to be kept current and makes the section enforceable against a successor landlord, owner or manager. Iowa Code 562A.13(3) supplies the sanction: a person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each landlord for service of process and receiving notices and demands, and for performing the landlord’s obligations out of all rent collected from the premises. Iowa Code 562A.6(5) reinforces the point by defining “landlord” to include a manager who fails to disclose as required.

Utility rates, charges and services — Iowa Code 562A.13(4). The landlord or any authorized person must fully explain utility rates, charges and services to the prospective tenant before the rental agreement is signed, unless those utilities are paid by the tenant directly to the utility company. This is a pre-signature duty rather than a clause, which is why it is so often missed — there is nothing to sign and nothing to file, so a landlord who never had the conversation has nothing that looks like a defect. It is Iowa’s analogue of a shared-metering disclosure, and it bites hardest where a master-metered building recovers utilities through the rent or through an allocation formula.

Federal Superfund listing — Iowa Code 562A.13(6). Added by 2004 Acts, chapter 1071, this requires the landlord or an authorized person to disclose to each tenant in writing before the commencement of the tenancy if the property is listed in the comprehensive environmental response, compensation and liability information system maintained by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. This is Iowa’s only environmental disclosure for a residential lease. It is a yes-or-no question about a federal database, it is answerable before every tenancy, and the form above forces you to answer it rather than leaving it blank.

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 an Iowa rule, but it applies in Iowa and carries federal penalties. Our Iowa lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Iowa does not require a flood-risk disclosure, a bed bug disclosure, a mold disclosure, an asbestos disclosure, a methamphetamine contamination disclosure, a military ordnance proximity 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 — the generator offers labelled voluntary mold and radon blocks for exactly that reason — but citing an Iowa section for it does, because it signals a document nobody has checked against chapter 562A.

Not under state law, and the confusion is worth clearing up because Iowa has some of the highest indoor radon readings in the country.

Iowa’s radon statute is Iowa Code 136B.2, and it is a confidentiality statute rather than a landlord-disclosure statute. It requires a person certified or credentialed under Iowa Code 136B.1 to report the address, the owner’s name and the test or abatement results to the department within thirty days of providing radon testing or abatement services. It then forbids that person from disclosing the results, the address or the owner’s name for a nonpublic building to anyone other than the department, unless the owner waives confidentiality in writing — with a narrow exception allowing disclosure to a potential buyer who has made an offer and paid for the testing, using results from within the prior five years. Iowa Code 136B.2(2) adds that disclosure is not required at all where results do not exceed the current federal action guidelines, except as required during a real estate transaction pursuant to Iowa Code 558A.4.

That exception is the whole story: the only compelled radon disclosure in Iowa runs through a real estate transaction under the disclosure-statement regime at Iowa Code chapter 558A, which governs transferors and transferees of real property, not landlords and tenants. Nothing in chapter 562A requires a lease radon disclosure.

Local law is a different matter and must be checked property by property. Iowa City adopted the first rental radon ordinance in the state, effective July 1, 2021, requiring radon testing and, where readings reach the federal action level of four picocuries per liter, mitigation — for single-family detached homes and duplexes, with testing and mitigation performed by third-party specialists. A landlord in a municipality with such an ordinance is bound by it regardless of what chapter 562A says. That is why the generator offers a radon block, labelled on its face as not required by Iowa statute, rather than silently printing one or silently omitting it.

• Including an attorney-fee clause. Iowa Code 562A.11(1)(c) prohibits it in either direction. The clause is void, and willfully using a lease known to contain one costs actual damages plus up to three months’ rent plus the tenant’s fees.
• Counting the deposit deadline from move-out. The thirty days run from termination and receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions under Iowa Code 562A.12(3). Log the date the address arrives.
• Sending the deposit statement late. Iowa Code 562A.12(4) forfeits the entire right to withhold, not merely the disputed part.
• Keeping the deposit in a personal account. Iowa Code 562A.12(2) requires a federally insured bank, savings and loan association or credit union and forbids commingling.
• Writing a late fee above the statutory ceiling. Iowa Code 562A.9(4) caps the fee per day and per month on a two-tier scale, and the tier changes at a monthly rent of seven hundred dollars.
• Charging a returned-payment fee with no posted notice. Iowa Code 554.3512 caps the surcharge at thirty dollars and makes a clearly and conspicuously posted notice a precondition of charging it at all.
• Treating week-to-week termination as seven days. Iowa Code 562A.34(1) requires at least ten days.
• Letting a fixed-term lease run out without notice. Iowa Code 562A.34(3) still requires thirty days’ notice before the end of the term.
• Assuming an unlimited right to cure. Iowa Code 562A.27(1) removes the second chance where substantially the same act recurs within six months.
• Posting a termination notice on the door and stopping there. Iowa Code 562A.29A requires posting and mailing by both regular and certified mail, and mail is complete only four days after postmark.
• Skipping the utility rate explanation. Iowa Code 562A.13(4) makes it a pre-signature duty, and it does not disappear because the lease allocates the utility.
• Leaving the Superfund question blank. Iowa Code 562A.13(6) requires a written answer before every tenancy begins.
• Importing radon, flood, or bed bug disclosures with an Iowa citation. None is required by Iowa statute; a local radon ordinance such as Iowa City’s is municipal law, not chapter 562A.
• Raising rent mid-term. Iowa Code 562A.13(5) requires thirty days’ written notice and forbids an effective date before the current agreement expires.
• Adding an indemnity or exculpation clause. Prohibited by Iowa Code 562A.11(1)(d), with the same three-months’-rent exposure as the fee clause.
• Banning firearms in an assisted property. Iowa Code 562A.11(2) forbids a lease clause restricting lawful firearm ownership, use or possession inside the unit where the landlord takes USDA or HUD assistance.
• Using a residential lease for a mobile home lot. Manufactured housing communities are governed by Iowa Code chapter 562B, not by chapter 562A.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. Iowa gives a landlord a workable path to possession, but it also removes the fee-shifting clause landlords elsewhere rely on, caps the late fee, and hands the tenant a statutory fee award in several situations — so the cost of placing the wrong tenant lands more squarely on the landlord here. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy, and Iowa’s own tenant screening laws set the boundaries. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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