Free Massachusetts Residential Lease Agreement
A configurable Massachusetts residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to M.G.L. c. 186, §15B — the closed list of move-in payments, the in-state bank account, the ten-day statement of condition and the treble damages that follow a slip.
A Massachusetts residential lease agreement is the written contract governed chiefly by Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, and above all by §15B — the security deposit section that Massachusetts courts apply with something very close to strict liability and that carries treble damages plus court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. Massachusetts is the state where a generic multi-state template is not merely inaccurate but actively dangerous, because §15B(6)(c) makes using a lease clause that conflicts with the section, and attempting to enforce it, a forfeiture event in its own right. The clause is the violation. On top of chapter 186 sit the lead law in chapter 111, summary process in chapter 239, and the Attorney General’s rental regulation at 940 CMR 3.17, made under the consumer protection act, chapter 93A — which is where two of the load-bearing duties actually live. This page states each rule from the codified text and generates a lease that matches it.
Massachusetts Lease Rules at a Glance
Security Deposit Cap
1 Month
Deposit Return
30 Days
Entry Notice
No Statute
Late Fee Allowed After
30 Days
Four Massachusetts Rules That Cost Landlords Real Money
First, the money is not the landlord’s and cannot sit in the landlord’s account. M.G.L. c. 186, §15B(3)(a) requires a separate, interest-bearing account in a bank located within the Commonwealth, and a receipt within thirty days naming the bank, its location, the amount and the account number. Second, only three of the five deposit failures treble. §15B(6) lists five; §15B(7) trebles for clauses (a), (d) and (e) — the wrong account, the un-transferred deposit on a sale, and the late return. Third, the statement of condition is due within ten days, in twelve-point bold-face type, and §15B(4) then bars any deduction for anything written on it. Fourth, there is no early late fee: §15B(1)(c) forbids any interest or penalty on unpaid rent until the payment is thirty days overdue, and 940 CMR 3.17(6)(a) makes charging one earlier an unfair or deceptive practice under chapter 93A.
How to Fill Out This Massachusetts Lease Agreement
1. Name the owner, the repair contact and the agent for service
940 CMR 3.17(3)(b) makes it an unfair or deceptive practice under chapter 93A to enter into a written rental agreement that does not state, fully and conspicuously and in plain language, the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the owner and of anyone else responsible for the care, maintenance and repair of the property, and the name, address and telephone number of the person authorised to receive notices of violations of law and to accept service of process.
2. Describe the premises and the building
Address, county, property type and year built. A pre-1978 building triggers both the Massachusetts Tenant Lead Law Notification under c. 111, §197A(d) and the federal lead-based paint disclosure. Owner-occupied two- and three-family dwellings are the only properties exempted from the written-notice duty in c. 186, §19, so the property type genuinely changes the document.
3. Choose the tenancy, because the exit rules differ
A fixed term ends on its own date. A tenancy at will is determined under c. 186, §12 by three months’ written notice, reduced where rent is payable more often to the rent interval or thirty days, whichever is longer. The two tenancies also carry different nonpayment cure rights, which is the single most misreported point in Massachusetts coverage.
4. Enter only the four lawful move-in payments
The form deliberately gives you four fields and no more: first month’s rent, last month’s rent at the same rate, a security deposit that cannot exceed the first month’s rent, and the purchase and installation cost for a key and lock. If your current lease has a fifth line, that line is the problem.
5. Name the bank, its location and the account number
Those three data points are what §15B(3)(a) requires on the thirty-day receipt, and they are the difference between a compliant deposit and one the tenant can demand back immediately. Writing them into the lease itself is the simplest way to prove the receipt was given.
6. Diary the statement of condition and check the disclosures
The statement of condition is due on receipt of the deposit or within ten days of the start of the tenancy, whichever is later. The disclosure block covers the deposit receipts, the owner identification, the lease-copy duty, both lead notifications, the fire insurance duty, and the water and tax-escalator clauses where they apply.
7. Generate, sign, and deliver the executed copy
Download the multi-page PDF and sign. No witnesses and no notary are required. But 940 CMR 3.17(3)(c) requires the landlord to give the tenant an executed copy within thirty days of obtaining the tenant’s signature, and c. 186, §15D backs the same duty with a fine where the lease was agreed orally first.
Build Your Massachusetts Residential Lease Agreement
Complete the fields below to generate a Massachusetts residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the bank details, the statement-of-condition date and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Massachusetts section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a Massachusetts move-in / move-out checklist, because in Massachusetts the written record of move-in condition is what §15B(4) tests every later deduction against.
Massachusetts Residential Lease Agreement Builder
1. Parties
The Attorney General’s rental regulation, 940 CMR 3.17(3)(b), makes it an unfair or deceptive practice under c.93A to enter into a written rental agreement that does not name the owner, anyone responsible for care, maintenance and repair, and the person authorised to accept service of process. All three fields below are written into the generated lease.
2. Premises
3. Term
4. Rent
Massachusetts sets no rent cap and no rent-increase notice period — c.40P prohibits municipal rent control. What it does regulate is the LATE FEE: c.186 §15B(1)(c) forbids any interest or penalty on unpaid rent until the payment is thirty days overdue, and 940 CMR 3.17(6)(a) makes charging one earlier an unfair or deceptive practice.
5. Move-In Payments, Deposit & Bank
Massachusetts permits only FOUR move-in payments (c.186 §15B(1)(b)): first month’s rent, last month’s rent at the same rate, a security deposit not exceeding the first month’s rent, and the purchase and installation cost for a key and lock. Since August 1, 2025 that ceiling binds the landlord’s AGENT too, and payments made TO an agent. Anything else collected at move-in is itself a violation.
6. Utilities & Services
Assign each utility. A landlord who wilfully fails to supply a service the tenancy requires, or who transfers a utility bill to the tenant without consent, commits a criminal offence under c.186 §14 and is civilly liable for three months’ rent or actual and consequential damages, whichever is greater.
7. Massachusetts Disclosures
Massachusetts spreads its lease disclosures across c.186, the lead law in c.111, and the Attorney General’s regulation at 940 CMR 3.17. Leave a box unchecked only where the requirement genuinely does not apply to this property. The bank-receipt box starts unchecked because it states that the deposit is held in a Massachusetts bank account; tick it only when that is true. The federal lead-based paint disclosure follows the year built: before 1978 it prints, 1978 or later it does not, and with the year left blank its box decides.
8. Other Provisions
Massachusetts does not ban a landlord attorney-fee clause. c.186 §20 IMPLIES a matching covenant in the tenant’s favour into any lease that contains one, and any waiver of that section is void. The option below therefore generates the reciprocal version, which is the only version Massachusetts law will read into the lease anyway.
What Types of Massachusetts Lease Agreement Are There?
Massachusetts recognises two core residential arrangements and the difference between them runs through every notice period on this page. A lease for a term — usually twelve months — runs to a fixed end date and expires by its own limitation. A tenancy at will, which Massachusetts practice calls a month-to-month tenancy, has no end date and continues from rental period to rental period until one side determines it under c. 186, §12. Chapter 186 is titled “Estates for Years and at Will”, which is exactly that division.
Three further arrangements sit inside those two. A sublease passes the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable to the landlord. A roommate or room rental is a tenancy in part of a dwelling; where the arrangement is in a licensed rooming or lodging house, c. 186, §17 converts occupancy of three consecutive months into a tenancy at will with the full protection of chapters 186, 111 and 239, excepting fraternity, sorority and educational dormitories. Occupancy of more than thirty consecutive days but less than three months, or in a dormitory for any period, is terminable on seven days’ written notice; and where the rent is daily or weekly, seven days’ written notice will terminate for a nuisance, substantial damage, or substantial interference with the comfort, safety or enjoyment of the landlord or other occupants — a notice that must specify the nuisance or interference relied on. A commercial lease is outside all of this, and Massachusetts has a specific trap on that point set out further down.
An oral tenancy is enforceable in Massachusetts as a tenancy at will, and the statute of frauds does not defeat it, but it is a poor idea for a different reason: almost every duty on this page is a duty to give the tenant something in writing, and an oral arrangement makes each of them harder to prove. Note too that c. 186, §15D specifically addresses the halfway case — a lessor who agreed orally to execute a lease and obtained the lessee’s signature must deliver a copy duly signed and executed by the lessor within thirty days, on pain of a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, with any waiver void.
What Can a Massachusetts Landlord Charge at Move-In?
Four things, and nothing else. M.G.L. c. 186, §15B(1)(b) is a closed list, and it is the most important sentence in Massachusetts residential landlord-tenant law for anyone drafting a lease. At or prior to the commencement of any tenancy, a landlord may require only:
- Rent for the first full month of occupancy.
- Rent for the last full month of occupancy, calculated at the same rate as the first month.
- A security deposit equal to the first month’s rent — and only provided the deposit is held as subsection (3) requires and the tenant is given the statement of condition subsection (2) requires.
- The purchase and installation cost for a key and lock.
There is no lawful application fee, no processing fee, no pet fee or pet deposit, no cleaning fee, no administrative fee, no move-in fee, no amenity fee and no holding fee at or before the start of a Massachusetts tenancy. Collecting one is not a drafting infelicity; it is a violation of §15B, and §15B(8) makes any lease provision conflicting with the section void and unenforceable as against public policy.
The August 2025 amendment. The introductory words of §15B(1)(b) were rewritten by the acts of 2025, chapter 9, sections 54 and 55, effective August 1, 2025. The paragraph now reads that no lessor or agent of the lessor may require a tenant or prospective tenant to pay, to the lessor or to an agent of the lessor, any amount in excess of those four items. That is the change that ended the practice of loading a broker’s fee onto a tenant who never engaged the broker. It matters for a second reason too: the official malegislature.gov page for §15B still publishes both the pre-amendment and post-amendment versions of that paragraph side by side, with bracketed effectivity notes. A page built from the first block is a year out of date, and none of the templates currently ranking for this query carries the amendment at all.
After the tenancy starts, §15B(1)(d) closes the other door: no landlord or successor in interest may at any time thereafter demand rent in advance in excess of the current month’s rent, or a security deposit in excess of the amount the section allows. And the payment in advance made under the section binds all successors in interest, which is what makes the transfer rules in §15B(5) and (7A) work.
The fee in lieu of a deposit. The same 2025 amendment authorises — but does not itself create — a fee in lieu of a security deposit. The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities may promulgate regulations permitting one, and the statute prescribes what any such regulations must contain: the fee must be optional for both parties, the tenant must be able to opt out at any time by paying the deposit instead, the fee must be disclosed in the lease as wholly or partly non-refundable and acknowledged by the tenant in writing, it must be offered to every approved applicant regardless of income, race, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, immigration status, household size or credit score, those factors may not be used to set its amount, the money must be applied to unpaid rent or unit damage under the tenant’s lease, and the fee together with any deposit may not exceed one month’s rent in total. Until those regulations are in force the ordinary deposit rules are the only lawful route, and this page does not treat the fee as currently available.
How Much Can a Massachusetts Landlord Charge for a Security Deposit?
One month’s rent, and even that is conditional. §15B(1)(b)(iii) permits a security deposit equal to the first month’s rent provided the deposit is deposited as required by subsection (3) and the tenant is given the statement of condition required by subsection (2). Read that as a warning rather than a formality: the lawfulness of the deposit itself is tied to the two compliance steps that follow it.
There is no furnished-apartment uplift. A figure that circulates widely — one month’s rent plus an additional amount reflecting the value of the furnishings — does not appear anywhere in the current codified text of §15B, and a landlord who relies on it is over the cap.
The deposit also does not become the landlord’s money. §15B(1)(e) provides that a security deposit continues to be the property of the tenant, shall not be commingled with the assets of the lessor, and is not subject to the claims of any creditor of the lessor or of the lessor’s successor in interest, including a foreclosing mortgagee or a trustee in bankruptcy. The only interest the tenant gives up is the right to more interest than subsection (3)(b) provides.
Where Must a Massachusetts Security Deposit Be Held?
In a separate, interest-bearing account in a bank located within the Commonwealth. That is the whole of §15B(3)(a)’s first requirement, and the geography is not decorative — a deposit sitting in an out-of-state account is not held as the section requires. The account terms must place the deposit beyond the claim of the landlord’s creditors, including a foreclosing mortgagee or a trustee in bankruptcy, and must provide for its transfer to a subsequent owner of the property.
Then comes the receipt. Within thirty days after the deposit is received, the landlord must give the tenant a receipt indicating the name and location of the bank in which the deposit has been placed, and the amount and account number of the deposit. The consequence of missing it is stated in the same paragraph: “Failure to comply with this paragraph shall entitle the tenant to immediate return of the security deposit.” No damage claim, no cure period — the money goes back.
Failing to hold the deposit in a proper account is also the first of the three failures that carry treble damages under §15B(7). This is the single most expensive mistake in the Massachusetts deposit code, and it is committed by every landlord who banks a deposit into an operating account.
Separately, §15B(2)(b) requires a signed receipt at the moment the deposit is taken, stating the amount, the name of the person receiving it and, where an agent takes it, the name of the lessor, the date received, and a description of the premises. Two receipts, then, on two different clocks: one at payment, one within thirty days once the bank is known.
What Is the Massachusetts Statement of Condition?
The document that decides the move-out dispute. Under §15B(2)(c), a landlord who accepts a security deposit must, upon receipt of that deposit or within ten days after the commencement of the tenancy, whichever is later, furnish the tenant a separate written statement of the present condition of the premises. It must contain a comprehensive listing of any damage then existing, including but not limited to any state sanitary or state building code violations certified by a local board of health or building official or adjudicated by a court. It must be signed by the landlord or the landlord’s agent. And it must carry, in twelve-point bold-face type at the top of the first page, the notice the statute writes out in full — telling the tenant to read it, to sign it if correct, to attach a separate signed list of any damage the tenant believes exists if it is not, and warning that a failure to return the list within the specified period may later be treated by a court as agreement that the list is complete and correct.
The tenant then has fifteen days after receiving the statement, or after moving in, whichever is later, to return it or to submit a separate signed list. If the tenant submits a list, the landlord has fifteen days from receiving it to return a copy with either the landlord’s signed agreement or a clear statement of disagreement attached.
The payoff is in §15B(4): no amount may be deducted from the security deposit for any damage listed on that statement, or on any separate tenant list the landlord signed, unless the landlord subsequently repaired the damage and can prove the renewed damage was unrelated to the prior damage and was caused by the tenant or someone under the tenant’s control. A landlord who never issues a statement of condition has no baseline at all, and a tenant who never returns one has, by the statute’s own warning, weakened the argument at move-out. This is why the move-in inspection is a legal step in Massachusetts rather than good practice.
Does a Massachusetts Landlord Have to Pay Interest on the Deposit?
Yes — and on last month’s rent too, on a different clock. Massachusetts runs two interest duties in parallel and most summaries describe only one.
The security deposit (§15B(3)(b)). A landlord who holds a deposit for one year or longer from the commencement of the term must, beginning with the first day of the tenancy, pay interest at five per cent per year, or such lesser amount of interest as has been received from the bank, payable to the tenant at the end of each year of the tenancy. At the end of each year the landlord must give or send a statement showing the name and address of the bank, the amount of the deposit, the account number and the interest payable, and must at the same time pay the interest or notify the tenant that it may be deducted from the next rent payment. If thirty days after the end of a tenancy year the tenant has received neither payment nor notice, the tenant may deduct the interest from the next rent. Where the tenancy ends before an anniversary, all accrued interest is due within thirty days of termination.
Last month’s rent (§15B(2)(a)). Rent taken in advance for the last month is not a security deposit and does not count against the deposit cap — but it carries its own regime. The receipt must be given at the time of the advance payment and must state the amount, the date received, its intended application as rent for the last month, the name of the person receiving it and, for an agent, the name of the lessor, a description of the premises, a statement that the tenant is entitled to interest at five per cent per year or such lesser rate as the bank paid, and a statement that the tenant should provide a forwarding address at the end of the tenancy. Interest here runs from the first day of the tenancy with no one-year qualifying period, is paid over each year with a statement, and is deductible from the next rent if not received within thirty days of the year end. No interest accrues for the last month itself. And the sanction is specific: if the landlord fails to pay the interest due within thirty days after termination of the tenancy, the tenant is awarded three times that interest, together with court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
How Long Does a Massachusetts Landlord Have to Return the Deposit?
Thirty days. §15B(4) requires the landlord, within thirty days after the termination of occupancy under a tenancy at will or the end of the tenancy specified in a valid written lease, to return the security deposit or any balance. Exactly three deductions are permitted:
- Unpaid rent or water charges which have not been validly withheld or deducted under any general or special law — the qualification matters, because rent withheld under c. 239, §8A or spent under c. 111, §127L is not “unpaid rent” for this purpose.
- An unpaid increase in real estate taxes the tenant is obliged to pay under a tax escalation clause that conforms to c. 186, §15C.
- A reasonable amount necessary to repair damage caused by the tenant, or by a person under the tenant’s control or on the premises with the tenant’s consent — reasonable wear and tear excluded.
For damage, the landlord must provide within the same thirty days an itemized list of damages, sworn to by the landlord or the landlord’s agent under the pains and penalties of perjury, itemising in precise detail the nature of the damage and of the repairs necessary to correct it, together with written evidence — estimates, bills, invoices or receipts — indicating the actual or estimated cost. The statute closes with a sentence that removes any residual discretion: “No deduction may be made from the security deposit for any purpose other than those set forth in this section.”
One preserved right sits alongside all this. Nothing in §15B limits a landlord’s right to recover from a tenant who wilfully or maliciously destroys or damages property, to the forfeiture of a security deposit, where the cost of repair or replacement exceeds the deposit.
When Does a Massachusetts Landlord Owe Treble Damages?
This is the question the ranking templates answer wrongly, and the distinction is worth reading twice.
§15B(6) — forfeiture. A landlord forfeits the right to retain any portion of the security deposit for any reason, and the right in any tenant action to recover the deposit to counterclaim for damage to the premises, if the landlord:
- (a) fails to deposit the funds in an account as required by subsection (3);
- (b) fails to furnish the tenant, within thirty days after the termination of the occupancy, the itemized list of damages in compliance with the section;
- (c) uses in any lease signed by the tenant any provision which conflicts with any provision of the section and attempts to enforce it, or attempts to obtain from the tenant or prospective tenant a waiver of any provision of the section;
- (d) fails to transfer the deposit to a successor in interest, or otherwise comply with subsection (5), after succeeding to an interest in residential real property; or
- (e) fails to return the deposit or the balance to which the tenant is entitled, with interest, within thirty days after termination of the tenancy.
§15B(7) — treble damages. “If the lessor or his agent fails to comply with clauses (a), (d), or (e) of subsection 6, the tenant shall be awarded damages in an amount equal to three times the amount of such security deposit or balance thereof to which the tenant is entitled plus interest at the rate of five per cent from the date when such payment became due, together with court costs and