Free North Carolina Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable North Carolina residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 42 — the three-tier deposit cap in 42-51(b), the 30-day and 60-day accounting in 42-52, and the fees 42-46 actually allows.

North Carolina G.S. Chapter 42 3-Tier Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A North Carolina residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by Chapter 42 of the General Statutes, and in particular by Article 5, the residential rental agreements provisions running from 42-38 to 42-46, and Article 6, the Tenant Security Deposit Act at 42-50 to 42-56. North Carolina never adopted the uniform residential landlord and tenant act, so its chapter is idiosyncratic: it is unusually precise about money and unusually silent about access. Three things define it. The deposit cap in 42-51(b) has three tiers keyed to the type of tenancy, not to the length of the document. The accounting in 42-52 has two tiers — thirty days normally, but an interim accounting at thirty days and a final one at sixty where the claim cannot yet be determined. And 42-46, the most amended and most misreported section in the state, does not merely cap the late fee: it names the only three administrative fees a lease may carry, caps attorneys’ fees at 15%, and declares every contrary lease provision void and unenforceable. On top of that, North Carolina has no landlord-entry statute at all, so the notice before entry exists only because the lease writes it.

Complete the fields below to generate a North Carolina residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the tenancy basis that drives the deposit cap and the late-fee ceiling, the utility allocations, each authorised fee you select and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling section at every point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a North Carolina move-in / move-out checklist, which is how a landlord proves the difference between damage and the normal wear and tear that G.S. 42-52 forbids withholding for.

Fixed-term, periodic, and a handful of arrangements Chapter 42 pushes outside itself. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms, which is why no notice to quit is needed to end it. A periodic tenancy renews itself until one side gives the notice to quit in G.S. 42-14 — year to year, month to month or week to week. There are also room and roommate agreements, subleases, and lease-to-own arrangements adding a purchase option.

Which one you choose is not cosmetic in this state, because the security deposit cap in G.S. 42-51(b) is written against the tenancy: two weeks’ rent if a tenancy is week to week, one and one-half months’ rent if it is month to month, and two months’ rent for terms greater than month to month. A landlord who documents a month-to-month arrangement and then collects two months’ rent has exceeded the cap even though the paperwork looks like a lease.

Several categories sit outside the residential rules. Under G.S. 42-39 Article 5 does not apply to vacation rentals entered into under Chapter 42A, nor to any dwelling furnished without charge or rent. Under G.S. 42-14.6, added in 2023 by S.L. 2023-5, the provisions of Chapter 42 do not apply to transient occupancies as defined in G.S. 72-1(c), and an agreement related to a transient occupancy does not create a tenancy unless the agreement expressly says so — a provision that replaced the old inn-and-motel exclusion in 42-39(a). And the Tenant Security Deposit Act has a scope limit of its own: under G.S. 42-56 it applies to persons, firms or corporations engaged in the business of renting or managing residential dwelling units, excluding single rooms, on a weekly, monthly or annual basis.

One more definitional point that changes who owes the duties. G.S. 42-40(3) defines landlord to include any owner and any rental management company, rental agency or other person having the actual or apparent authority of an agent to perform the duties imposed by the Article. A management company is a landlord for Chapter 42 purposes. G.S. 42-40(2) defines premises broadly enough to include mobile homes and mobile home spaces, the structure of which the unit is a part, and the grounds, areas and facilities normally held out for the use of residential tenants — which is why the landlord’s duty to keep common areas safe is not optional.

It depends on the type of tenancy, and there are three tiers. G.S. 42-51(b) reads: “The security deposit shall not exceed an amount equal to two weeks’ rent if a tenancy is week to week, one and one-half months’ rent if a tenancy is month to month, and two months’ rent for terms greater than month to month.”

Read what that sentence keys to. It is the tenancy, not the length of the written document, and not the number of months the tenant intends to stay. A twelve-month lease is a term greater than month to month and sits in the two-month tier. A month-to-month arrangement is capped at one and one-half months’ rent whatever the parties later agree. And a week-to-week tenancy — the tier three of the eight ranking template pages omit entirely — is capped at two weeks’ rent. The deepest-ranking page in this search result describes the top tier as applying to “leases longer than 2 months”, which is not what the subsection says and would mis-state the cap for a six-week arrangement.

Two related points. North Carolina imposes no duty to pay or collect interest on a residential security deposit; the Act simply does not address it. And G.S. 42-53 permits a landlord to charge “a reasonable, nonrefundable fee for pets kept by the tenant on the premises”. That authorises a nonrefundable fee, not a refundable pet deposit. Money taken as a refundable pet deposit is security, counts toward the 42-51(b) tier, and must be accounted for under 42-52. The section carries a small drafting oddity worth noticing — it opens “Notwithstanding the provisions of this section” where the sense is plainly the Article — but its effect is not in doubt. Our North Carolina security deposit laws guide covers the interaction with pet charges in more detail.

Only the eight things listed in G.S. 42-51(a), and the list is closed. This is the single most useful provision in the Act for both sides, and not one ranking page prints it. Security deposits for residential dwelling units “shall be permitted only for the following”:

• The tenant’s possible nonpayment of rent and costs for water or sewer services provided pursuant to G.S. 62-110(g) and electric service pursuant to G.S. 62-110(h).
• Damage to the premises, including damage to or destruction of smoke alarms or carbon monoxide alarms.
• Damages as a result of the nonfulfillment of the rental period — except where the tenant terminated under G.S. 42-45 or G.S. 42-45.1, or was forced to leave because of the landlord’s violation of Article 2A, or was constructively evicted by the landlord’s violation of G.S. 42-42(a).
• Any unpaid bills that become a lien against the demised property due to the tenant’s occupancy.
• The costs of re-renting the premises after breach by the tenant, including any reasonable fees or commissions paid to a licensed real estate broker to re-rent.
• The costs of removal and storage of the tenant’s property after a summary ejectment proceeding.
• Court costs.
• Any fee permitted by G.S. 42-46.

Three consequences follow. A deduction for something outside those eight items is unauthorised however reasonable it sounds — a “re-keying fee”, an “administrative turnover charge”, a “carpet amortisation” line that is not damage. The third item contains a set of express exceptions that most leases contradict: a tenant who terminates lawfully under the military-technician provision or the domestic violence provision, or who is constructively evicted by a landlord’s breach of the fit-premises duties, cannot have the deposit applied to the unexpired term. And the eighth item is the hinge between the two Articles: a fee that G.S. 42-46 does not authorise cannot be taken out of the deposit either, because the only fees that may be is the set 42-46 permits.

In a trust account or under a bond — and the tenant must be told which, and where, within thirty days. G.S. 42-50 requires security deposits from a tenant in a residential dwelling unit to be deposited in a trust account with a licensed and federally insured depository institution or a trust institution authorized to do business in this State. As an alternative the landlord may, at the landlord’s option, furnish a bond from an insurance company licensed to do business in North Carolina.

The section then does something the coverage misses in two directions. It expressly permits the deposit to be held in a trust account outside North Carolina — but only if the landlord provides the tenant with an adequate bond in the amount of the deposits. And it imposes a hard notice duty: the landlord or the landlord’s agent “shall notify the tenant within 30 days after the beginning of the lease term of the name and address of the bank or institution where the tenant’s deposit is currently located or the name of the insurance company providing the bond.”

That is a notice, not a receipt. Two of the ranking pages call it a “security deposit receipt”, which invites landlords to hand over a scrap of paper acknowledging the money and to omit the one thing the statute demands: the name and address of the institution holding it, or the insurer’s name. And the sanction is not trivial. Under G.S. 42-55 a willful failure to comply with the deposit, bond, or notice requirements of the Article voids the landlord’s right to retain any portion of the deposit. The notice requirement is inside that sentence. Naming the bank in the lease itself, as the form above does, satisfies the duty on day one and removes the diary risk entirely.

One further provision applies when the building changes hands. Under G.S. 42-54, on the termination of the landlord’s interest in the dwelling unit — by sale, assignment, death, appointment of a receiver or otherwise — the landlord or agent must within thirty days either transfer the remaining deposit to the successor in interest and notify the tenant by mail of the transfer and the transferee’s name and address, or return it to the tenant. Either act relieves the outgoing landlord of further liability, and neither happens by itself.

Thirty days — with a sixty-day final accounting in one defined situation, and a six-month holding duty in another. G.S. 42-52 is the most frequently flattened section in the state, so it is worth reading in its parts.

The ordinary rule. Upon termination of the tenancy, money held as security may be applied as G.S. 42-51 permits or, if not so applied, shall be refunded to the tenant. In either case the landlord “in writing shall itemize any damage and mail or deliver same to the tenant, together with the balance of the security deposit, no later than 30 days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession of the premises to the landlord.” Note the two-part trigger: termination and delivery of possession. A tenant who stops paying but leaves belongings in the unit has not delivered possession, and the clock has not started.

The two-tier extension. “If the extent of the landlord’s claim against the security deposit cannot be determined within 30 days, the landlord shall provide the tenant with an interim accounting no later than 30 days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession, and shall provide a final accounting within 60 days.” This is not, as one ranking page has it, a right to send notice that “an additional 30 days is needed”. The interim accounting is mandatory at thirty days whether or not the final figure is known; the sixty days is the outer limit for the final one; and both clocks run from termination and delivery of possession rather than from the day the landlord got round to inspecting.

Where the tenant’s address is unknown. The landlord applies the deposit as 42-51 permits after a period of thirty days, and “shall hold the balance of the deposit for collection by the tenant for at least six months.” Not one ranking page mentions the six-month holding duty, and it is the answer to the common question of what a landlord does with money owed to a tenant who has vanished.

Two limits on what may be kept. The landlord “may not withhold as damages part of the security deposit for conditions that are due to normal wear and tear“, nor “retain an amount from the security deposit which exceeds his actual damages.” The second limit is a genuine cap, not a rule of thumb: a landlord holding an estimate rather than a cost is holding an amount that may exceed actual damages. Generate the paperwork with our North Carolina security deposit itemization form or the matching deposit return letter.

The right to keep anything is voided — and that is a different, and often harsher, sanction than damages. G.S. 42-55 supplies three remedies in one paragraph.

First, if the landlord or the landlord’s successor in interest fails to account for and refund the balance as the Article requires, the tenant may institute a civil action to require the accounting and to recover the balance. Second, and this is the sentence that matters: “The willful failure of a landlord to comply with the deposit, bond, or notice requirements of this Article shall void the landlord’s right to retain any portion of the tenant’s security deposit as otherwise permitted under G.S. 42-51.” Third, in addition to other remedies at law and equity the tenant may recover damages resulting from noncompliance, and on a finding that the party against whom judgment is rendered was in willful noncompliance — which the statute declares to be against the public policy of this State — the court may award attorney’s fees to be taxed as part of the costs of court.

Two observations for anyone arriving from another state’s template. There is no multiplier here. North Carolina does not treble a wrongly withheld deposit and does not set a statutory penalty figure; what it does instead is take away the entitlement to withhold at all, which on a two-month deposit is frequently the larger number. And the voiding provision reaches the notice requirement in G.S. 42-50, not only the handling of the money. A landlord who put the deposit in a proper trust account but never told the tenant which bank has, if the failure was willful, lost the right to retain any of it.

For monthly rent, the greater of fifteen dollars or 5% of the monthly rent; for weekly rent, the greater of four dollars or 5% of the weekly rent. G.S. 42-46(a) provides that in all residential rental agreements in which a definite time for the payment of the rent is fixed, the parties may agree to a late fee — so the fee exists only because the lease creates it — “to be chargeable only if any rental payment is five calendar days or more late, with the first day being the day after the rent was due.”

That counting language was added by S.L. 2024-47, and it settles an argument that used to be worth having. It also exposes the most common error in North Carolina rental coverage: the five days are not a grace period. Rent remains due on the due day; the tenant is in default the moment it is not paid; the landlord may make the G.S. 42-3 demand for all past-due rent immediately. What the five days govern is the late fee, and nothing else. Describing it as “North Carolina grants tenants a 5-day grace period to pay their rent without penalty”, as the deepest ranker does, tells a tenant something that is not true of their obligation.

Three further limits sit alongside the cap. Under G.S. 42-46(b) a late fee may be imposed only one time for each late rental payment, and a late fee for a specific late payment may not be deducted from a subsequent rental payment so as to cause that payment to be in default — which is the statutory answer to the rolling-default problem, where one unpaid fee turns every following month into an arrears. Under G.S. 42-46(d) a lessor shall not charge a late fee because the lessee failed to pay for water or sewer services provided pursuant to G.S. 62-110(g). And under G.S. 42-46(h)(5), where the rent is subsidised by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, by the United States Department of Agriculture, by a State agency, by a public housing authority or by a local government, any fee under the section is calculated on the tenant’s share of the contract rent only, and the subsidy is excluded from the calculation.

A dishonoured rent cheque is governed elsewhere and is not an administrative fee. Under G.S. 25-3-506 a person accepting a check may charge a processing fee not to exceed thirty-five dollars where it is returned for insufficient funds or a non-existent account. Under G.S. 6-21.3 the payee may additionally recover the amount of the check, bank service charges and that processing fee, plus damages of three times the amount owing on the check, capped at five hundred dollars and not less than one hundred, where the check was issued with knowledge that funds were insufficient — subject to the court’s power to waive those additional damages for economic hardship. More at North Carolina late fee laws.

Three administrative fees, each conditional, only one retainable per complaint — and everything else is void. This is the part of North Carolina law that no ranking template page mentions at all, and it is the part most likely to make a lease unenforceable.

The complaint-filing fee — G.S. 42-46(e). Pursuant to a written lease, a landlord may charge an administrative complaint-filing fee not to exceed fifteen dollars or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater, and only if four things are true: the tenant was in default of the lease, the landlord filed and served a complaint for summary ejectment or money owed, the tenant cured the default or claim, and the landlord dismissed the complaint prior to judgment. The fee may be included in the amount required to cure the default.

The court-appearance fee — G.S. 42-46(f). Pursuant to a written lease, a landlord may charge an administrative court-appearance fee equal to 10% of the monthly rent, and only if the tenant was in default and the landlord filed, served and prosecuted successfully a complaint for summary ejectment or monies owed in the small claims court. If the tenant appeals and the magistrate’s judgment is vacated, any fee awarded by the magistrate under this subsection is vacated with it.

The second trial fee — G.S. 42-46(g). Pursuant to a written lease, a landlord may charge a second administrative trial fee for a new trial following an appeal from the judgment of a magistrate. To qualify the landlord must prove the tenant was in default and that the landlord prevailed, and the fee may not exceed 12% of the monthly rent in the lease.

The limits in G.S. 42-46(h) are what make the section bite. A landlord claiming administrative fees under subsections (e) through (g) is entitled to charge and retain only one of them for the landlord’s complaint. A landlord who earns one may not deduct it from a subsequent rent payment, nor declare a failure to pay it as a default of the lease for a subsequent summary ejectment action. It is contrary to public policy for a landlord to put in a lease or claim any other administrative fee for filing such a complaint, and equally contrary to public policy to claim, or for a lease to provide for, any out-of-pocket expense or litigation cost other than those in subsection (i). And then the sentence that reaches every clause in the document: “Any provision of a residential rental agreement contrary to the provisions of this section is against the public policy of this State and therefore void and unenforceable.”

Out-of-pocket expenses and litigation costs — G.S. 42-46(i). In addition to the late fee and the administrative fee, a landlord may charge and recover actual out-of-pocket expenses limited to: filing fees charged by the court; costs for service of process pursuant to G.S. 1A-1, Rule 4 and G.S. 42-29; reasonable attorneys’ fees actually paid or owed, pursuant to a written lease, not to exceed 15% of the amount owed by the tenant, or 15% of the monthly rent stated in the lease if the eviction is based on a default other than the nonpayment of rent; and, where a tenant appeals a summary ejectment to district court and the landlord is the prevailing party, an award of all actual reasonable attorneys’ fees if the court determines the tenant knew or should have known that the appeal was frivolous, unreasonable, without foundation, in bad faith or solely for the purpose of delay. Under G.S. 42-46(j) those costs may be included in the amount required to cure a default, and under 42-46(k) the term “administrative fees” does not include them.

Because two near-identical amendments to the same subsection passed in the same session, and the codifier merged both. This is worth stating plainly, because every mirror of the North Carolina code reproduces the artefact and nobody appears to have said so.

The history line of G.S. 42-46 names, among others, S.L. 2024-47 section 8, S.L. 2025-45 section 10, S.L. 2025-52 section 3(a) and S.L. 2025-54 section 12.4(a). The last two are both amendments to subsection (i), both described as clarifying, and both made retroactive to September 9, 2024. S.L. 2025-52 amended the existing subdivision in place; S.L. 2025-54, under the heading “Modify Law Governing Litigation Costs Under G.S. 42-46”, rewrote the subsection and created the rule as a new subdivision. Applying both leaves the published section with a subdivision (i)(4) that reads, in its entirety, “court and the landlord is the prevailing party, delay.” — which is not a sentence — followed by a subdivision (i)(5) carrying the complete and coherent rule.

The good news is that the underlying law is not in doubt. Both enrolled acts were read for this page, and they make the same substantive change: they strike the words “If the landlord is the prevailing party” from the fifteen-percent attorneys’ fee allowance, and they attach a prevailing-party condition to the separate frivolous-appeal award. So the rule stated in the section above is correct even though the numbering you will see on any code website is not. What follows practically is a drafting caution rather than a legal one: cite the substance, not the subdivision number, when this part of 42-46 is quoted in a lease or a demand letter, because the subdivision numbering is currently unreliable.

The wider lesson, for anyone verifying North Carolina law from a code website: when a section’s history line shows two amendments to the same subsection in the same session, read both enrolled acts. A garbled subsection is a tell, not a typographical accident.

Yes, but since June 2025 there are two hard limits on how. S.L. 2025-45, section 10, added subsection (l) to G.S. 42-46 under the part heading “Leases Requiring Renters Insurance”. It applies to any lease that requires a tenant to maintain insurance coverage for the leased premises.

First, “the tenant shall not be required to obtain the required insurance coverage from a designated carrier or through a designated agent.” A lease naming the landlord’s preferred insurer, or routing the tenant through an affiliated agency, is contrary to the section — and because G.S. 42-46(h)(4) voids any provision of a residential rental agreement contrary to the section, the clause is unenforceable rather than merely improper.

Second, the landlord “may charge the tenant for the actual cost incurred by the landlord to obtain the required insurance coverage and an administrative fee not to exceed fifty dollars per year, only if the tenant fails to provide, within three business days after the request of the landlord, proof that the tenant has obtained the required insurance coverage.” Three conditions, all of them operative: the fee is annual and capped; it is available only after a request; and the tenant has three business days to answer it.

This is the newest rule on the page and no ranking template page carries it. A North Carolina lease drafted before mid-2025, or copied from another state, is the most likely place to find a designated-carrier clause that no longer works.

None, by statute — which is exactly why the lease has to answer the question. Chapter 42 was read article by article for this page: Article 1, the general provisions at G.S. 42-1 through 42-14.6; Article 2A, the ejectment of residential tenants at 42-25.6 through 42-25.9; Article 3, summary ejectment at 42-26 through 42-36.3; Article 4A, retaliatory eviction at 42-37.1 through 42-37.3; Article 5, residential rental agreements at 42-38 through 42-46; Article 6, the Tenant Security Deposit Act at 42-50 through 42-56; and Article 7 at 42-59 onwards. None of them contains a landlord access, entry or inspection provision.

The only provision in the chapter that uses the word “access” runs the other way. G.S. 42-42.3(b)(2) provides that where the landlord has been given a court order requiring a perpetrator of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking to stay away from the dwelling unit, the landlord has no duty under the rental agreement or by law to allow that person access, to provide keys, or to provide access to the perpetrator’s own belongings inside — and a landlord who complies is not liable in civil damages to the excluded person.

So the twenty-four hours that the deepest ranking page recommends is a sensible default and not law. What follows for drafting is that the entry clause is doing real work rather than restating a statute. Set the notice period in hours. Say what entry is for — inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, improvements, agreed services, and showings to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors. Carve out emergencies, including the imminently dangerous conditions the landlord must remedy under G.S. 42-42(a)(8), and reasonably believed abandonment within the meaning of G.S. 42-25.9(e). And keep the anti-harassment sentence, because without a statute the covenant of quiet enjoyment and the lease’s own terms are the tenant’s only protection against abusive access. Our North Carolina landlord entry laws guide goes further, and the North Carolina notice to enter generates the notice the lease requires.

The landlord’s duties are listed in G.S. 42-42(a), they cannot be accepted away, and the tenant’s rent obligation is mutually dependent on them. Start with the sentence that makes North Carolina different. G.S. 42-41 provides, in full, that “the tenant’s obligation to pay rent under the rental agreement or assignment and to comply with G.S. 42-43 and the landlord’s obligation to comply with G.S. 42-42(a) shall be mutually dependent.” That is not decorative. Because the obligations are mutually dependent rather than independent covenants, a landlord’s breach of the fit-premises duties bears directly on the rent actually owed — which is the doctrinal basis of recoupment in a North Carolina ejectment action, and why G.S. 42-40(1) defines “action” to include recoupment, counterclaim, defense, setoff and any other proceeding including an action for possession.

The landlord shall, under G.S. 42-42(a): comply with the current applicable building and housing codes; comply with all applicable elevator safety requirements in G.S. 143-143.7; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas of the premises in safe condition; maintain in good and safe working order and promptly repair all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other facilities and appliances supplied or required to be supplied by the landlord, provided that notification of needed repairs is made to the landlord in writing by the tenant, except in emergency situations; provide and maintain the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms described below; give the water-contaminant notice where the condition is met; and, within a reasonable period of time based upon the severity of the condition, repair or remedy any imminently dangerous condition after acquiring actual knowledge or receiving notice of it.

“Imminently dangerous condition” is defined by an express twelve-item list in G.S. 42-42(a)(8), and printing it is the single most useful thing a North Carolina landlord-tenant page can do: unsafe wiring; unsafe flooring or steps; unsafe ceilings or roofs; unsafe chimneys or flues; lack of potable water; lack of operable locks on all doors leading to the outside; broken windows or lack of operable locks on all windows on the ground level; lack of operable heating facilities capable of heating living areas to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit when it is twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside, from November 1 through March 31; lack of an operable toilet; lack of an operable bathtub or shower; rat infestation as a result of defects in the structure that make the premises not impervious to rodents; and excessive standing water, sewage or flooding problems caused by plumbing leaks or inadequate drainage that contribute to mosquito infestation or mould. Notwithstanding the repair, the landlord may recover from the tenant the actual and reasonable costs of repairs that are the tenant’s fault.

None of it can be accepted away. G.S. 42-42(b) provides that the landlord is not released of these obligations by the tenant’s explicit or implicit acceptance of the landlord’s failure to comply, “whether done before the lease was made, when it was made, or after it was made” — unless a governmental subdivision imposes an impediment to repair for a specific period not exceeding six months. The parties may still make a subsequent written contract under which the tenant performs specified work, but only where it is supported by adequate consideration other than the letting of the premises and is not made with the purpose or effect of evading the landlord’s obligations. A “tenant does all maintenance” clause in the lease itself fails both tests. Our North Carolina habitability laws guide covers the standard and the case law around it.

Detailed, two-sided, and partly a lease term. These sit in G.S. 42-42(a)(5), (5a) and (7), with the tenant’s side in G.S. 42-43(a)(4) and (7) and the penalties in G.S. 42-44.

Smoke alarms. The landlord must provide operable smoke alarms, battery-operated or electrical, carrying an Underwriters’ Laboratories listing or equivalent national testing laboratory approval, installed in accordance with either the standards of the National Fire Protection Association or the minimum protection designated in the manufacturer’s instructions — and must retain or provide that documentation as proof of compliance. The landlord must replace or repair within fifteen days of receiving written notification from the tenant, and must ensure that a smoke alarm is operable and in good repair at the beginning of each tenancy.

The ten-year lithium battery rule. Under G.S. 42-42(a)(5a), since the end of 2012, when installing a new smoke alarm or replacing an existing one the landlord must install a tamper-resistant, ten-year lithium battery smoke alarm — unless the unit has a hardwired alarm with battery backup, or a combined smoke and carbon monoxide alarm meeting subdivision (7).

Carbon monoxide alarms, and the scope limit nobody prints. G.S. 42-42(a)(7) requires a minimum of one operable carbon monoxide alarm per rental unit per level, listed by a nationally recognised testing laboratory that is approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to test and certify to the ANSI/UL2034 or ANSI/UL2075 standards, installed to NFPA standards or the manufacturer’s instructions, with the same fifteen-day repair clock and the same beginning-of-tenancy duty. A landlord who installs one alarm per unit per level is deemed compliant with the standards on location and number. A combined alarm is allowed where it meets both ANSI/UL2034 or ANSI/UL2075 and ANSI/UL217 and clearly differentiates the two alarm patterns. And here is the limit: the subdivision applies only to dwelling units having a fossil-fuel burning heater, appliance or fireplace, and to any dwelling unit having an attached garage. Any operable carbon monoxide detector installed before 2010 is deemed compliant.

The batteries are a lease term. Both G.S. 42-42(a)(5) and G.S. 42-43(a)(7) apply their default “unless the landlord and the tenant have a written agreement to the contrary“. The default is that the landlord places new batteries at the beginning of the tenancy and the tenant replaces them as needed during it, except in a tamper-resistant ten-year lithium alarm — and the tenant’s failure to replace them “shall not be considered as negligence on the part of the tenant or the landlord”. The lease is where a different arrangement is made, and the form above asks the question rather than assuming.

Infractions run both ways. Under G.S. 42-44(a1), a landlord who fails to provide, install, replace or repair an alarm within thirty days of receiving written notice from the tenant or any agent of State or local government is responsible for an infraction and subject to a fine of not more than two hundred fifty dollars for each violation. Under G.S. 42-44(a2), where an alarm is disabled or damaged other than through the landlord’s acts or acts of God, the tenant must reimburse the reasonable and actual cost within thirty days of written notice, and a tenant who does not is responsible for an infraction and subject to a fine of not more than one hundred dollars. And G.S. 42-51(a)(2) expressly lets the security deposit be applied to damage to or destruction of an alarm.

Seven duties in G.S. 42-43(a), and no, not unilaterally. The tenant shall keep the occupied part of the premises as clean and safe as its condition permits and cause no unsafe or unsanitary conditions in the common areas; dispose of ashes, rubbish, garbage and other waste in a clean and safe manner; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage or remove any part of the premises, nor render inoperable the smoke alarm or carbon monoxide alarm, nor knowingly permit anyone to do so; comply with obligations imposed on tenants by current applicable building and housing codes; be responsible for damage inside the unit in the tenant’s exclusive control; and notify the landlord in writing of the need for alarm replacement or repairs.

The damage duty carries five statutory carve-outs that a lease cannot delete. Under G.S. 42-43(a)(6) the tenant is responsible for damage, defacement or removal of property inside a dwelling unit in the tenant’s exclusive control unless it was due to ordinary wear and tear, acts of the landlord or the landlord’s agent, defective products supplied or repairs authorized by the landlord, acts of third parties who are not invitees of the tenant, or natural forces. And under G.S. 42-43(b) the landlord must notify the tenant in writing of any breach of these obligations, except in emergency situations — a step that is easy to skip and hard to reconstruct afterwards.

On withholding, the two provisions have to be read together. G.S. 42-44(c) is blunt: “The tenant may not unilaterally withhold rent prior to a judicial determination of a right to do so.” But G.S. 42-41 makes the obligations mutually dependent, and G.S. 42-40(1) defines “action” to include recoupment. The North Carolina route for a habitability complaint is therefore written notice to the landlord, then recoupment raised in the proceeding — a reduction in the rent recoverable, argued in court, rather than money held back beforehand. Two other provisions round out the remedies picture: under G.S. 42-44(a) any right or obligation declared by Chapter 42 is enforceable by civil action in addition to other remedies at law and in equity, and under G.S. 42-44(d) a violation of the Article does not constitute negligence per se.

Four notice periods for periodic tenancies, and nothing at all for a fixed term that simply expires. G.S. 42-14 reads in full: “A tenancy from year to year may be terminated by a notice to quit given one month or more before the end of the current year of the tenancy; a tenancy from month to month by a like notice of seven days; a tenancy from week to week, of two days. Provided, however, where the tenancy involves only the rental of a space for a manufactured home as defined in G.S. 143-143.9(6), a notice to quit must be given at least 60 days before the end of the current rental period, regardless of the term of the tenancy.”

Seven days for month to month is unusually short by national standards, and it runs both ways — landlord and tenant alike. Two rankers assert that a lease of one year or more requires thirty days’ notice; that rule is not in the section. A tenancy from year to year takes one month, and a fixed-term lease with a stated end date expires by its own terms and needs no notice to quit at all. The sixty-day manufactured-home-space rule, meanwhile, is the longest period in the chapter and applies regardless of the term. See North Carolina lease termination laws and generate the paperwork with our North Carolina notice to vacate or notice of non-renewal.

North Carolina has no separate rent-increase notice statute. A rent change on a periodic tenancy runs through the same G.S. 42-14 notice, and there is no local override available: under G.S. 42-14.1(a) no county or city may enact, maintain or enforce any ordinance or resolution regulating the amount of rent charged for privately owned residential rental property. Since S.L. 2024-47 the same section, now titled “Preemption of local regulations”, also preempts any local ordinance prohibiting a landlord from refusing to rent because the applicant’s lawful source of income includes funding from a federal housing assistance program — a 2024 change with real consequences for local voucher ordinances that no ranking page mentions. More at North Carolina rent increase laws.

Three statutory early-termination routes exist, and a lease cannot override any of them. The first is the one most commonly mis-stated in the country. G.S. 42-45 is titled “Early termination of rental agreement by military personnel, surviving family members, or lawful representative” — but each of its operative subsections opens with “Any military technician under section 10216 of Title 10 of the United States Code“. A qualifying technician who must move on permanent change of station orders departing fifty miles or more from the unit, or who is prematurely or involuntarily discharged or released from active duty, may terminate by written notice effective at least thirty days after the landlord receives it, with a copy of the orders or a written verification from the commanding officer. One deployed with a military unit for not less than ninety days may terminate effective thirty days after the next rental payment falls due or forty-five days after receipt of the notice, whichever is shorter. On the technician’s death on active duty an immediate family member or the estate’s lawful representative may terminate.

Two things about that section are routinely dropped. The tenant remains liable for liquidated damages under G.S. 42-45(b): no more than one month’s rent where the tenant has completed less than six months of the tenancy, or one-half of one month’s rent where the tenant has completed at least six but less than nine months — and only where the tenant has completed less than nine months and the landlord has suffered actual damages from the loss of the tenancy. And where termination comes fourteen or more days prior to occupancy, no damages or penalties of any kind are due. G.S. 42-45(c) provides that the section may not be waived or modified by agreement of the parties under any circumstances. Service members who are not military technicians rely on the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act rather than on this section — a distinction the deepest ranking page collapses into “serving on active duty in the military”.

The second route is G.S. 42-45.1, for a protected tenant, defined by G.S. 42-40(4) as a tenant or household member who is a victim of domestic violence under Chapter 50B or of sexual assault or stalking under Chapter 14. Termination is by written notice effective at least thirty days after receipt, and the documentation rules are strict: a valid order of protection under Chapter 50B or 50C other than an ex parte order, or a criminal order restraining contact, or a valid Address Confidentiality Program card issued under G.S. 15C-4. A victim of domestic violence or sexual assault must also submit a safety plan, dated during the term being terminated, from a program substantially complying with G.S. 50B-9 and recommending relocation. The tenant is liable for prorated rent and no other fees due only to the early termination; a tenant who terminates fourteen days or more before occupancy owes nothing; and the section may not be waived or modified. Related protections sit in G.S. 42-42.2, which bars terminating, refusing to renew or refusing to rent based substantially on victim status, and in G.S. 42-42.3, which requires a lock change within forty-eight hours where the perpetrator is not a co-tenant and within seventy-two hours where a court order excluding a co-tenant perpetrator has been supplied.

The third route is G.S. 42-45.2: a tenant in residential real property containing fewer than fifteen rental units being sold in a foreclosure proceeding under Article 2A of Chapter 45 may, after notice under G.S. 45-21.17(4), terminate effective at least ten but no more than ninety days after the sale date, provided the mortgagor has not cured the default. Our North Carolina breaking-lease laws guide covers the tenant’s side.

For nonpayment, a demand for all past-due rent — and then an implied forfeiture ten days later. G.S. 42-3 is short and it is not what the template sites describe. In all verbal or written leases in which a definite time for the payment of rent is fixed, “there shall be implied a forfeiture of the term upon failure to pay the rent within 10 days after a demand is made by the lessor or his agent on said lessee for all past-due rent, and the lessor may forthwith enter and dispossess the tenant without having declared such forfeiture or reserved the right of reentry in the lease.”

Two points that the phrase “10-day notice to quit” hides. The forfeiture is implied by statute, so a North Carolina lease need not reserve a right of reentry for it to operate — and a lease that omits one has lost nothing. And “enter and dispossess” is limited by G.S. 42-25.6: the only lawful route to remove a residential tenant is summary ejectment. The demand is a demand for rent; it is not self-executing possession. Generate it with our North Carolina ten-day notice to pay rent or quit, or start earlier with a late rent notice.

The grounds are in G.S. 42-26(a), and each requires that the tenant holds over and continues in possession without the permission of the landlord and after demand made for its surrender: holding over after the term has expired; doing or omitting an act by which, according to the stipulations of the lease, the estate has ceased; or deserting the premises while in arrear. For a lease violation other than nonpayment, the second ground is the route, which is why the lease’s own default clause matters — see our North Carolina notice to cure or quit and unconditional quit notice.

Two subsections of 42-26 are worth their own line. Under G.S. 42-26(b), an arrearage in costs owed for water or sewer service under G.S. 62-110(g) or electric service under 62-110(h) shall not be used as a basis for termination, and any payment to the landlord is applied first to the rent owed and then to those charges unless the tenant designates otherwise. Under G.S. 42-26(c), in an ejectment based on the second ground, the lease may provide that the landlord’s acceptance of partial rent or a partial housing subsidy payment does not waive the breach for which the right of reentry was reserved — and exercising that provision is not a Chapter 75 unfair-practices violation. The statute permits the clause but does not supply it, which is why the form above offers it.

The court timetable is fast. Under G.S. 42-28 the clerk issues a summons requiring the defendant to appear at a time not to exceed seven days from the issuance of the summons, excluding weekends and legal holidays. Under G.S. 42-29 the officer mails a copy no later than the end of the next business day, and must make at least one visit to the place of abode within five days of issuance and at least two days before the appearance date before resorting to posting. Under G.S. 42-33, if the tenant before judgment pays or tenders the rent due and the costs of the action, all further proceedings in that action shall cease — and North Carolina places no once-a-year limit on that cure. To stay execution on appeal, G.S. 42-34 requires payment of the arrears found by the magistrate plus an undertaking to pay the contract rent as it falls due, with two carve-outs worth knowing: an amount the magistrate finds on the evidence to be genuinely in dispute need not be paid to obtain the stay, and an indigent appellant under G.S. 1-110 who meets G.S. 1-288 pays the ongoing rent but not the arrears. Under G.S. 42-36.2 the sheriff gives notice of the approximate execution time and has no more than five days from receipt to execute the writ, and after the landlord is placed in lawful possession the landlord must, on request within seven days, release the tenant’s property during regular business hours. See North Carolina eviction notice laws.

No — and any lease clause that says otherwise is void. Article 2A is short and unusually direct. G.S. 42-25.6 declares it “the public policy of the State of North Carolina, in order to maintain the public peace, that a residential tenant shall be evicted, dispossessed or otherwise constructively or actually removed from his dwelling unit only in accordance with the procedure prescribed in Article 3 or Article 7 of this Chapter.” The words “constructively” and “otherwise removed” reach a padlock, a removed door, a disabled lock and a shut-off used to force a move-out, not merely a physical eviction.

G.S. 42-25.7 adds that distress and distraint are prohibited, and that landlords of residential rental property have rights over a tenant’s personal property only in accordance with G.S. 42-25.9(d), (g) and (h), G.S. 42-36.2, or the small-estate provisions in G.S. 28A-25-2 and 28A-25-7. G.S. 42-25.8 then closes the loop: “Any lease or contract provision contrary to this Article shall be void as against public policy.”

The remedy has a ceiling, and it is the opposite of what an out-of-state template assumes. Under G.S. 42-25.9(a) a tenant removed contrary to Article 2A is entitled to recover possession or terminate the lease, and the landlord is liable for damages caused by the removal — but “damages in any action brought by a tenant under this Article shall be limited to actual damages as in an action for trespass or conversion and shall not include punitive damages, treble damages or damages for emotional distress.” The same measure applies under subsection (b) where the landlord seizes or interferes with access to personal property outside the permitted routes.

Abandoned property has its own timetable. Property is deemed abandoned where the landlord finds evidence that clearly shows the premises has been voluntarily vacated after the paid rental period expired with no notice of a disability that caused the vacancy, and a presumption of abandonment arises ten or more days after a conspicuous notice of suspected abandonment is posted inside and outside with no response. Where abandoned property is worth seven hundred fifty dollars or less, the landlord may deliver it to a nonprofit that agrees to identify and separately store it for thirty days and release it free to the tenant within that period, with notice posted at the premises, posted for thirty days where rent is received, and mailed first class. Seven days after being placed in lawful possession by execution of a writ, the landlord may dispose of what remains, with seven days’ mailed notice before a sale and any surplus disbursed to the tenant on request. And where the total value remaining at execution is less than five hundred dollars, it is deemed abandoned five days after execution.

A protected act within the previous twelve months, raised as a defence rather than a claim. Article 4A protects five activities under G.S. 42-37.1(a): a good faith complaint or request for repairs to the landlord about conditions the landlord must repair under G.S. 42-42; a good faith complaint to a government agency about an alleged violation of any health or safety law, regulation, code, ordinance or State or federal law regulating dwellings; a government authority’s issuance of a formal complaint to the landlord; a good faith attempt to exercise, secure or enforce rights under a valid lease or under State or federal law; and a good faith attempt to organize, join or become otherwise involved with any organization promoting or enforcing tenants’ rights.

Under G.S. 42-37.1(b) the tenant may, in a summary ejectment under G.S. 42-26, raise the affirmative defense of retaliatory eviction and present evidence that the landlord’s action is substantially in response to a protected act occurring within 12 months of the filing. Twelve months is a long window by comparison with other states, and it starts from the filing rather than the notice.

The landlord has six answers, listed in G.S. 42-37.1(c): the tenant breached the covenant to pay rent or another substantial covenant for which eviction is available, and that breach is the reason; the tenant holds over after a definite term with no renewal option; the G.S. 42-42 violation complained of was caused primarily by the willful or negligent conduct of the tenant, a household member, or their guests or invitees; code compliance requires demolition or major alteration that cannot be done without completely displacing the household; the landlord seeks possession on a good faith notice to quit delivered before the protected activity occurred; or the landlord seeks in good faith to recover possession at the end of the term for the landlord’s own abode, for demolition or major alteration requiring complete displacement, or to withdraw the property from rental use for at least six months.

Two closing points. Under G.S. 42-37.2 the court that finds an ejectment action retaliatory denies the request for ejectment — but that dismissal does not prevent the landlord from receiving payments for rent due or any other appropriate judgment. And under G.S. 42-37.3, “any waiver by a tenant or a member of his household of the rights and remedies created by this Article is void as contrary to public policy.” What North Carolina does not supply is a civil penalty or a statutory damages figure; retaliation here is a shield, not a sword.

Two under state law, one of them conditional, plus the federal lead rule. North Carolina has one of the shortest residential lease disclosure sets in the country, and the ranking pages fill the gap with things that are not disclosures at all.

Where the security deposit is held — G.S. 42-50. Within thirty days after the beginning of the lease term, the landlord or the landlord’s agent must notify the tenant of the name and address of the bank or institution where the deposit is currently located, or the name of the insurance company providing the bond. Naming it in the lease satisfies the duty immediately, and G.S. 42-55 makes a willful failure void the right to retain any portion of the deposit.

The water-contaminant notice — G.S. 42-42(a)(6), conditional. Where the landlord is charging for the cost of providing water or sewer service under G.S. 42-42.1 and has actual knowledge, from either the supplying water system or another reliable source, that the water being supplied to tenants within the property exceeds a maximum contaminant level established under Article 10 of Chapter 130A, the landlord must provide notice of that fact. It is a landlord duty under G.S. 42-42(a), so under 42-42(b) it is not released by the tenant’s acceptance of a failure to comply.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the pamphlet, and any known records or reports. North Carolina adds no lead statute of its own. Our North Carolina lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

What is not a North Carolina lease disclosure, and why. The deepest-ranking page lists an “accidental damage notice” as required by the State and cites G.S. 42-10. That section was read in full for this page and it says something quite different: “A tenant for life, or years, or for a less term, shall not be liable for damage occurring on the demised premises accidentally, and notwithstanding reasonable diligence on his part, unless he so contract.” It is a default liability rule that the lease may vary. It creates no notice, no disclosure and no attachment.

Nor does the state’s disclosure statute apply. Chapter 47E, the Residential Property Disclosure Act, is a sales statute: G.S. 47E-1 applies it to a sale or exchange, an installment land sales contract, an option and a lease with option to purchase, and G.S. 47E-2 lists its exemptions in terms of transferors and transferees rather than landlords and tenants. A North Carolina lease disclosure list built from Chapter 47E is built from the wrong chapter — the same error that has appeared in several other states in this series, where a ranking page cites the property-sale disclosure statute as though it governed a rental.

Two further provisions run the other way and are occasionally mislabelled as duties. Under G.S. 42-14.2 it is not deemed a material fact that the property was previously occupied by someone who died or had a serious illness while occupying it, or that a person required to register under Article 27A of Chapter 14 occupies, occupied or resides near it — provided no landlord knowingly makes a false statement about any such fact. Under G.S. 42-14.5, added by S.L. 2021-71, a prospective or current occupant’s criminal record does not make future injury or damage foreseeable, and the landlord has no duty to screen for, or to refuse to rent because of, that record — while the section expressly preserves the right to use a background check as grounds for refusing. Radon, bed bugs, asbestos, meth contamination, ordnance-proximity notices required in some western states, pending demolition, utility-sharing formulas and sinkhole history are all requirements of other jurisdictions and none of them is North Carolina law.

North Carolina has no single prohibited-provisions section of the kind uniform-act states carry. It has four separate voiding rules, and between them they defeat most of what an out-of-state template imports.

• G.S. 42-46(h)(4) — any provision of a residential rental agreement contrary to the fees section is against the public policy of this State and therefore void and unenforceable. That reaches an over-cap late fee, a second fee for the same late payment, a late fee for unpaid water or sewer, any unauthorised administrative fee, more than one authorised fee for the same complaint, an attorneys’ fee clause wider than 15%, a clause making non-payment of a fee a default for a later ejectment, and a designated-insurance-carrier clause.
• G.S. 42-25.8 — any lease or contract provision contrary to Article 2A, the self-help eviction ban, is void as against public policy.
• G.S. 42-37.3 — any waiver by a tenant or a household member of the retaliatory-eviction rights and remedies is void as contrary to public policy.
• G.S. 42-45(c) and G.S. 42-45.1(d) — the military-technician and the domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking early-termination rights may not be waived or modified by agreement of the parties, and 42-45(c) adds the words “under any circumstances”.

Alongside those sits G.S. 42-42(b), which is not a voiding rule but works like one: the landlord is not released from the fit-premises obligations by the tenant’s explicit or implicit acceptance of a failure to comply, whether given before, at, or after the making of the lease.

The attorney-fee position is worth stating precisely, because it is a fifth pattern in this series. North Carolina neither bans a fee clause nor requires it to be reciprocal. G.S. 42-46(i)(3) permits reasonable attorneys’ fees actually paid or owed, pursuant to a written lease, capped at 15% of the amount owed by the tenant — or 15% of the monthly rent where the eviction is based on a default other than nonpayment. G.S. 42-46(i)(4) adds the frivolous-appeal award where the landlord is the prevailing party. Anything beyond those two is an unauthorised litigation cost under 42-46(h)(3a) and void under 42-46(h)(4). And note the history: S.L. 2024-47 briefly conditioned the fifteen-percent allowance on the landlord being the prevailing party; S.L. 2025-52 and S.L. 2025-54 both removed that condition retroactively to September 9, 2024, and moved the prevailing-party requirement onto the frivolous-appeal award instead.

And what North Carolina does not give the tenant, stated plainly so that neither side assumes it: no statutory entry-notice protection, no repair-and-deduct remedy, no unilateral rent withholding before a judicial determination, no interest on a security deposit, no statutory penalty figure for retaliation, no punitive or treble damages for an unlawful lockout, and no rent-increase notice separate from the G.S. 42-14 notice to quit.

• Charging two months’ rent on a month-to-month tenancy. G.S. 42-51(b) caps that tier at one and one-half months’ rent, and the cap follows the tenancy, not the paperwork.
• Forgetting the week-to-week tier entirely. Two weeks’ rent is the ceiling, and most template sites do not mention it.
• Treating a pet deposit as outside the cap. G.S. 42-53 authorises a nonrefundable pet fee. A refundable pet deposit is security and counts.
• Deducting something that is not on the list. G.S. 42-51(a) is closed, and a turnover or re-keying charge that is not damage is not on it.
• Sending a flat thirty-day accounting when the claim is not yet ascertainable. G.S. 42-52 requires an interim accounting at thirty days and a final one at sixty.
• Starting the deposit clock at the lease end date. It runs from termination and delivery of possession, whichever is later.
• Spending the deposit when the tenant vanishes. The balance must be held for collection for at least six months under G.S. 42-52.
• Treating G.S. 42-50 as a receipt requirement. It is a notice of the institution’s name and address, or the insurer’s name, within thirty days — and a willful failure voids the right to retain anything under G.S. 42-55.
• Calling the five days a grace period. G.S. 42-46(a) conditions the late fee, not the rent obligation.
• Charging a late fee on unpaid water or sewer. G.S. 42-46(d) forbids it.
• Deducting an earned fee from next month’s rent. G.S. 42-46(b) and (h)(2) both forbid it, and it is how a single late fee becomes a manufactured default.
• Writing an “eviction administration fee” into the lease. G.S. 42-46(h)(3) makes putting it there contrary to public policy, and (h)(4) makes the provision void.
• Claiming more than one of the three administrative fees for one complaint. G.S. 42-46(h)(1) allows only one.
• Writing an uncapped attorneys’ fee clause. G.S. 42-46(i)(3) caps it at 15% of the amount owed, or 15% of the monthly rent for a non-monetary default.
• Naming the landlord’s insurance carrier or agent. G.S. 42-46(l), new in 2025, forbids it, and the annual administrative fee is capped at fifty dollars.
• Writing a twenty-four-hour entry rule as if it were North Carolina law. There is no entry statute. Set it as a lease term or it will not exist.
• Assuming the alarm batteries are the tenant’s problem in every case. The default applies only where there is no written agreement to the contrary, and the ten-year lithium alarms are outside it altogether.
• Giving thirty days’ notice to end a month-to-month tenancy. G.S. 42-14 says seven days — and sixty for a manufactured-home space.
• Relying on a “no waiver of partial rent” clause you never wrote. G.S. 42-26(c) permits it but does not supply it.
• Locking a tenant out after a demand for rent. G.S. 42-25.6 permits removal only through the statutory procedure, and G.S. 42-25.8 voids any clause to the contrary.
• Telling a service member that G.S. 42-45 covers them. It runs to a military technician under 10 U.S.C. 10216; everyone else relies on federal law.
• Accepting an ex parte order as sufficient for a G.S. 42-45.1 termination. The statute expressly excludes it, and a safety plan is required for domestic violence or sexual assault.
• Building a disclosure list from Chapter 47E. It governs transferors and transferees, not landlords and tenants.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. North Carolina’s rules put the landlord’s own compliance under scrutiny before the tenant’s conduct is ever reached: a willful failure on the deposit notice voids the right to withhold anything, and a fee clause copied from elsewhere is void rather than merely trimmed. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and no prior summary ejectment filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease — and see North Carolina tenant screening laws for what you may and may not consider, remembering that G.S. 42-14.5 preserves the right to use a background check while creating no duty to run one.

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