Free North Dakota Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable North Dakota residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to N.D.C.C. chapters 47-16, 47-17 and 47-32 — the deposit ceiling that branches three ways, the separate pet deposit, the mandatory interest-bearing account, and the treble damages that follow an unjustified withholding.

North Dakota N.D.C.C. ch. 47-16 Branching Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A North Dakota residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by N.D.C.C. chapter 47-16, with lease termination machinery in chapter 47-17 and the eviction procedure in chapter 47-32. North Dakota never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, so its rules sit in an older general leasing chapter that was amended piecemeal — and that history is exactly why generic templates get North Dakota wrong. The deposit ceiling is not a flat one month: 47-16-07.1(1) branches on the tenant’s own history and reaches two months in two named cases. The pet deposit is not an uplift of that ceiling — 47-16-07.1(2) creates a separate deposit with its own formula. The interest-bearing account is mandatory for every deposit, and the nine months everyone quotes decides only whether the interest has to be handed over. Entry has no number of hours at all. And a rent increase triggers a twenty-five-day counter-right for the tenant that almost nothing on the internet mentions. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as the statute actually reads.

Complete the fields below to generate a North Dakota residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the deposit basis that fixes your statutory ceiling, the account holding the deposit, and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling North Dakota 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 a North Dakota move-in / move-out checklist so the condition statement N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.2 requires is a document rather than a memory.

North Dakota 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. A month-to-month tenancy renews each month until one side gives notice under N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(2). Where the parties never fixed a term at all, N.D.C.C. 47-16-19 supplies the answer: the renting of lodgings for an unspecified term is presumed to have been made for such length of time as the parties adopt for the estimation of the rent, so renting at a weekly rate is presumed to be for one week, and in the absence of any agreement respecting the length of time, the leasing is presumed to be monthly.

For anything other than lodgings, N.D.C.C. 47-16-05 pushes the other way: a lease of real property, in places where there is no usage on the subject, is presumed to be for one year from its commencement unless otherwise expressed in the lease. Two presumptions therefore sit side by side in the same chapter, and which one applies turns on whether what is let is lodgings. Writing an express term into the lease removes the question, which is the single best reason to use a written document even for an informal arrangement.

Beyond those, a room or roommate agreement covers a person renting one room in an occupied dwelling — and North Dakota has an unusual rule about that. N.D.C.C. 47-16-26 provides that one who rents part of a room for a dwelling is entitled to the whole of the room notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, and that where a landlord rents a room as a dwelling for more than one family, the person to whom the landlord first rents any part of it is entitled to possession of the whole room. The sanction is severe: while such double letting of any room continues, every tenant in the building under the same landlord is relieved from all obligation to pay rent. A sublease transfers the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable, and N.D.C.C. 47-16-30 preserves the landlord’s remedies against assignees of the lessee for claims accruing while they are assignees. A commercial lease is not governed by the residential provisions in 47-16-13.1 through 47-16-13.7 at all, though the general leasing rules in the chapter still reach it.

One more structural point matters for North Dakota drafting. A tenancy at will — the arrangement created when someone occupies with permission but without a term — is terminated under chapter 47-17 rather than chapter 47-16. N.D.C.C. 47-17-01 lets the landlord end it by giving notice to remove from the premises within a period specified in the notice of not less than one month, and 47-17-02 requires that notice to be in writing and served by delivering it to the tenant or to some person of discretion residing on the premises, or, if neither can be found with reasonable diligence, by affixing it on a conspicuous part of the premises where it may be read conveniently. Under 47-17-03 the landlord may re-enter or proceed to recover possession only after the notice has been served and the specified period has expired, but not before.

One month’s rent as the rule — and two months in two specific, named cases. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(1) is the controlling provision, and it reads as a general prohibition followed by two exceptions:

• The rule. A lessor may not demand or receive security, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of one month’s rent.
• Exception (a) — felony conviction. A lessor may accept an amount or value up to two months’ rent, as security, from an individual convicted of a felony offense, as an incentive to rent the property to the individual. Note the framing: the statute is not authorizing a penalty for a record, it is authorizing a landlord to say yes on terms.
• Exception (b) — prior judgment. A lessor may demand an amount or value up to two months’ rent, as security, from an individual who has had a judgment entered against that individual for violating the terms of a previous rental agreement. This is the tier ranking pages routinely omit.

The wording differs between the two exceptions, and the difference is not accidental. Exception (a) says a lessor may accept; exception (b) says a lessor may demand. On the face of the statute a landlord relying on the felony exception is receiving what is offered as the price of the tenancy, while a landlord relying on the judgment exception may require it. Either way the ceiling is two months’ rent, not two months plus one.

The pet deposit is a different deposit entirely. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(2) provides that a lessor may charge a lessee a pet security deposit for keeping an animal that is not a service animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, and that a pet security deposit may not exceed the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or an amount equivalent to two months’ rent. Two things follow. First, it is not a tier of the subsection 1 cap, so a landlord does not have to choose between the two — the security deposit and the pet security deposit are separate sums with separate ceilings. Second, the ceiling is a greater of formula, which means the dollar figure protects landlords of low-rent units and the two-months figure protects landlords of high-rent ones. And the exclusion for a service animal or a companion animal required as a reasonable accommodation is absolute; N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.5 separately tells a landlord what documentation may and may not be required to establish that need.

Every deposit must sit in a federally insured interest-bearing account. This is the sentence the summaries garble. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(1) opens: “The lessor of real property or a dwelling who requires money as a security deposit, however denominated, shall deposit the money in a federally insured interest-bearing savings or checking account for the benefit of the tenant.” There is no minimum tenancy length on that duty and no exception to it. The nine months that appears in most summaries comes from a different place — subsection 3, which says a lessor is not required to pay interest on security deposits if the period of occupancy was less than nine months in duration. Read the two together and the position is: the account is always interest-bearing, and the accrued interest goes back to the tenant with the deposit once the occupancy reaches nine months. A landlord who reads the nine months as permission to hold a short tenancy’s deposit in a general operating account has misread the section.

Three further subsections matter. Under 47-16-07.1(5), on a transfer in ownership the deposit and accrued interest must be transferred to the grantee, the grantor is not relieved of liability until that transfer happens, and whoever holds the lessor’s interest at termination is bound by the section even if that holder never received the money — so a buyer who does not chase the deposit at closing inherits the liability without the funds. Under 47-16-07.1(6) the section applies to the state and to political subdivisions that lease dwellings and take deposits. And under 47-16-07.4, a lease entered into on partial or total reliance on fraudulent misrepresentations may be terminated by the party fraudulently induced, who receives back the deposit together with any accrued interest.

Within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(3) sets one clock, not two, but it has two triggers that must both occur: termination of the lease and delivery of possession by the lessee. A tenant who gives notice but keeps the keys has not started the clock.

What has to be sent inside those thirty days is more than a check. The statute requires that the application of any portion of the deposit not paid to the lessee be itemized by the lessor, and that the itemization together with the amount due be delivered or mailed to the lessee at the last address furnished to the lessor, along with a written notice. The notice must contain a statement of any amount still due the lessor or the refund due the lessee. Three documents, one envelope, one deadline — and because delivery is measured against “the last address furnished lessor,” a tenant who never gives a forwarding address is treated as having furnished the leased premises.

The deductions the statute allows are closed. Under 47-16-07.1(3) the deposit and accrued interest may be applied towards (a) any damages the lessor has suffered by reason of deteriorations or injuries to the property by the lessee’s pet or through the negligence of the lessee or the lessee’s guest; (b) any unpaid rent; and (c) the costs of cleaning or other repairs which were the responsibility of the lessee and which are necessary to return the dwelling unit to its original state when the lessee took possession, reasonable wear and tear excepted. The express mention of pet damage in (a) is worth noting alongside the separate pet deposit in subsection 2 — North Dakota lets a landlord take both a pet deposit and a pet-damage deduction from the ordinary deposit.

The penalty is treble damages. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(4) is one sentence: “A lessor is liable for treble damages for any security deposit money withheld without reasonable justification.” There is no cap, no ceiling at the amount withheld, and no requirement that the withholding be willful — the test is whether it was reasonably justified. That is precisely why the itemized notice is the operative document: it is the contemporaneous record of the justification, and a landlord who sends nothing has nothing to point to.

Two tail-end rules complete the picture. Amounts not claimed from the lessor by the lessee within one year of the termination of the lease agreement become subject to the unclaimed-property reporting requirements of N.D.C.C. 47-30.2-04 — the money does not become the landlord’s. And where the tenancy ended under the domestic-violence provision, N.D.C.C. 47-16-17.1(8) moves the trigger: deposit timing runs from the first day of the month following the date the victim vacates where that tenant is the only tenant, and from the expiration of the lease where other tenants are bound by it.

It is North Dakota’s one genuinely mandatory lease attachment, and it carries statutory evidentiary weight. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.2 is short enough to quote in substance: a landlord shall provide the tenant with a statement describing the condition of the facilities in and about the premises to be rented at the time of entering a rental agreement; the statement shall be agreed to and signed by the landlord and tenant; and the statement shall constitute prima facie proof of the condition of the facilities and the premises at the beginning of the rental agreement.

Three features deserve attention. The timing is at the time of entering the agreement, not within some number of days after move-in — North Dakota does not give a grace window the way several neighbouring states do. The document must be agreed to and signed by both, so a landlord’s unilateral inspection sheet does not satisfy the section. And the effect is prima facie proof, which shifts the practical burden: once a signed statement exists, a party arguing that the premises were in some other condition at the start of the tenancy has to displace it with evidence rather than simply assert it.

That evidentiary status is what links the section to the deposit. Every deduction permitted by 47-16-07.1(3)(c) is measured against “its original state when the lessee took possession, reasonable wear and tear excepted” — and the condition statement is the only document North Dakota law nominates as proof of what that original state was. A landlord who skips it is not merely disorganised; they have declined the one statutory advantage the chapter offers on the question that generates most deposit litigation. The practical discipline is to walk the unit with the tenant, record the condition of every facility rather than a general impression, photograph what the words cannot carry, sign it on the same day the lease is signed, and hand the tenant a copy. Our North Dakota move-in / move-out checklist is built to be that document, and the North Dakota deposit itemization form is its mirror image at the other end of the tenancy.

Rent is due when the lease says, and there is no statutory grace period or late-fee cap in North Dakota. The lease therefore controls both. Where the lease is silent, the default is unusual enough to be worth knowing: N.D.C.C. 47-16-20 provides that when there is no contract or usage to the contrary, rents of lodgings are payable monthly at the end of each month, other rents are payable quarterly at the end of each quarter from the time the lease takes effect, and rent for a lease shorter than those periods is payable at the termination of the lease. North Dakota’s fallback is rent in arrears, not rent in advance — which is the opposite of what most leases provide, and a reason to state the due day expressly.

What North Dakota does regulate is the payment method. N.D.C.C. 47-16-20.1 is a flat prohibition: “A landlord may not charge a tenant a fee to accept cash, a check, or a money order for the payment of rent or any other payment required by the landlord under a lease for real property.” It reaches beyond rent to any other payment required under the lease, and it is one of the most frequently omitted rules on the North Dakota template SERP. A landlord who wants to push tenants toward an online portal may not do it by surcharging the three instruments this section names.

Dishonored payments are a different chapter. N.D.C.C. 6-08-16 governs an instrument issued without sufficient funds. The issuer is liable for collection fees or costs not in excess of forty dollars, recoverable by the holder or the holder’s agent. If the instrument and those fees are not paid within ten days from receipt of a written notice of dishonor in the form the statute prescribes, the holder may bring a civil action for a civil penalty equal to the lesser of two hundred dollars or three times the amount of the instrument. The section also carries criminal grades keyed to the amount, and it provides that a postdated check knowingly received as such does not violate it. A landlord charging a returned-payment fee in a North Dakota lease should keep it inside the forty-dollar collection-fee figure the statute contemplates rather than inventing a number.

Finally, rent in North Dakota is not subject to local control. N.D.C.C. 47-16-02.1 provides that a political subdivision may not enact, maintain or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential or commercial property, except as to property in which the political subdivision holds a fee title interest. Whatever a city ordinance may say about licensing or inspection, it cannot set the rent.

North Dakota states no number of hours or days anywhere in its entry section. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.3 is titled “When landlord may enter apartment” and it works in two limbs.

Under 47-16-07.3(1) a landlord may enter at any time in case of emergency, or if the landlord reasonably believes the tenant has abandoned the premises, or if the landlord reasonably believes the tenant is in substantial violation of the provisions of the lease or rental agreement. That third ground is broader than the equivalent in most states, and it is a genuine North Dakota feature rather than an oversight.

Under 47-16-07.3(2) a landlord may otherwise enter only during reasonable hours, and in a reasonable manner, for the purpose of inspecting the premises; making necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements; supplying necessary or agreed services; or exhibiting the residential dwelling unit to actual or potential purchasers, insurers, mortgagees, real estate agents, tenants, workmen or contractors. And then the operative sentence: “Unless it is impractical to do so the landlord shall first notify and receive the consent of the tenant which shall not be unreasonably withheld, which consent shall identify a time certain.”

So the North Dakota standard is not a countdown at all — it is a time certain. The tenant’s consent must fix a specific time, and the tenant may not unreasonably withhold it. The section then supplies the mechanism that makes this workable for landlords: “For the purposes of this section, consent shall be presumed from failure to object to access after notice of intent to enter at a time certain has been given.” Notice may be given by personal service, by posting the notice in a conspicuous place in or about the dwelling unit for a reasonable period of time, or by any other method which results in actual notice to the tenant. A closing sentence forbids abuse: a landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass or intimidate the tenant.

The practical consequence is that a template printing a flat twenty-four-hour rule for North Dakota is importing another state’s law, and worse, it is importing a weaker discipline than the statute imposes. A dated written notice naming the intended date and time, served in a way that produces actual notice, satisfies the section and creates the presumption of consent; a generic “we may enter with reasonable notice” clause does neither. Our North Dakota notice to enter is drawn to that shape, and the North Dakota landlord entry laws guide works through the exceptions.

The landlord’s habitability duty is in N.D.C.C. 47-16-13.1, not in the older section people cite. This is worth stating plainly because 47-16-12, headed “Obligations of lessor to repair dwelling,” was repealed by S.L. 1977 ch. 429 s. 7 and is still cited on secondary pages. The live duty is 47-16-13.1(1), under which a landlord of a residential dwelling unit shall: 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 of the premises in a clean and safe condition; maintain in good and safe working order and condition 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 for the 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.

The heat and hot water duty carries three exceptions written into the subdivision itself: where the building is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose; where the dwelling unit is so constructed that heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the exclusive control of the tenant and supplied by a direct public utility connection; and where the water or heat is unavailable due to supply failure by a public utility. Subsection 2 allows a reasonable time to remedy noncompliance with the duties other than the code duty, and subsection 3 provides that where the code duty is greater than any other duty in the subsection, the landlord’s duty is determined by reference to the code duty.

Shifting maintenance onto the tenant is possible, but the conditions differ by property type. Under 47-16-13.1(4) the landlord and tenant of a single-family residence may agree in writing that the tenant performs the waste-removal and water-heat duties in subdivisions e and f and also specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling — but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith. For any dwelling unit other than a single-family residence, subsection 5 is stricter: the agreement must be entered into in good faith and set forth in a separate writing signed by the parties and supported by adequate consideration; the work must not be necessary to cure noncompliance with subdivision e; and the agreement must not diminish or affect the landlord’s obligation to other tenants. Subsection 6 then bars the landlord from treating performance of such a separate agreement as a condition of any obligation under the rental agreement.

The tenant’s own duties are in 47-16-13.2: comply with obligations imposed on tenants by applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; keep the occupied part of the premises as clean and safe as its condition permits; periodically remove ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste and dispose of them cleanly and safely; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; use all facilities and appliances reasonably; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises or knowingly permit any person to do so; and conduct oneself, and require other persons on the premises with the tenant’s consent to conduct themselves, in a manner that will not disturb the neighbors’ peaceful enjoyment. That last duty is not decorative — it lines up directly with the eviction ground in 47-32-01(7). The older general duties in 47-16-09 and 47-16-10 still sit alongside it: the lessee must use ordinary care to preserve the property and must repair all deteriorations or injuries occasioned by the lessee’s ordinary negligence.

Repair and deduct in North Dakota has no cap. N.D.C.C. 47-16-13 provides that if, within a reasonable time after notice from the lessee of dilapidations which the lessor ought to repair, the lessor neglects to do so, the lessee may (1) repair the premises and deduct the expense of such repair from the rent; (2) recover it in any other lawful manner from the lessor; or (3) vacate the premises, in which case the lessee is discharged from further payment of rent or performance of other conditions. Most states that permit repair and deduct cap it — at a month’s rent, or a dollar figure, or a number of uses per year. North Dakota fixes none of those. What it fixes instead is the predicate: notice from the lessee, dilapidations the lessor ought to repair, and a reasonable time elapsed. Everything therefore turns on the written notice, which is why a tenant should date it, describe the defect precisely, and keep proof of delivery.

Alongside that, 47-16-17 lets the lessee terminate before the end of the term when the lessor does not fulfil the lessor’s obligations within a reasonable time after request as to placing and securing the lessee in quiet possession, putting the property into a good condition, or repairing it — or when the greater part of the property, or the part which was the material inducement to the lease, perishes from any cause other than the lessee’s ordinary negligence. 47-16-08 binds the lessor to secure quiet possession against all persons lawfully claiming the property. Running the other way, 47-16-16 lets the lessor terminate where the lessee uses the property contrary to the agreement or does not make repairs the lessee is bound to make within a reasonable time after request. And 47-16-13.5 imposes a duty to mitigate on any aggrieved party, while 47-16-13.7 keeps an evicted lessee liable for rent during the remainder of the term without relieving the landlord of that same duty to mitigate. Deeper treatment sits in our North Dakota habitability laws guide.

A month-to-month tenancy ends on one calendar month’s written notice, given at any time. N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(2) is the section, and the phrase “at any time” matters: North Dakota does not require the notice to be given on a rent day or aligned to the start of a period. What the statute does say is that rent is due and payable to and including the date of termination, and that the one calendar month is a floor which the parties may raise “unless the parties have otherwise agreed in writing to a longer notice period or a different notice time.”

But a longer tenant notice has a formality attached to it, and this is a real drafting trap. N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(4) provides that any agreement requiring a lessee to give notice exceeding one month from the end of a month to terminate a residential lease must state the notice requirement and provide space for the lessee to initial next to the notice requirement. If the notice is not initialled by the lessee at the time of executing the lease, the lessee may terminate the lease on the last day of a month with at least one calendar month’s notice — whatever the lease otherwise says. A sixty-day notice clause buried in the body of a lease without an initial line is therefore worth nothing in North Dakota.

Where the parties never specified a term, 47-16-15(1) requires notice at least as long before the expiration of the lease as the term of the hiring itself, not exceeding one calendar month. Where a lease converts to a month-to-month tenancy under 47-16-06 or 47-16-06.1, 47-16-15(5) allows either party to terminate on the last day of a month with at least one calendar month’s notice.

Holding over converts a residential lease to month-to-month. N.D.C.C. 47-16-06 contains two sentences that do different jobs. The first is the general rule: if a lessee remains in possession after the expiration of the lease and the lessor accepts rent, the parties are presumed to have renewed the lease on the same terms and for the same time, not exceeding one year. The second carves residential property out of it: “Except in the case of a lease with an automatic renewal clause, if a lessee of real property for residential purposes remains in possession of the property after the expiration of the lease and the lessor accepts rent from the lessee, the parties are presumed to have renewed the lease as a month-to-month tenancy.” A residential landlord who accepts a holdover month’s rent has not created a new one-year term.

An automatic renewal clause needs a thirty-day notice to work. N.D.C.C. 47-16-06.1 provides that in any lease of a specified term of two months or more of residential property, the lessor may not enforce an automatic renewal clause unless the lessor has notified the lessee in writing, delivered personally or by first-class mail, of the automatic renewal provision, not less than thirty days prior to the expiration date of the current lease. If that notice has not been given, the lease expires and the terms of the latest lease convert to a month-to-month tenancy. The clause is not void; it is simply unenforceable without the notice, and the fallback is a month-to-month tenancy on the old terms.

Three other endings are worth recording. 47-16-14 lists the events that terminate a leasing by operation of law: the end of the agreed term, mutual consent, the lessee acquiring superior title, or destruction of the property. 47-16-18 provides that on the death of a lessee of residential property, at the option of any surviving lessee or of the decedent’s estate, the lease terminates on the last day of the month in the month following the death, unless the lease term expires before that time. And 47-16-17.1 gives a domestic-violence termination right, covered below. Our North Dakota lease termination laws guide and the North Dakota tenant notice to vacate carry the mechanics.

Thirty days’ written notice from the landlord — and then a twenty-five-day answer from the tenant. This pairing is the single most under-reported rule on the North Dakota SERP, and it only makes sense read as a pair.

N.D.C.C. 47-16-07 is headed “Leases — Notice by landlord to change terms — When effective.” In all leases of land or tenements, or of any interest therein, from month to month, the landlord may change the terms of the lease to take effect at the expiration of the month upon giving notice in writing at least thirty days before the expiration of the month. The notice, when served upon the tenant, operates and is effectual to create and establish as part of the lease the terms, rent and conditions specified in the notice, if the tenant continues to hold the premises after the expiration of the month. Service may be in any reasonable manner which actually informs the tenant of the changes. So a North Dakota rent increase is not an offer that needs acceptance — continuing to hold over after the month expires is the acceptance, by statute.

That is a strong power, and N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(3) balances it: “If a landlord changes the terms of the lease pursuant to section 47-16-07, the tenant may terminate the lease at the end of the month by giving at least twenty-five days’ notice.” Twenty-five, not thirty — the shorter figure exists precisely so that a tenant who receives a thirty-day change notice still has a window in which to refuse it and leave rather than be bound by operation of the earlier section. A landlord who issues a change of terms should expect that window and plan for it; a tenant who receives one should diarise it immediately, because twenty-five days from the end of the month is a short runway.

Note the limits. Section 47-16-07 applies to leases from month to month. A landlord cannot use it to raise the rent mid-term on a fixed-term lease; the fixed term has to run out, or the parties have to agree. And nothing in the chapter caps the size of an increase, because 47-16-02.1 removes rent control from the political subdivisions that might otherwise have imposed one. Our North Dakota rent increase laws guide and the North Dakota rent increase notice follow the thirty-day mechanics through.

Three days’ written notice of intention to evict — but only for four of the eight grounds. This is the North Dakota eviction rule that ranking pages flatten, and getting it wrong costs a landlord a dismissed case or a tenant a defence they did not know they had.

N.D.C.C. 47-32-01 lists eight grounds on which an eviction action to recover possession is maintainable in the proper district court. The four that matter most in a residential tenancy are: subsection 4, where a lessee, in person or by subtenant, holds over after the termination of the lease or expiration of the lessee’s term, or fails to pay rent for three days after the rent is due; subsection 7, where a lessee or a person on the premises with the lessee’s consent acts in a manner that unreasonably disturbs other tenants’ peaceful enjoyment of the premises; subsection 8, where the lessee violates a material term of the written lease agreement; and subsection 5, which covers continued possession after a sale under mortgage, execution or judicial process, or after cancellation of a contract for deed. Subsections 1 to 3 deal with forcible or fraudulent entry and detainer.

N.D.C.C. 47-32-02 then supplies the notice rule, and its scope is explicit: “In all cases arising under subsections 4, 5, 6, and 8 of section 47-32-01, three days’ written notice of intention to evict must be given to the lessee, subtenant, or party in possession, before proceedings can be instituted.” Subsection 7 is not on that list. An eviction for unreasonably disturbing other tenants’ peaceful enjoyment therefore requires no pre-suit notice at all in North Dakota. The notice, where required, may be served and returned as a summons is served and returned or, if the party cannot be found, by the sheriff of the county or a process server posting it conspicuously upon the premises.

The same section governs the summons. The time specified for the defendant’s appearance may not be fewer than three nor more than fifteen days from the date the summons is issued. Service by delivery of a copy to the defendant in person within the county must be made at least three days before the time fixed for the appearance; service elsewhere, or personal service in any other mode, must be made at least seven days before. Posting on the door of the residential unit is available only where the person cannot be found in the county, where service has been attempted at least once between the hours of six p.m. and ten p.m., and where an affidavit is filed and a copy of the summons has been mailed to the defendant’s last-known address. That evening-attempt requirement is unusual and is often missed.

N.D.C.C. 47-32-04 shapes the hearing. An eviction action cannot be brought in connection with any other action except for rents and profits accrued or damages arising by reason of the defendant’s possession, and no counterclaim can be interposed except as a setoff to a demand made for damages or for rents and profits. If the court finds for the plaintiff it enters judgment for immediate restitution of the premises — but on a showing by the defendant that immediate restitution would work a substantial hardship on the defendant or the defendant’s family, the court may stay the special execution for a reasonable period not to exceed five days, except in cases where the eviction judgment is based in whole or in part on a disturbance of the peace.

Two further provisions round the chapter out. N.D.C.C. 47-32-01.1 lets a mobile home park tenant defend an eviction by showing the landlord violated N.D.C.C. 47-10-28, and directs that the court may not order an eviction if it so finds. And N.D.C.C. 47-32-05, created by SB 2238 in the 2025 session, lets a person subject to an eviction order for nonpayment of rent or damage, who has resolved all nonpayment and damage claims, move to seal the court records seven years after the order is satisfied, provided they have not been evicted from another property in those seven years — and lets a domestic-violence victim evicted because of a domestic violence incident move to seal on the assailant’s conviction or on the issuance of a protective order. See our North Dakota eviction notice laws guide and the North Dakota three-day pay rent or quit notice.

North Dakota gives landlords a short, value-limited self-help route in N.D.C.C. 47-16-30.1, and a lien where an eviction has already run. The section is one of the more landlord-friendly abandoned-property rules in the country, and it is worth reading closely because its limits are as important as its permissions.

Property with a total estimated value of not more than two thousand five hundred dollars which is left on the premises of a leased dwelling may be retained by the lessor and disposed of without legal process twenty-eight or more days after the lessor received actual notice that the lessee has vacated the premises, or twenty-eight or more days after it reasonably appears to the lessor that the lessee has vacated. Two triggers, one waiting period, and a value ceiling that governs the whole route: property worth more than the stated figure is outside the section, and a landlord who disposes of it on this basis has no statutory protection.

The lessor is entitled to the proceeds from the sale of the property, and may recover from the lessee’s security deposit any storage and moving expenses in excess of the proceeds incurred in disposing of it — which is the one place in North Dakota law where a deposit deduction is expressly authorized for something other than damage, unpaid rent or cleaning. Where the lessor removes abandoned property from the dwelling unit after a judgment of eviction has been obtained and the special execution has been served, the lessor has a lien upon the property for the reasonable amount of any storage and moving expenses and may retain possession of the property until those charges have been paid. That lien does not have priority over a prior perfected security interest in the property — so a financed vehicle or a rent-to-own appliance is not a hostage.

The practical sequence for a landlord is therefore: document the date the tenant vacated or the date it became reasonably apparent, photograph and inventory what was left, estimate the value honestly and in writing, wait the twenty-eight days, and account for the proceeds. The practical warning for a tenant is that twenty-eight days is short, and that the section does not require any notice to be sent to the tenant before disposal — the trigger is the landlord’s knowledge, not a communication.

North Dakota has no omnibus prohibited-provisions section of the kind uniform-act states carry, so there is no single list to check a lease against. What it has instead is a scattering of specific controls, and a general unconscionability power. Both matter when drafting.

Unconscionability — N.D.C.C. 47-16-13.3. If a court of competent jurisdiction finds, as a matter of law, that a residential dwelling unit rental agreement or any provision of it was unconscionable when made, the court may refuse to enforce the agreement, enforce the remainder without the unconscionable provision, or limit the application of the provision to avoid an unconscionable result. The same power applies to a settlement in which a party waives or agrees to forgo a claim or right under 47-16-13.1 through 47-16-13.6. Where unconscionability is put in issue by a party or by the court on its own motion, the parties must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present evidence as to the setting, purpose and effect of the agreement or settlement.

Attorney’s fees — N.D.C.C. 47-16-13.6. This is the section that decides how a fee clause should be drafted in North Dakota, and it is routinely mis-stated. It provides that any right or action provided by sections 47-16-13.1 through 47-16-13.6 is enforceable by action and that the court may award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. North Dakota therefore neither bans a fee-shifting clause nor leaves the question open: its own default runs to whichever party prevails. A lease clause that makes the tenant pay the landlord’s fees regardless of outcome sits directly against that measure and invites an unconscionability argument under 47-16-13.3. A reciprocal prevailing-party clause matches it. That is why the generator on this page offers a reciprocal clause and no one-sided alternative. Section 47-16-17.1(11) separately allows reasonable attorney’s fees, costs and disbursements on a domestic-violence claim.

Payment-method fees — N.D.C.C. 47-16-20.1. A flat prohibition on any fee to accept cash, a check, or a money order for rent or any other payment required under the lease. There is no exception and no de minimis.

Extended tenant notice — N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(4). Not a prohibition but a formality with teeth: a requirement that the lessee give more than one calendar month’s notice must be stated and must have space for the lessee to initial beside it, or it does not bind.

Double letting — N.D.C.C. 47-16-26. Any agreement purporting to let part of a room for a dwelling is overridden: the renter is entitled to the whole room notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, and every tenant in the building under the same landlord is relieved of rent while the double letting continues.

Domestic-violence confidentiality — N.D.C.C. 47-16-17.1(4). A landlord may not disclose information provided by a tenant documenting domestic violence, and the information may not be entered into any shared database or provided to any person, though it may be used as evidence in an eviction proceeding, in a claim for unpaid rent or damages arising out of the tenancy, or as otherwise required by law. The wider section gives a victim, or a tenant who fears imminent domestic violence against themselves or their minor children, the right to terminate without penalty or liability on advance written notice stating the fear and the court order or record relied on, the need to terminate, and the specific termination date; the tenant pays the rent for the full month of termination plus an additional amount equal to one month’s rent, subject to the landlord’s duty to mitigate; and a court may award one thousand dollars in statutory damages plus actual damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, costs and disbursements for a violation, including a refusal to rent to someone because they exercised the right.

Service and assistance animals — N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.5 and 47-16-07.6. A landlord of a rental dwelling subject to a no-pets policy may require reliable supporting documentation where a tenant asserts a disability requiring a service or assistance animal. The documentation may be provided by a physician or medical professional who does not operate in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals, and must confirm both the disability and the relationship between the disability and the need for the requested accommodation. A landlord may not require documentation where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known. Running the other way, 47-16-07.6 makes it an infraction to knowingly make a false claim or provide fraudulent documentation, and on a guilty plea or conviction the lessor may evict and is entitled to a damage fee not to exceed one thousand dollars. Our North Dakota pet and assistance animal laws guide works through the interaction with federal fair housing law.

One mandatory document, one conditional notice, and the federal lead-paint rule. That is the whole North Dakota list, and it is much shorter than most template sites suggest.

• The condition-of-premises statement — N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.2. Required in every residential tenancy, at the time of entering the rental agreement, signed by both, and constituting prima facie proof of condition.
• The automatic-renewal notice — N.D.C.C. 47-16-06.1. Required where a residential lease of a specified term of two months or more contains an automatic renewal clause: written notice of the provision, delivered personally or by first-class mail, not less than thirty days before the expiration date.
• Federal lead-based paint disclosure — 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 24 C.F.R. Part 35. Federal, not North Dakota, and applicable to any dwelling built before 1978. Our North Dakota lead-based paint disclosure form covers it.

And here is the myth that runs through the North Dakota SERP. Several ranking pages cite chapter 47-10 as a source of North Dakota lease disclosures. Open it and the problem is immediate. N.D.C.C. 47-10-02.1, “Property disclosure — Requirements — Exceptions,” applies “to a transaction for the sale, exchange, or purchase of real property” and speaks throughout of a seller preparing a written disclosure form for a prospective buyer. N.D.C.C. 47-10-02.2 requires a seller to disclose knowledge of radon concentrations to a buyer before executing an agreement to sell or transfer residential real property, and prescribes a signed acknowledgment from that buyer. Neither section mentions a lessor, a lessee, a tenancy or a lease. They are sale disclosures. A page that lists them as rental disclosures has taken the chapter number from a summary rather than the text, and once a page has done that, the rest of its disclosure list deserves the same skepticism.

North Dakota mandates no radon, flood-risk, insect-infestation, mold, asbestos, methamphetamine-contamination, ordnance-proximity, utility-apportionment, pending-demolition or offender-registry disclosure in a residential lease. A landlord may of course disclose voluntarily — the generator offers a mold block labelled as not required by statute for exactly that reason — but a template that presents any of them as a North Dakota requirement was written for another jurisdiction. The one North Dakota rule people mistake for a disclosure is the condition statement, and it is better than a disclosure: it is evidence.

More people than the federal Fair Housing Act covers. North Dakota’s housing discrimination rules live in chapter 14-02.5 — and note that they moved: the older sections 14-02.4-12, 14-02.4-12.1 and 14-02.4-13 in the human rights chapter are all repealed, so a citation to them is a citation to nothing.

N.D.C.C. 14-02.5-02 provides that a person may not refuse to sell or rent, after the making of a bona fide offer, refuse to negotiate for the rental of, or in any other manner make unavailable or deny a dwelling to an individual because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, familial status, national origin, or status with respect to marriage or public assistance. The same classes protect against discrimination in the terms, conditions or privileges of rental and in the provision of services or facilities. Two of those classes go beyond the federal floor. Age is not a protected class under the federal Fair Housing Act. And status with respect to public assistance is defined in the neighbouring human rights chapter to include being a tenant receiving federal, state or local subsidies, including rental assistance or rent supplements — so refusing to consider a housing voucher is a North Dakota problem even though it is not a federal one.

Section 14-02.5-02(3) adds that an applicant for or tenant of housing that is part of a state housing program may not be denied admission, denied assistance, terminated from participating in, or evicted from housing on the basis that the applicant or tenant is or has been a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking, if otherwise qualified. Two carve-outs sit in the same section: subsection 4 says the section does not prohibit discrimination against an individual because the individual has been convicted under federal or state law of the illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance, and subsection 5 says nothing in the chapter prevents a person from refusing to rent a dwelling to two unrelated individuals of opposite gender who are not married to each other. Section 14-02.5-09 then exempts certain small owners — broadly, an owner of not more than three single-family houses renting without a broker, subject to detailed conditions and a one-rental-in-twenty-four-months limit where the owner was not the most recent resident.

Screening decisions therefore have to be made against a longer list in North Dakota than in most states, and consistently across applicants. Our North Dakota tenant screening laws guide works through what may lawfully be considered.

• Treating the deposit ceiling as one number. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(1) branches: one month as the rule, two months on a felony conviction offered as an incentive to rent, and two months on a judgment for violating a previous rental agreement.
• Folding the pet deposit into the deposit cap. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(2) makes it a separate deposit capped at the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or two months’ rent, and bars it for a service or companion animal.
• Reading the nine months as a condition on the account. The federally insured interest-bearing account is required for every deposit; the nine months decides only whether interest must be paid over.
• Sending a check without an itemization. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.1(3) requires the itemization, the amount due and a written notice inside the thirty days, and 47-16-07.1(4) attaches treble damages to an unjustified withholding.
• Skipping the condition-of-premises statement. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.2 makes it mandatory at the time of entering the agreement and gives it prima facie evidentiary weight.
• Writing a twenty-four-hour entry rule and calling it North Dakota law. N.D.C.C. 47-16-07.3 names no period at all; it requires reasonable hours and prior consent identifying a time certain.
• Charging a fee to take rent by check or money order. N.D.C.C. 47-16-20.1 prohibits it outright.
• Burying a sixty-day tenant notice clause in the body of the lease. N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(4) requires the clause to be stated with space for the tenant to initial next to it, or it does not bind.
• Assuming a rent increase cannot be answered. N.D.C.C. 47-16-15(3) gives the tenant twenty-five days’ notice to terminate at the end of the month once the landlord changes the terms.
• Relying on an automatic renewal clause without the notice. N.D.C.C. 47-16-06.1 makes it unenforceable unless written notice went out at least thirty days before expiry.
• Serving a three-day notice for every eviction ground. N.D.C.C. 47-32-02 requires it for grounds 4, 5, 6 and 8, and a disturbance eviction under 47-32-01(7) needs none.
• Citing chapter 47-10 as a lease disclosure duty. N.D.C.C. 47-10-02.1 and 47-10-02.2 govern a seller and a buyer on a sale, exchange or purchase, not a lessor and a lessee.
• Citing 47-16-12 for the landlord’s repair duty. It was repealed in 1977; the live duty is N.D.C.C. 47-16-13.1.
• Screening on age or a housing voucher. N.D.C.C. 14-02.5-02 protects age and status with respect to public assistance, both beyond the federal classes.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. North Dakota gives a landlord a fast route on unpaid rent — an eviction is maintainable once rent is three days late, on three days’ written notice — but it also attaches treble damages to a mishandled deposit, allows uncapped repair-and-deduct, and makes the landlord the party who must produce a signed condition statement. The cost of placing the wrong tenant therefore lands squarely on the landlord here. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification, and our North Dakota tenant screening laws guide covers what you may lawfully consider — which in North Dakota is a narrower field than in most states, because age and public-assistance status are protected classes. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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