Free Ohio Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Ohio residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the Ohio Landlords and Tenants Act — no deposit cap, a thirty-day itemized accounting, and the attorney-fee clause Ohio voids in both directions.

Ohio R.C. ch. 5321 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Ohio residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the Ohio Landlords and Tenants Act at Ohio Rev. Code chapter 5321, with eviction handled separately under chapter 1923. Ohio’s version of the uniform act is short, old and unusually blunt, and three of its rules break the assumptions most lease templates carry. Ohio sets no security deposit cap at all — but it charges five per cent interest on the excess over the greater of fifty dollars or one month’s rent once the tenant has been in possession six months or more, a rule almost every competing page states incorrectly. It gives the tenant no repair-and-deduct right, substituting a court rent-escrow procedure under R.C. 5321.07 that a small landlord can opt out of entirely by putting one sentence in the lease. And R.C. 5321.13(C) refuses any agreement to pay the landlord’s or the tenant’s attorney’s fees, which makes Ohio stricter on fee-shifting than any state in this series. The generator below builds a lease that reflects each of those rules as the statute actually reads, verified against the Legislative Service Commission’s own codification on 6 August 2026.

Complete the fields below to generate an Ohio residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the unit-count branch and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Ohio section at each point. Before you hand keys to anyone, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with an Ohio move-in / move-out checklist so the thirty-day accounting rests on documented condition rather than memory.

Ohio recognizes the ordinary range of residential arrangements, and the type decides how the tenancy ends. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms; a tenant who stays past it is holding over and is subject to an action under R.C. 1923.02(A)(1). A periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice under R.C. 5321.17 — thirty days before the periodic rental date for month-to-month, seven days before the stated termination date for week-to-week.

Ohio’s definition section is worth reading before you decide which form you are using. R.C. 5321.01(D) defines a rental agreement as any agreement or lease, written or oral, which establishes or modifies terms concerning the use and occupancy of residential premises. An oral month-to-month arrangement is therefore a rental agreement with the whole of chapter 5321 attached to it, including the deposit rules and the entry rules. What an oral tenancy loses is the written lease’s other functions: R.C. 5321.18(B) makes the landlord deliver the owner and agent identification as a separate written notice at the commencement of occupancy instead, and the R.C. 5321.07(C) escrow opt-out has to be delivered in writing at initial occupancy rather than sitting in the lease.

R.C. 5321.01(C) also lists what is not residential premises, and the exclusions are broad: places of incarceration and community-control residences; hospitals and nursing homes; tourist homes, hotels, motels, recreational vehicle parks and similar transient facilities; boarding schools where room and board is part of tuition; orphanages; farm residences supplied with at least two acres for agricultural production; manufactured home park lots governed by chapter 3733; occupancy by the owner of a condominium unit; and certain single-room-occupancy and emergency-shelter arrangements operated by tax-exempt organizations. A commercial tenancy is outside chapter 5321 entirely. Beyond those, a room or roommate agreement covers one room in an occupied dwelling, a sublease transfers the tenant’s interest while leaving the original tenant liable, and a lease-to-own agreement bolts a purchase option onto a tenancy and belongs with counsel, since a land installment contract falls under chapter 5313 and its own eviction path in R.C. 1923.02(A)(7).

There is no limit. Ohio sets no maximum security deposit. Chapter 5321 contains no cap, and no other Ohio statute imposes one, which puts Ohio in the minority alongside states like Florida and against states like Alabama that cap the deposit at one month’s rent. R.C. 5321.01(E) defines a security deposit broadly as any deposit of money or property to secure performance by the tenant under a rental agreement, so a pet deposit and any other refundable sum held as security sit inside the same statutory analysis.

Ohio also imposes no duty to segregate the deposit. There is no requirement anywhere in chapter 5321 that the money be held in a separate account, an escrow account, a trust account or an interest-bearing account. Several ranking Ohio template pages state that the money must sit in an interest-bearing bank account; it is not in the statute. The only statutory escrow account in the entire chapter is the court’s rent escrow account under R.C. 5321.08(B), which holds rent deposited by a tenant under the R.C. 5321.07 remedy, and has nothing to do with deposits.

What Ohio does regulate is what happens to the deposit at the end: the interest rule in R.C. 5321.16(A), the thirty-day itemized accounting in 5321.16(B), and the tenant’s remedy in 5321.16(C). The deeper treatment lives in our Ohio security deposit laws guide.

Only on the excess, and only once possession has run six months or more. R.C. 5321.16(A) reads, in full: Any security deposit in excess of fifty dollars or one month’s periodic rent, whichever is greater, shall bear interest on the excess at the rate of five per cent per annum if the tenant remains in possession of the premises for six months or more, and shall be computed and paid annually by the landlord to the tenant.

Four things in that sentence are dropped by competing pages, and each one changes the answer:

• Whichever is greater. The comparison figure is the larger of fifty dollars and one month’s periodic rent. On a rent of one thousand dollars, the threshold is one thousand dollars, not fifty. One ranking page states the trigger as any deposit over fifty dollars, which is only correct where the monthly rent is under fifty dollars.
• On the excess. Interest runs on the amount above the threshold, not on the whole deposit. A landlord holding a deposit equal to one and a half months’ rent owes interest on the half month only.
• Six months or more. The statute says six months or more. A ranking page states it as more than six months, which excludes a tenancy of exactly six months that the statute includes.
• Computed and paid annually. The obligation is to compute and pay the interest each year, not to hold it until move-out and not to hold it in any particular account.

The practical consequence is that on the ordinary Ohio tenancy — one month’s rent held as the deposit — no interest is owed at all, because nothing exceeds the greater figure. Interest becomes live where a landlord takes a large deposit from a thin-credit applicant, or holds a substantial pet deposit on top of a full month. R.C. 5321.16 has not been amended since it took effect on 4 November 1974 under Senate Bill 103 of the 110th General Assembly, and the Legislative Service Commission’s version list for the section carries exactly one entry. The five per cent figure and the fifty-dollar floor are original 1974 numbers; they have never been updated.

The tenant recovers the money due, plus damages equal to the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorneys fees. R.C. 5321.16(C) is short and unqualified: if the landlord fails to comply with division (B), the tenant may recover the property and money due, together with damages in an amount equal to the amount wrongfully withheld, and reasonable attorneys fees.

Read the doubling carefully, because it is narrower than the headline suggests. The additional damages equal the amount wrongfully withheld, not the whole deposit. A landlord who returns most of the deposit but wrongly keeps a modest sum is exposed to twice that sum plus the tenant’s fees — and in practice the fee award is usually the larger number. This is one of the few places Ohio awards attorney fees, and it awards them by statute rather than by contract, which matters because R.C. 5321.13(C) forbids the lease from creating a fee entitlement at all.

Division (B) sets out what compliance looks like. On termination, the deposit may be applied to past due rent and to damages the landlord has suffered by reason of the tenant’s noncompliance with R.C. 5321.05 or the rental agreement. Any deduction must be itemized and identified in a written notice delivered to the tenant together with the amount due, within thirty days after termination of the rental agreement AND delivery of possession. Both events are required. A tenancy that has terminated on paper while the tenant still holds the keys has not started the clock.

The tenant’s side has one precondition. Division (B) requires the tenant to provide the landlord in writing with a forwarding or new address to which the notice and amount due may be sent, and provides that a tenant who fails to do so shall not be entitled to damages or attorneys fees under division (C). Note precisely what that forfeits: the enhanced damages and the fees, not the deposit. The money itself is still owed. Several ranking pages overstate this as a forfeiture of the deposit. Our Ohio security deposit itemization form produces the written itemization division (B) requires.

Whenever the lease says, and whatever the lease says. This is one of the genuinely empty areas of Ohio law and it deserves stating plainly rather than papering over. Ohio’s act fixes no default rent due date, no proration rule, no grace period and no late-fee cap. There is no Ohio residential late-fee statute at all.

What fills the gap is R.C. 5321.06: A landlord and a tenant may include in a rental agreement any terms and conditions, including any term relating to rent, the duration of an agreement, and any other provisions governing the rights and obligations of the parties that are not inconsistent with or prohibited by Chapter 5321. of the Revised Code or any other rule of law. So the lease is the source of the rent terms, and the only statutory constraint on an aggressive late fee is R.C. 5321.14, which lets a court that finds a clause unconscionable as a matter of law refuse to enforce it, enforce the rest of the lease without it, or limit its application. The section also entitles both parties to a reasonable opportunity to present evidence of the clause’s setting, purpose and effect.

Two ranking Ohio pages state that a landlord may charge a returned-check fee of thirty dollars or ten per cent of the check, citing R.C. 1319.16. Open the section. Its own title is Check collection charges, and division (A) authorises a collection agency that has been designated to collect on a dishonoured instrument to charge that amount, with division (B) requiring the agency to send the debtor written notice by regular mail. It confers nothing on a landlord and it caps no lease fee. Ohio has no residential returned-item statute; any such charge in an Ohio lease is contractual and is tested under R.C. 5321.14. The same analysis applies to late fees, which our Ohio late fee laws guide covers in more depth.

Reasonable notice — and twenty-four hours is presumed reasonable, not required. The distinction is real and every ranking Ohio page collapses it. R.C. 5321.04(A)(8) requires the landlord, except in the case of emergency or if it is impracticable to do so, to give the tenant reasonable notice of the landlord’s intent to enter and to enter only at reasonable times. It then adds one sentence: Twenty-four hours is presumed to be a reasonable notice in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

That is a rebuttable presumption about what counts as reasonable. It cuts both ways. A landlord who gives twenty-four hours starts from a favourable position but can be met with evidence that in the circumstances it was not reasonable — a repeated pattern, an unreasonable hour, a tenant with a known and communicated constraint. Conversely, shorter notice is not automatically unlawful if the circumstances made it reasonable. A page that reports the rule as “Ohio requires a minimum of twenty-four hours’ notice” has turned a presumption into a bright line the legislature did not write.

The purposes for which the landlord may enter come from the tenant’s side of the bargain in R.C. 5321.05(B): the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent for the landlord to enter to inspect, make ordinary, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, deliver parcels too large for the tenant’s mail facilities, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors.

The remedies are unusually specific, and they are the tenant’s. R.C. 5321.04(B) covers three distinct wrongs: an entry in violation of division (A)(8), a lawful entry made in an unreasonable manner, and repeated demands for entry otherwise lawful that have the effect of harassing the tenant. For any of the three the tenant may recover actual damages, obtain injunctive relief to prevent recurrence, and obtain a judgment for reasonable attorney’s fees, or may terminate the rental agreement. R.C. 5321.04(A)(7) separately forbids the landlord to abuse the right of access. Our Ohio notice to enter form and the Ohio landlord entry laws guide go further.

No — Ohio has no repair-and-deduct right. It has a court rent-escrow procedure instead, and a small landlord can opt out of it. This is the most distinctive part of Ohio landlord-tenant law and the part the ranking template pages handle worst.

R.C. 5321.07(A) sets the entry point. Where the landlord fails to fulfil an obligation imposed by R.C. 5321.04 (other than the drug-eviction duty in (A)(9)) or by the rental agreement, or where the conditions are such that the tenant reasonably believes the landlord has so failed, or where a governmental agency has found the premises not in compliance with a code that could materially affect the health and safety of an occupant, the tenant may give notice in writing specifying the acts, omissions or code violations that constitute noncompliance. And then the sentence everyone drops: the notice shall be sent to the person or place where rent is normally paid. A notice posted to a registered-agent address or handed to a contractor does not satisfy the section.

R.C. 5321.07(B) supplies the trigger and its three preconditions. The landlord must fail to remedy within a reasonable time considering the severity of the condition and the time necessary to remedy it, or within thirty days, whichever is sooner — so thirty days is a ceiling, not an entitlement; a burst pipe in February gets a reasonable time measured in hours. The tenant must be current in rent payments due under the rental agreement. Only then may the tenant do one of three things: deposit all rent that is due and thereafter becomes due with the clerk of the municipal or county court; apply to the court for an order directing the landlord to remedy (and, as part of that application, deposit rent, seek an order reducing the periodic rent until the condition is remedied, and seek an order to use the deposited rent to remedy the condition); or terminate the rental agreement.

The opt-out no ranking page mentions. R.C. 5321.07(C) provides that the section does not apply to any landlord who is a party to rental agreements that cover three or fewer dwelling units and who provides notice of that fact in a written rental agreement or, in the case of an oral tenancy, delivers written notice of that fact to the tenant at the time of initial occupancy. Three points make this operational rather than academic. The count is of the units the landlord is a party to agreements for, not the units in this building. The notice must be in the lease — a landlord who qualifies but says nothing keeps the full remedy attached. And it cannot be added later, which is why the form above puts it in front of you at drafting time. R.C. 5321.07(D) adds a second exclusion: the section does not apply to a dwelling unit occupied by a student tenant, defined in R.C. 5321.01(H) as someone occupying a unit owned or operated by the college or university at which they are a student under an agreement contingent on that status.

Once rent is deposited, R.C. 5321.08 governs the clerk: written notice to the landlord and any agent, a separate rent escrow account in the clerk’s name at an Ohio bank or building and loan association, a separate docket, and a fee of up to one per cent of the rent deposited assessed as court costs. R.C. 5321.09 gives the landlord four routes to release — the condition has been remedied and the tenant confirms it in writing, the tenant did not comply with the notice requirement, the tenant was not current in rent when the deposits began, or there was no violation at all. The tenant is named as a party with the right to answer and counterclaim, and trial is held within sixty days of filing unless continued for good cause. R.C. 5321.09(D) is the sting: where the condition resulted from an act or omission of the tenant, or the tenant intentionally acted in bad faith in proceeding under R.C. 5321.07, the tenant is liable for the landlord’s damages and costs, together with reasonable attorney’s fees where the bad faith was intentional. R.C. 5321.10 governs release of part of the rent.

One trap runs the other way. R.C. 5321.18(C) provides that where the landlord fails to give the owner and agent identification required by 5321.18(A) or (B), the notices to the landlord required under R.C. 5321.07(A) and R.C. 5321.08(A) are waived. A landlord who leaves that identification out of the lease has quietly destroyed the notice precondition that would otherwise have protected them. Our Ohio habitability laws guide follows the repair duty further.

R.C. 5321.04(A) lists the landlord’s duties and R.C. 5321.05(A) the tenant’s, and the split is closer to the uniform act than to a negotiated lease. The landlord must comply with all applicable building, housing, health and safety codes that materially affect health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is reasonably necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas safe and sanitary; maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air conditioning fixtures and appliances, and elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by the landlord; supply running water, reasonable amounts of hot water and reasonable heat at all times, subject to two narrow exceptions; not abuse the right of access; give reasonable notice before entering; and comply with tenant rights under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

One landlord duty is not universal, and no ranking page says so. R.C. 5321.04(A)(5) imposes the duty to provide and maintain appropriate receptacles for ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste, and to arrange for their removal, only where the landlord is a party to rental agreements that cover four or more dwelling units in the same structure. A single-family rental carries no statutory receptacle duty at all, which is why the form above asks the unit-count question once and uses the answer twice.

The tenant’s duties under R.C. 5321.05(A) run to nine items: keep the occupied part safe and sanitary; dispose of rubbish, garbage and waste in a clean, safe and sanitary manner; keep plumbing fixtures as clean as their condition permits; use and operate all electrical and plumbing fixtures properly; comply with tenant obligations under applicable state and local housing, health and safety codes; refrain and forbid others from intentionally or negligently destroying, defacing, damaging or removing any fixture, appliance or part of the premises; maintain in good working order any range, refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher or other appliance the landlord supplies and that the tenant is required to maintain under a written rental agreement; conduct themselves and require guests to conduct themselves so as not to disturb neighbours’ peaceful enjoyment; and not violate the controlled-substance provisions of chapters 2925 and 3719 or substantially similar municipal ordinances.

Two drafting points follow. The appliance duty in (A)(7) attaches only where a written rental agreement requires it, so an oral tenancy leaves appliance maintenance with the landlord’s general habitability duty. And R.C. 5321.13(F) allows the landlord to assume any tenant duty under 5321.05 except the controlled-substance duty in (A)(9) — the single reallocation chapter 5321 permits, which is why the form offers it as an explicit option rather than burying it. If the tenant breaches, R.C. 5321.05(C)(1) lets the landlord recover actual damages together with reasonable attorney’s fees, again by statute rather than by clause, in addition to terminating, suing for possession, or seeking injunctive relief to compel access.

R.C. 5321.17 governs periodic tenancies and does so in two lines. Either party may terminate or fail to renew a week-to-week tenancy by notice given the other at least seven days prior to the termination date specified in the notice, and a month-to-month tenancy by notice given the other at least thirty days prior to the periodic rental date. Note the two different reference points: the week-to-week notice counts back from a date the notice itself chooses; the month-to-month notice counts back from the rental date, which is generally the day rent falls due.

Division (D) is the limiting sentence. R.C. 5321.17 does not apply to a termination based on the breach of a condition of a rental agreement or the breach of a duty imposed by law — with one exception, the controlled-substance duty in R.C. 5321.05(A)(9), which has its own three-day termination path under 5321.17(C) and its own mandatory-action provision in 5321.04(A)(9). So the thirty-day notice is the notice that ends a periodic tenancy for no reason at all. It is not the notice that follows a default, and it is not a cure notice.

Ohio has no rent-increase notice statute. Because a periodic tenancy renews on its own terms, a rent change is accomplished by giving the R.C. 5321.17 termination notice and offering new terms, or by agreement. Our Ohio rent increase notice form and the Ohio lease termination laws guide handle the mechanics; an Ohio notice of non-renewal covers the fixed-term case.

Holdover deserves a plain statement because competing pages imply a penalty that does not exist. A tenant holding over the term is subject to a forcible entry and detainer action under R.C. 1923.02(A)(1). Ohio sets no statutory holdover-damages multiplier — there is no double-rent or treble-rent provision in chapter 5321 or chapter 1923. The landlord’s exposure recovery is the rent and the actual damages proved under R.C. 5321.12, which permits any party to an action under chapter 5321 to recover damages for breach of contract or breach of any duty imposed by law.

A three-day notice to leave under R.C. 1923.04 — and it is defective unless it carries prescribed statutory language in a conspicuous manner. This is the single most checkable requirement in Ohio eviction practice and it is the one competing templates omit.

R.C. 1923.04(A) requires a party desiring to commence an action to notify the adverse party to leave the premises three or more days before beginning the action. It then provides: Every notice given under this section by a landlord to recover residential premises shall contain the following language printed or written in a conspicuous manner: “You are being asked to leave the premises. If you do not leave, an eviction action may be initiated against you. If you are in doubt regarding your legal rights and obligations as a tenant, it is recommended that you seek legal assistance.”

Two requirements sit inside that. The language itself, and the conspicuous manner in which it must appear. One of the ranking Ohio pages quotes the sentence; none states that it has to be conspicuous, and none states the service rule that follows it in the same division. Service is limited to exactly three methods: certified mail, return receipt requested; handing a written copy of the notice to the defendant in person; or leaving it at the defendant’s usual place of abode or at the premises from which the defendant is sought to be evicted. Ordinary first-class mail alone is not one of them.

The three-day notice is not a cure notice. Where the ground is a tenant breach of a R.C. 5321.05 duty that materially affects health and safety, R.C. 5321.11 requires the landlord first to deliver a written notice specifying the act or omission constituting noncompliance and specifying that the rental agreement will terminate on a date not less than thirty days after receipt. If the tenant remedies, the tenancy continues. R.C. 1923.02(A)(8) makes notice and compliance with R.C. 5321.11 an express precondition to an eviction on that ground. Our Ohio notice to cure or quit covers that step and our Ohio 3-day notice to pay rent or quit covers the nonpayment case.

One further precision that competing pages blur. R.C. 1923.02(A)(2) — nonpayment — is written for tenants in possession under an oral tenancy, with division (B) supplying the forfeiture and the R.C. 1923.04 notice. Nonpayment under a written lease proceeds under R.C. 1923.02(A)(9), breach of an obligation imposed by a written rental agreement, or under (A)(1) once the term has ended. More at our Ohio eviction notice laws guide.

Chapter 1923 supplies the procedure, and several of its provisions changed recently enough that most secondary summaries have not caught up. The summons does not issue until the plaintiff files a written complaint particularly describing the premises (R.C. 1923.05(A)).

Minor tenants, effective 9 April 2025. Senate Bill 237 of the 135th General Assembly added R.C. 1923.05(B) and (C), and the section’s own title now reads Complaint filed and recorded — no minor tenants listed as defendants. Division (B) provides that no person shall file an action under chapter 1923 listing a minor tenant as a defendant if a parent or adult guardian is also listed as a defendant on the same complaint. Division (C) requires the court to dismiss the action without prejudice and to order the filer to pay the minor tenant’s reasonable attorneys’ fees. R.C. 1923.01(C)(15), added by the same act, defines a minor tenant as a tenant under eighteen who is not emancipated. Not one ranking Ohio page mentions this, and a landlord who names the whole household on the caption out of habit is now exposed to a fee award.

The summons carries its own required language. R.C. 1923.06(B) requires every summons issued to recover residential premises to contain, printed in a conspicuous manner, a tenant-rights paragraph explaining that no person shall be evicted unless their right to possession has ended or in retaliation for exercising lawful rights, that a tenant depositing rent with the clerk must continue to do so, that the tenant may request a trial by jury, and that the tenant has the right to seek legal assistance. Service must be at least seven days before the day set for trial, by ordinary mail from the clerk plus either personal or residence service and posting, or certified mail.

Defences, counterclaims and timing. R.C. 1923.061(A) allows any defence to be asserted at trial. Division (B) is the one that matters in a nonpayment case: a tenant in possession may counterclaim for any amount recoverable under the rental agreement or under chapter 5321, with the court able to order past-due and accruing rent paid into court; after judgment the party owed the net judgment is paid first from that money, and if no rent remains due after the set-off, judgment is entered for the tenant in the action for possession. A deposit claim under R.C. 5321.16(C) or an entry claim under 5321.04(B) can therefore defeat the possession action itself. R.C. 1923.08 caps any continuance at eight days unless the plaintiff applies and the defendant consents, or the defendant applies and posts bond. And R.C. 1923.01(B) requires an action under the chapter to be brought within two years after the cause of action accrues.

Self-help is barred outright. R.C. 5321.15(A) forbids the landlord to initiate any act — including termination of utilities or services, exclusion from the premises, or the threat of any unlawful act — against a tenant, or a tenant whose right to possession has terminated, for the purpose of recovering possession, other than as provided in chapters 1923, 5303 and 5321. Division (B) forbids seizing the tenant’s furnishings or possessions to recover rent except under a court order. Division (C) makes a violating landlord liable in a civil action for all damages caused to the tenant, together with reasonable attorneys fees. Note that the ban explicitly reaches a tenant whose right to possession has already terminated, so winning the argument about the tenancy does not license a lockout.

R.C. 5321.13 is titled Terms prohibited in rental agreement, and it is the single most consequential drafting rule in Ohio. Not one of the nine ranking Ohio lease-template pages mentions it. It has six divisions:

• (A) No waiver of the chapter. No provision of chapter 5321 may be modified or waived by any oral or written agreement, except as division (F) provides.
• (B) No warrant of attorney to confess judgment shall be recognized in any rental agreement, or in any other agreement between a landlord and tenant, for the recovery of rent or damages to the residential premises.
• (C) No agreement to pay the landlord’s or tenant’s attorney’s fees shall be recognized in any rental agreement for residential premises or in any other agreement between a landlord and tenant.
• (D) No exculpation or indemnity. No agreement by a tenant to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or its related costs, shall be recognized.
• (E) No rent free of the maintenance duty. Neither the rental agreement nor any assignment, conveyance, trust deed or security instrument of the landlord’s interest may permit the receipt of rent free of the obligation to comply with R.C. 5321.04.
• (F) The one permitted shift. The landlord may agree to assume responsibility for fulfilling any duty or obligation imposed on a tenant by R.C. 5321.05, other than the controlled-substance obligation in division (A)(9).

Ohio bans fee-shifting in both directions, and that is genuinely unusual. Most states that restrict attorney-fee clauses ban only a clause making the tenant pay the landlord’s fees, and several — Arizona is the clearest example — permit a clause so long as it runs to whichever party prevails. Division (C) refuses any agreement to pay the landlord’s or the tenant’s fees, so the reciprocal prevailing-party clause that cures the problem elsewhere is equally unrecognisable in Ohio. The lease this page generates therefore contains no attorney-fee clause at all, and says so expressly. The form deliberately has no checkbox for one.

It is worth being precise about what that does not mean, because the rule is easily overstated. Ohio awards attorney fees in residential disputes frequently — it simply awards them by statute rather than by contract. A tenant recovers fees under R.C. 5321.02(B) for retaliation, R.C. 5321.04(B) for unlawful or abusive entry, R.C. 5321.15(C) for a self-help eviction, and R.C. 5321.16(C) for a deposit failure. A landlord recovers fees under R.C. 5321.05(C)(1) for a tenant’s breach of the maintenance duties and under R.C. 5321.09(D) where a tenant intentionally acted in bad faith in the escrow procedure. A minor tenant recovers fees under R.C. 1923.05(C). Those survive; a lease clause purporting to create fee-shifting does not. Add R.C. 5321.14 on top, which lets a court refuse to enforce any unconscionable clause, and the drafting lesson is that in Ohio the statute, not the lease, decides who pays.

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

Owner and owner’s agent identification — R.C. 5321.18. Every written rental agreement for residential premises shall contain the name and address of the owner and the name and address of the owner’s agent, if any. Where the owner or agent is a corporation, partnership, limited partnership, association, trust or other entity, the address shall be its principal place of business in the county in which the residential property is situated or, failing that, its principal place of business in Ohio, and shall include the name of the person in charge. If the rental agreement is oral, division (B) requires the landlord to deliver a written notice containing the same information at the commencement of the term of occupancy. Division (C) supplies the consequence, and it is the reason to get this right: omitting the identification waives the tenant’s duty to give the landlord the notices required under R.C. 5321.07(A) and R.C. 5321.08(A).

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet, and any known records or reports. Not an Ohio rule, but it applies in Ohio and carries federal penalties. Our Ohio lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Ohio does not require a radon disclosure, a flood-risk disclosure, an insect-infestation disclosure, a mold disclosure, an asbestos disclosure, a methamphetamine contamination disclosure, an ordnance-proximity notice of the kind some western states require, a shared-metering disclosure, a pending-demolition notice, or an offender-registry notice in a residential lease. Every one of those comes from another state’s statute book. Including a voluntary disclosure does no harm; citing an Ohio section for it does, because it signals a document nobody has checked against chapter 5321. One specific trap: R.C. 5302.30, the residential property disclosure form, is sometimes cited on lease pages. Read who it binds — it speaks throughout of a transferor and a transferee of residential real property. It governs sales, not leases.

Not if the term does not exceed three years. R.C. 5301.08 is titled Certain leases unaffected and provides that R.C. 5301.01 to 5301.45 do not affect the validity of any lease of lands appropriated by congress for the support of schools or for ministerial purposes for any term not exceeding ten years or of any other lands for any term not exceeding three years or require that lease to be acknowledged or recorded.

Three corrections follow, and each one is a live error on a ranking page. The trigger is a term exceeding three years, so a lease of exactly three years is exempt — not “three years or longer”. The test is the length of the term, not the age of the document; one competitor writes that leases “at least three years old” must be recorded, which is a different and non-existent rule. And R.C. 5301.251 is not the source of a recording obligation: it is the section that permits a memorandum of lease to be recorded in place of the lease, listing what the memorandum must contain (the parties’ names and addresses, a reference to the lease and its execution date, a description of the premises, the term, any renewal or extension rights, and the commencement date or how it is determined) and providing that the memorandum is constructive notice only of what it contains.

Where the term does exceed three years, R.C. 5301.01 supplies the execution and acknowledgment requirements. Below that threshold an Ohio residential lease needs no witnesses, no notary and no recording — and R.C. 5321.01(D) recognises an oral rental agreement outright, with the whole of chapter 5321 attached to it.

No, and no Ohio city may adopt it. R.C. 5321.19, as amended by House Bill 430 of the 134th General Assembly effective 23 September 2022, provides that no political subdivision may enact, adopt, renew, maintain, enforce or continue in existence any charter provision, ordinance, resolution, rule or other measure that conflicts with chapter 5321, or that regulates the rights and obligations of parties to a rental agreement that are regulated by this chapter, including, without limitation, by any way imposing or requiring rent control or rent stabilization.

The same 2022 act put the definitions in R.C. 5321.01(O) and (P): rent control means requiring below-market rents or controlling rental rates in any manner, including prohibiting increases, regulating changes between tenancies, limiting increases, or regulating rates by tenant income or wealth; rent stabilization means allowing increases of a fixed amount or on a fixed schedule set by a political subdivision.

Division (B) preserves three things, and the preservation matters as much as the ban. Local housing, building, health and safety codes are untouched, as are the drug-nuisance ordinances referred to in R.C. 5321.04(A)(9). A subdivision may regulate rent for premises it owns or operates itself. And a subdivision may adopt measures implementing a plan of voluntary incentives or agreements that affect rent, where the regulation is tied to incentives or agreements to increase or maintain supply or improve quality — expressly including tax abatements, tax-credit financing, bond financing, and loans or grants. So an Ohio city can still run an incentive-based affordability programme; it simply cannot impose a rate ceiling. See the Ohio rent increase laws guide for how increases work in practice.

We read the full visible text of the nine pages currently ranking for Ohio lease-agreement queries before writing this one. The errors below are quoted or paraphrased from those pages as they stood on 6 August 2026, and each correction was checked against the Legislative Service Commission’s codified text.

• None of the nine mentions R.C. 5321.13. The prohibited-terms section, which voids the attorney-fee clause most templates ship with by default, appears on none of them.
• A page about another state’s law, on an Ohio page. The deepest ranker’s disclosure section reads “Georgia law does not require these optional disclosures”. A second ranker’s Ohio late-fee entry reads “North Dakota does not restrict reasonable late fee amounts”. This is the cross-state contamination this whole family of pages suffers from, visible on the face of pages currently ranking.
• A collection-agency statute sold as a landlord fee cap. Two rankers cite R.C. 1319.16 for a returned-check charge. It binds a designated collection agency, not a landlord.
• An interest-bearing account Ohio never required. One ranker states the landlord “must place the funds in an interest-bearing account”. Chapter 5321 imposes no segregation duty of any kind.
• The interest rule mis-stated three ways. One ranker drops “whichever is greater” and gives the trigger as any deposit over fifty dollars; the same page gives the tenancy requirement as “more than six months” where the statute says six months or more; and it implies interest on the whole deposit rather than on the excess.
• A presumption reported as a minimum. The deepest ranker says landlords “must provide a minimum of 24 hours’ notice”. R.C. 5321.04(A)(8) requires reasonable notice and presumes twenty-four hours reasonable absent contrary evidence.
• The escrow remedy attributed to the wrong section. The deepest ranker cites R.C. 5321.04 for the tenant’s right to deposit rent with the clerk. That is R.C. 5321.07, and the ranker drops all three of its preconditions.
• The three-or-fewer-unit opt-out is invisible. No ranking page mentions R.C. 5321.07(C) or the student-tenant exclusion in (D).
• Late fees and the grace period sourced to the wrong sections. The deepest ranker cites R.C. 5321.14 for its late-fee rule and R.C. 1923.04(A) for its grace-period rule. R.C. 5321.14 is the unconscionability section; R.C. 1923.04 is the eviction notice and service section.
• Three days for any breach. Rankers say any lease violation supports a three-day notice. R.C. 5321.11 requires not less than thirty days for a health-and-safety breach, and R.C. 1923.02(A)(8) makes that a precondition.
• The conspicuous-manner and service rules go unmentioned. One ranker quotes the R.C. 1923.04(A) sentence; none states that it must be conspicuous or that service is limited to three methods.
• The minor-tenant rule is missing everywhere. R.C. 1923.05(B) and (C) took effect 9 April 2025 and no ranking Ohio lease page reflects them.
• Recording rules stated as an age test. One ranker writes that leases “at least three years old” must be recorded and attributes the requirement to R.C. 5301.251. The test is a term exceeding three years, and 5301.251 is the memorandum-of-lease permission.
• An invented exit penalty. One ranker tells tenants that leaving early means forfeiting the deposit and paying an extra month’s rent. No Ohio statute says that; R.C. 5321.16(B) limits deposit application to past-due rent and damages from the tenant’s noncompliance.
• The forwarding-address consequence overstated. Failing to give a written forwarding address costs the tenant the division (C) damages and fees. It does not forfeit the deposit.

• Including an attorney-fee clause in either direction. R.C. 5321.13(C) refuses both. A reciprocal prevailing-party clause is no safer than a one-sided one.
• Adding a confession-of-judgment, exculpation or indemnity clause. R.C. 5321.13(B) and (D) refuse all three, and they are standard boilerplate in imported templates.
• Leaving out the owner and agent identification. R.C. 5321.18(C) then waives the tenant’s obligation to give you the R.C. 5321.07(A) and 5321.08(A) notices — the landlord’s own protection.
• Qualifying for the R.C. 5321.07(C) opt-out and not claiming it. A landlord party to agreements covering three or fewer dwelling units keeps the full escrow remedy attached unless the notice is in the lease.
• Starting the thirty-day deposit clock on termination alone. R.C. 5321.16(B) requires termination and delivery of possession.
• Paying interest on the whole deposit, or paying none where it is due. Five per cent runs on the excess over the greater of fifty dollars or one month’s rent, once possession has run six months or more.
• Serving a three-day notice without the required language, or by ordinary mail. The language must be conspicuous and the service method must be one of the three in R.C. 1923.04(A).
• Treating the three-day notice as a cure period. For a health-and-safety breach under R.C. 5321.05, the cure notice is not less than thirty days under R.C. 5321.11.
• Naming a minor tenant on the complaint alongside a parent. Since 9 April 2025 that means dismissal without prejudice plus the minor’s attorney fees under R.C. 1923.05(C).
• Locking out a tenant whose right to possession has ended. R.C. 5321.15 reaches that tenant expressly and exposes the landlord to all damages plus fees.
• Assuming a holdover multiplier. Ohio has none; recovery is rent and actual damages under R.C. 5321.12.
• Importing radon, flood or insect-history disclosures and citing an Ohio section. Ohio requires none of them, and R.C. 5302.30 governs sellers, not lessors.
• Waiving a chapter 5321 provision by agreement. R.C. 5321.13(A) forbids it. The only permitted movement is the landlord assuming a tenant duty under division (F).
• Assuming a city ordinance can cap the rent. R.C. 5321.19 preempts rent control and rent stabilization statewide.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is a dispute at all. Ohio’s procedure is comparatively fast once a landlord follows it exactly, but Ohio also removes the fee-shifting clause landlords elsewhere rely on to make a marginal tenancy survivable — and it awards fees to tenants in five separate situations. The cost of placing the wrong tenant therefore lands more squarely on the Ohio landlord than in most states. 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. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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