Free Pennsylvania Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Pennsylvania residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951, 68 P.S. 250.101 et seq. — the deposit limit that drops from two months to one after the first year, the 30-day written list backed by double damages, and the notice to quit a Pennsylvania lease may lawfully shorten or waive.

Pennsylvania 68 P.S. 250.101 2 Months, Then 1 Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Pennsylvania residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951, the Act of April 6, 1951, P.L. 69, No. 20, classified to 68 P.S. 250.101 et seq. Pennsylvania never adopted the uniform residential landlord and tenant act, and it never consolidated this one either, so the statute is old, scattered and numbered two different ways at once. Three things follow, and no page currently ranking for this query states all three correctly. First, the security deposit limit is two months’ rent during the first year and one month’s rent after that — 68 P.S. 250.511a(a) and (b) — and the drop is where most Pennsylvania landlords go wrong. Second, the thirty-day written list, the forfeiture rule and the double damages all live in 68 P.S. 250.512, and 250.512(e) hands the entire remedy back to the landlord if the tenant fails to leave a new address in writing. Third, and most important for anyone drafting rather than reading, 68 P.S. 250.501(e) allows a Pennsylvania lease to shorten or waive the notice to quit entirely. Pennsylvania’s notice periods are defaults, not floors — the opposite of nearly every other state in this series.

Complete the fields below to generate a Pennsylvania residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the deposit-holding method, the choice you make about the notice to quit, and each disclosure you check — and the generated lease cites the controlling Pennsylvania section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening; the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with a Pennsylvania move-in / move-out checklist, because 68 P.S. 250.512(c) puts the burden of proving actual damages on the landlord and a dated condition record is how that burden is met.

Because 68 P.S. is unconsolidated, and the same words carry two different section numbers. The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 was never brought into the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes. The General Assembly publishes it under the act’s own numbering — Section 501, Section 505.1, Section 511.1, Section 511.2, Section 511.3, Section 512 — while courts, practitioners and every template site cite the unofficial Purdon’s classification: 68 P.S. 250.501, 250.505a, 250.511a, 250.511b, 250.511c and 250.512. The mapping is one to one and the text is identical. Only the label differs.

Two consequences matter if you are checking anything yourself. Searching the legislature’s own PDF of the act for 250.511a returns nothing at all, because that string does not appear in the act — which is how a careful reader can wrongly conclude a real section is invented. And the reverse trap is live on this very search result page: two of the deepest ranking template sites cite 68 P.S. 250.512a for the itemised list of damages and 68 P.S. 250.501b for the notice to quit. Neither section exists. The act runs 511.3, then 512, then 513; and 501, then 502. What those pages are reaching for is 250.512(a) and 250.501(b) — subsections, not sections. This page cites the Purdon’s numbers because they are what readers search for, and names the act’s own section beside them so you can find the text at the source.

Pennsylvania recognises the usual range. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and expires on its own terms. A month-to-month or open-ended arrangement is what 68 P.S. 250.501(b) calls a lease “for an indeterminate time”, and it takes the same fifteen days’ notice to quit as a term of one year or less. A lease at will arises by operation of 68 P.S. 250.202 where a lease of more than three years was never reduced to writing. There are also room and roommate agreements, subleases — and note that under 68 P.S. 250.105 any person who is a sublessee is subject to the provisions of the lease between the lessor and the lessee, so a sublessee takes the head lease as it stands — and lease-to-own arrangements that add a purchase option.

The writing threshold is the classification detail Pennsylvania gets asked about most, and it is routinely misstated as one year by out-of-state templates. Under 68 P.S. 250.201 real property, including any personal property on it, may be leased for a term of not more than three years by oral or written contract. Under 68 P.S. 250.202 a lease for more than three years must be in writing and signed by the parties making it, otherwise it has the force and effect of a lease at will only — unless the tenancy has continued for more than one year and both landlord and tenant have recognised its rightful existence by claiming and admitting liability for the rent, in which case it becomes a tenancy from year to year. Under 68 P.S. 250.203 an assignment, grant or surrender of a lease of more than three years must equally be in writing.

Two categories fall outside this form. A commercial lease is expressly excluded from 68 P.S. 250.512 by its own subsection (f), and from the Plain Language Consumer Contract Act by section 4(b)(8) of that act. And mobile home park tenancies are carved out of 68 P.S. 250.501(a) and given their own longer notice periods in 250.501(c), because the Mobile Home Park Rights Act of 1976 governs them; this lease is not the right instrument for a mobile home space.

Two months’ rent during the first year, and one month’s rent after that. 68 P.S. 250.511a is section 511.1 of the act, titled “Escrow Funds Limited” and added on 29 December 1972 by P.L. 1698, No. 363. Subsection (a) reads: no landlord may require a sum in excess of two months’ rent to be deposited in escrow for the payment of damages to the leasehold premises and/or default in rent thereof during the first year of any lease. Subsection (b) then reads: during the second and subsequent years of the lease or during any renewal of the original lease, the amount required to be deposited may not exceed one month’s rent.

That drop is the single most frequently omitted rule in Pennsylvania landlord-tenant coverage. Three of the nine pages ranking for this query publish only the two-month figure. One states it as an entitlement to “one month’s security deposit per year” after the first year, which reads as a right to keep collecting and is the opposite of what the statute does — it is a ceiling on the total held, not an annual instalment.

Subsection (c) explains what happens to the difference. If, during the third or subsequent year of a lease, or during any renewal after the expiration of two years of tenancy, the landlord requires the one month’s rent escrow, then upon termination of the lease, or on surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises, the escrow funds together with interest shall be returned to the tenant in accordance with sections 511.2 and 512 — that is, 68 P.S. 250.511b and 68 P.S. 250.512.

Subsection (d) adds a rule for long tenancies that only one ranking page carries: whenever a tenant has been in possession of premises for a period of five years or greater, any increase or increases in rent shall not require a concomitant increase in any security deposit. Note precisely what that does and does not say. It does not stop the landlord holding a deposit after five years, and it does not require the deposit to be returned. It stops the landlord making a rent increase conditional on topping up the escrow. The deepest ranking template page states the rule as “for leases that have renewed longer than five years, landlords cannot collect a deposit”, which is not what subsection (d) provides.

Subsection (e) confines the section to residential property, and subsection (f) closes it: any attempted waiver of this section by a tenant by contract or otherwise shall be void and unenforceable. A Pennsylvania lease clause purporting to let the landlord hold more is simply ineffective. More detail in our Pennsylvania security deposit laws guide.

In a regulated escrow account, with written notice of the bank — but only once the money has been held for two years. 68 P.S. 250.511b is section 511.2 of the act, titled “Interest on Escrow Funds Held More Than Two Years”. Subsection (a) requires all funds over one hundred dollars deposited to secure the execution of a rental agreement on residential property, under a lease newly executed or reexecuted after the act’s effective date, to be deposited in an escrow account of an institution regulated by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Comptroller of the Currency, or the Pennsylvania Department of Banking.

The same subsection carries Pennsylvania’s only true deposit disclosure. When any funds are deposited in any escrow account, interest-bearing or noninterest-bearing, the lessor shall thereupon notify in writing each tenant making the deposit, giving the name and address of the banking institution in which the deposits are held and the amount of the deposits. One ranking page states that any deposit over one hundred dollars “must be held in an interest-bearing account”; the statute expressly contemplates that the account may be either.

Subsection (b) does the interest arithmetic. Where money is required to be deposited in an interest-bearing escrow savings account in accordance with section 511.1, the lessor is entitled to receive as administrative expenses a sum equivalent to one per cent per annum upon the security money deposited, which shall be in lieu of all other administrative and custodial expenses. The balance of the interest paid is the money of the tenant and is paid to the tenant annually on the anniversary date of the commencement of the lease. That one per cent allowance is almost invisible in published coverage, and so is the phrase that follows it — a landlord who takes the one per cent may not also charge the tenant separate administration or custody fees on the escrow.

Then comes the limiter every ranking page drops. Subsection (c) reads, in full: the provisions of this section shall apply only after the second anniversary of the deposit of escrow funds. The escrow-institution requirement, the written bank notice and the interest split in 68 P.S. 250.511b are duties that attach once the money has been held for two years, not on the day the lease is signed. Stating the bank in the lease from the outset is the sensible practice, and it is what this form does, but a landlord who has held a deposit for eight months has not breached 250.511b by not yet having sent a bank notice.

And there is an alternative no page on this search result mentions at all. 68 P.S. 250.511c, section 511.3 of the act, is titled “Bond in Lieu of Escrowing”. Every landlord subject to the act may, in lieu of depositing escrow funds, guarantee that the escrow funds — less the cost of necessary repairs, and including interest — shall be returned to the tenant upon termination of the lease or on surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises. The guarantee of repayment must be secured by a good and sufficient guarantee bond issued by a bonding company authorised to do business in Pennsylvania. It is a genuine second route, and the form above offers it.

Thirty days, with a written list of damages, and the payment must travel with the list. 68 P.S. 250.512 is section 512 of the act, “Recovery of Improperly Held Escrow Funds”, added on 3 May 1968 by P.L. 107, No. 56 and amended in 1972. Subsection (a) requires every landlord, within thirty days of termination of a lease or upon surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises — whichever first occurs — to provide the tenant with a written list of any damages to the leasehold premises for which the landlord claims the tenant is liable. Delivery of the list must be accompanied by payment of the difference between any sum deposited in escrow, including any unpaid interest on it, and the actual amount of damages caused by the tenant.

Two qualifications sit in the same subsection and both favour the landlord. The clock starts at termination or surrender and acceptance, whichever comes first, so a tenant who hands back the keys early starts the thirty days early. And nothing in the section precludes the landlord from refusing to return the escrow fund, including unpaid interest, for nonpayment of rent or for the breach of any other condition in the lease. Pennsylvania’s deposit is not confined to physical damage.

Note also what is not in this statute, because several template pages imply otherwise. There is no Pennsylvania move-in inspection requirement, no statutory condition report, no bar on retaining for ordinary wear and tear in the text of the section, and no requirement that the landlord’s list be itemised with a dollar value per line. What the statute demands is a written list, delivered inside thirty days, with the money. A dated move-in and move-out condition record is nonetheless the landlord’s best evidence, because subsection (c) puts the burden of proving actual damages on the landlord. Generate the accounting with our Pennsylvania security deposit itemization form or the matching deposit return letter.

Two distinct consequences, and coverage usually names only the second.

Forfeiture — 68 P.S. 250.512(b). Any landlord who fails to provide a written list within thirty days as required by subsection (a) shall forfeit all rights to withhold any portion of sums held in escrow, including any unpaid interest on them, or to bring suit against the tenant for damages to the leasehold premises. Read the second half of that sentence slowly. A late list does not merely cost the landlord the deposit. It extinguishes the separate cause of action for the damage itself, so a landlord facing four thousand dollars of damage and holding a fifteen-hundred-dollar deposit can lose both by missing a deadline.

Double damages — 68 P.S. 250.512(c). If the landlord fails to pay the tenant the difference between the sum deposited, including any unpaid interest, and the actual damages to the leasehold premises caused by the tenant within thirty days after termination or surrender and acceptance, the landlord shall be liable in assumpsit to double the amount by which the sum deposited exceeds the actual damages, as determined by any court of record or court not of record having jurisdiction in civil actions at law. And the same subsection allocates the proof: the burden of proof of actual damages caused by the tenant to the leasehold premises shall be on the landlord. Note that the doubling runs on the excess, not on the whole deposit.

Then comes the sentence that decides most Pennsylvania deposit disputes, and it appears on no page currently ranking for this query. Subsection (e): failure of the tenant to provide the landlord with his new address in writing upon termination of the lease or upon surrender and acceptance of the leasehold premises shall relieve the landlord from any liability under this section. The thirty-day list in (a), the forfeiture in (b) and the double damages in (c) all fall away together. A Pennsylvania tenant who moves out without leaving a written forwarding address has, without knowing it, given up the entire remedy. Verbal notice, a change-of-address card to the post office and a text message are all outside the words of the statute. Put it in writing, keep a copy, and send it to the address the lease names.

Subsection (d) makes any attempted waiver of section 512 by a tenant, by contract or otherwise, void and unenforceable, and subsection (f) confines the section to residential leaseholds and not to commercial ones.

None, by statute — which is exactly why the lease has to answer the question. The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 contains no landlord access or entry provision. Not in Article I, sections 101 to 105. Not in Article II, 201 to 206. Not in Article III on the recovery of rent, 301 to 313. Not in Article IV on exemptions from distress, 401 to 404. Not in Article V on the recovery of possession, 501 to 514. Not in Article V-A on tenement buildings and multiple dwelling premises, 501-A to 505-A. Not in Article V-B on tenants’ rights to cable television, 501-B to 510-B. Not in Article VI. Pennsylvania simply never legislated the subject.

Three of the nine ranking pages state this correctly. One does not, and the disagreement is instructive: the same publisher whose Pennsylvania lease page says “Pennsylvania does not have set laws regarding landlord entry” also runs a Pennsylvania rental agreement page telling readers a landlord must enter “using reasonable advance notice (customarily at least twenty-four hours)”. The word doing the work there is customarily. Custom is not a notice period a tenant can enforce.

What follows for drafting is that the entry clause in a Pennsylvania lease is doing real work rather than restating a statute. Set the notice period in hours. Say what entry is for — inspection, agreed or necessary repairs, decorations, alterations, improvements, agreed services, and showings to prospective purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors. Carve out emergencies and reasonably believed abandonment. And keep the anti-harassment sentence, because without a statute the covenant of quiet enjoyment and the lease’s own terms are the tenant’s only protection against abusive access. Note too that a Pennsylvania municipality may impose entry rules by ordinance; nothing in the Act preempts one. Our Pennsylvania landlord entry laws guide goes further, and the Pennsylvania notice to enter generates the notice the lease requires.

Yes — and it is judge-made, not statutory.