Free Portland, Oregon Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Portland residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to both layers — the Oregon Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and Portland City Code chapter 30.01, whose duties attach to what a landlord does, not to what kind of building it is.

Portland City Code 30.01 Relocation + Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Portland residential lease agreement has to satisfy two bodies of law at once. The first is the Oregon Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at ORS chapter 90, which governs every tenancy in the state and is covered in full on our Oregon statewide lease agreement page. The second is Portland City Code chapter 30.01, which PCC 30.01.085 A applies “in addition to the protections set forth in the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act”. The city layer is unusual, and the reason most template pages get it wrong is structural: Portland’s duties do not attach to a category of building. There is no unit count, no building age and no rent threshold. They attach to specific landlord actions — terminating without cause, declining to renew, noticing a rent increase at 5%, noticing one at 10%, taking a security deposit, advertising a vacancy, screening an applicant, and since February 17, 2026, setting a rent with software. A landlord may owe nothing one month and several thousand dollars the next, entirely because of what the landlord did. This page states each rule with its trigger, because a Portland rule quoted without its trigger is not a rule.

Complete the fields below to generate a Portland residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. The generated document carries both layers — the ORS chapter 90 terms and the Portland City Code chapter 30.01 terms — and cites the controlling section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening, bearing in mind that Portland regulates the screening stage more heavily than any other jurisdiction in Oregon under PCC 30.01.086. Pair the signed lease with an Oregon move-in / move-out checklist — in Portland that record is not merely prudent, it is the condition report the ordinance requires.

Both, and the stricter of the two governs any given landlord action. PCC 30.01.085 A is the hinge: “In addition to the protections set forth in the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, the following additional protections apply to tenants that have a rental agreement for a dwelling unit covered by the Act.” PCC 30.01.030 then defines “Residential Landlord and Tenant Act or Act” as ORS Chapter 90. Nothing in the city code displaces state law; it layers on top of it.

That has a consequence worth stating plainly, because it is the source of most Portland confusion. Every ORS chapter 90 rule still applies inside Portland — the statewide rent cap, the just-cause requirement after the first year of occupancy, the thirty-one-day deposit accounting, the fee statute at ORS 90.302, the mandatory order in which tenant payments are applied under ORS 90.220(9), the three late-charge forms in ORS 90.260, the twenty-four-hour entry notice and the tenant’s right to deny consent under ORS 90.322, the ten-day and thirteen-day nonpayment notices in ORS 90.394, the thirty-day for-cause notice in ORS 90.392, the prohibited provisions in ORS 90.245 and the prevailing-party attorney fee in ORS 90.255. We do not repeat that material here; it is set out in full, statute by statute, on the Oregon lease agreement builder, and in our guides to Oregon security deposit laws, Oregon rent increase laws and Oregon lease termination laws.

Where the layers meet, the stricter number wins — and the Portland Housing Bureau says so itself. The Bureau’s landlord-tenant policy page lists two 2025 state amendments and states that they “do not apply within Portland City limits, as Portland City Code 30.01.085 and 30.01.086 already apply”. One of them is the amendment permitting a sixty-day termination notice on sale of a rental dwelling where the tenant receives one month’s rent. Inside Portland that route is unavailable: PCC 30.01.085 B requires not less than ninety days for a termination without cause or for a qualifying landlord reason, or the period designated in the rental agreement if longer. The other is the amendment barring inquiry into immigration or citizenship status, which PCC 30.01.086 D.1 already forbade.

Four sections of chapter 30.01 do the work on an ordinary Portland residential tenancy, and it is worth naming them once so the rest of this page is easy to navigate. PCC 30.01.030 supplies the definitions, including the “associated housing costs” term the rent triggers actually run on. PCC 30.01.085 is Portland Renter Additional Protections — the ninety-day notice floor and mandatory renter relocation assistance. PCC 30.01.086 is Evaluation of Applicants for Dwelling Units, the screening half of the 2019 Fair Access In Renting package. PCC 30.01.087 is Security Deposits; Pre-paid Rent, the other half of that package. PCC 30.01.088, brand new, prohibits anti-competitive rental practices. Chapter 30.01 also carries a general compliance and enforcement provision at PCC 30.01.100, though in practice each operative section carries its own private right of action.

A note on names. “The FAIR ordinance” is commonly used as shorthand for all of Portland’s renter rules. It is narrower than that. Fair Access In Renting was the 2019 package — Ordinance 189580, which created PCC 30.01.086, and Ordinance 189581, which created PCC 30.01.087. PCC 30.01.085 is older and separate, added by Ordinance 187380 and built out into its present form by Ordinance 189421. The distinction matters when reading secondary commentary, because advice given about “the FAIR ordinance” often does not touch relocation assistance at all.

Four landlord actions, and nothing else. The Portland Housing Bureau’s own administrative rule opens by naming them: relocation assistance is owed where a tenant is displaced because of (1) a landlord declining to renew a lease on substantially the same terms; (2) a rent increase of 10% or more over a rolling twelve-month period; (3) termination of a rental agreement without cause; or (4) termination for a qualifying landlord reason. A termination for cause triggers nothing under PCC 30.01.085.

Trigger one — termination (PCC 30.01.085 B). A landlord may terminate a rental agreement without a cause, or for a qualifying landlord reason specified in the Act, only by delivering a written termination notice of not less than ninety days before the termination date as calculated under the Act, or the time period designated in the rental agreement, whichever is longer. Then, not less than forty-five days prior to that termination date, the landlord must pay the tenant relocation assistance. The subsection adds that a landlord who declines to renew or replace an expiring rental agreement is subject to it, and that the requirements apply per dwelling unit, not per individual tenant — so a three-tenant household generates one payment, not three.

Two things about this trigger repay attention. First, it reaches a qualifying landlord reason, and the Housing Bureau’s administrative rule defines that term as a qualifying reason under ORS 90.427(5) and (7). Subsection (7) is the three-strikes route by which a fixed term does not roll into a month-to-month tenancy where the tenant has committed three or more violations in twelve months, each drawing a written warning. That route therefore triggers the Portland payment too, which is not obvious from the ordinance text alone. Second, the ninety days is a floor, not a fixed period: if the lease itself specifies a longer notice, the lease period governs.

Trigger two — a rent increase, and this one is tenant-elected (PCC 30.01.085 C). Where an increase notice indicates a rise in rent or associated housing costs of 10% or more within a rolling twelve-month period, the tenant may — within forty-five calendar days after receiving the notice — give the landlord written notice requesting relocation assistance. The landlord must then pay within thirty-one calendar days of receiving the tenant’s notice. Nothing is payable unless the tenant asks. That is a genuine difference from the termination trigger, where payment is automatic and time-bound, and it is the single detail most often lost when this rule is summarised.

The repayment mechanic. Having taken the money, the tenant has six months from the effective date of the increase — the ordinance calls it the “relocation period” — to do one of two things: pay the assistance back and remain in the unit, thereafter being obliged to pay the increased rent for the duration of the occupancy; or serve a termination notice under the Act. A tenant who has done neither by the end of the relocation period is in violation of the subsection. A tenant may also receive and retain relocation assistance only once per tenancy per dwelling unit.

Two deeming rules close the obvious workarounds. A landlord who conditions the renewal or replacement of an expiring rental agreement on the tenant agreeing to pay a rent increase of 10% or more within a rolling twelve-month period is subject to the subsection. And a landlord who declines to renew or replace an expiring agreement on substantially the same terms except for the amount of rent or associated housing costs is treated as having terminated the agreement — which pulls the landlord into the ninety-day notice and the forty-five-day payment deadline of trigger one. One carve-out runs the other way: under PCC 30.01.085 F, the expiration of rent concessions specified in the rental agreement is not considered a substantial change to it.

Four fixed tiers by bedroom count, written into the ordinance itself. PCC 30.01.085 B and C state them identically, and the Housing Bureau’s administrative rule restates them verbatim in its definitions: two thousand nine hundred dollars for a studio or single room occupancy dwelling unit; three thousand three hundred dollars for a one-bedroom dwelling unit; four thousand two hundred dollars for a two-bedroom dwelling unit; and four thousand five hundred dollars for a three-bedroom or larger dwelling unit.

Who sets these figures, and how they change — because this is widely misdescribed. They are ordinance text. They are not indexed to inflation, no agency recalculates them, and nobody republishes them annually. They change only when the Portland City Council amends the Code, and PCC 30.01.085 was last amended by Ordinance 191973, effective January 1, 2025. That is the exact opposite of the statewide rent cap, where ORS 90.324 genuinely does set a formula and direct the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to publish the following year’s maximum by September 30. Both are “the number you must look up”, but for opposite reasons: the state figure changes every autumn on a schedule, and the Portland figure changes only when the Council decides it should. Before serving any notice, read the current tier in the Code itself.

A definitional trap on the tier. Under PCC 30.01.085 G, a rental agreement for a single bedroom in a dwelling unit as defined by Portland City Code Chapter 33.910 is treated as a single room occupancy dwelling unit for the purpose of determining the amount. So a room-by-room letting of a four-bedroom house generates the SRO tier per agreement, rather than the three-bedroom-or-larger tier for the house.

What the payment sits alongside. Portland’s payment is separate from, and additional to, the state relocation payment. ORS 90.427(6)(a) requires a landlord terminating for a qualifying landlord reason to pay the tenant one month’s periodic rent at the time the notice is delivered, and ORS 90.427(6)(b) exempts a landlord with an ownership interest in four or fewer residential dwelling units from that payment. There is no four-unit exemption in the Portland ordinance. A Portland landlord with two rental houses is exempt from the state payment and owes the full city tier.

The offset, and its condition. PCC 30.01.085 H allows the Portland relocation assistance to be reduced by the relocation assistance required by the Act where both are owed to the same tenant for the same termination notice — but only if both are paid at the same time and as a single payment. Pay them a week apart and the offset is gone. Given that a one-bedroom tenancy at typical Portland rent produces a state payment of roughly one month’s rent and a city payment of three thousand three hundred dollars, that is an expensive administrative detail.

Two notice duties that travel with the money. Under PCC 30.01.085 D a landlord must include a description of the tenant’s rights and obligations and the eligible amount of relocation assistance with each and any termination notice, increase notice, and relocation assistance payment. That is three separate occasions, and it includes an increase notice at the 5% threshold even though no money is payable below 10%. The Housing Bureau publishes a Notice of Rights and Responsibilities Form 30.01.085; its administrative rule permits a landlord’s own notice containing similar information. Separately, under PCC 30.01.085 E, a landlord must notify the Bureau of all relocation assistance payments within thirty days of making them.

Twelve exemptions exist, and for seven of them the exemption does not exist until a Portland Housing Bureau letter is in the tenant’s hands. This is the single most consequential thing on this page and no ranking template page carries it.

The coverage test is in the opening words of PCC 30.01.085 I. The relocation provisions do not apply to the listed cases — and here is the qualifier — “so long as the landlord has submitted a required exemption application form to PHB for which PHB has issued an exemption acknowledgement letter, a copy of which the landlord has given the tenant”. The Housing Bureau’s Permanent Administrative Rule puts it beyond argument in its own heading paragraph: “Failure to comply with the process or requirements outlined below invalidates any exemption from Relocation Assistance payment.”

The twelve exemptions (PCC 30.01.085 I) are: week-to-week tenancies; a tenant occupying the same dwelling unit as the landlord; a tenant occupying one unit in a duplex where the landlord’s principal residence is the second unit; a tenant occupying an accessory dwelling unit where the owner lives on the site, or the reverse arrangement; a landlord temporarily renting out a principal residence during an absence of not more than three years; the same during an absence for active duty military service; a termination so that an immediate family member may occupy the unit; a regulated or certified affordable dwelling unit, for rent increases only and subject to conditions; a unit subject to and in compliance with the federal Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970; a unit rendered immediately uninhabitable not due to the action or inaction of either party; a unit rented for less than six months with verification of a demolition permit submitted before the tenant rented it; and a fixed term tenancy where the landlord notified the tenant before occupancy of an intent to sell or permanently convert the unit.

Five need no filing. Seven do. For exemptions 1, 2, 8, 9 and 10 the Housing Bureau expressly waives the requirement to submit a Relocation Exemption Application and issues no acknowledgement letter — though the administrative rule adds, in each case, that the exemption from paying does not exempt the landlord from complying with all relevant notice requirements. For exemptions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12 the landlord must submit the application form, must receive an acknowledgement letter, and must provide the tenant with a copy of all pages of that letter prior to the tenant entering into the rental agreement — with the further duty to provide it again, together with the rights-and-obligations description, before any triggering event.

Why this is a lease-drafting question rather than a property question. For those seven, the document has to be delivered at or before signing. An owner-occupied duplex is not exempt because it is an owner-occupied duplex; it is exempt because the owner filed, received a letter, and handed it over before the tenant signed. A landlord who discovers the exemption when preparing a termination notice two years into the tenancy has, on the face of the rule, nothing. That is why this lease builder asks the question at the drafting stage and records the answer in the generated document.

Conditions the ordinance text alone does not show. The administrative rule adds real substance to several exemptions. Exemptions 5 and 7 require the owners to be natural persons and allow an acknowledgement letter no more than once every thirty-six months. Exemptions 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12 apply only where the landlord is issuing a termination notice. Exemptions 2, 3 and 4 require the relevant principal-residence condition to have held for the six months before the triggering event. Exemption 3 requires the existence of the duplex to be independently verifiable by public record. Exemptions 11 and 12 may each be used once, after which the owner is permanently ineligible to apply any other exemption to that dwelling unit, and exemption 12 expires twenty-four months after the letter issues and requires the unit to be listed for sale or converted within sixty days of the tenant moving out.

A definitional trap that decides eligibility. Under PCC 30.01.085 J, for the purposes of these exemptions the terms “dwelling unit”, “accessory dwelling unit” and “duplex” are defined by Portland City Code Chapters 33.910 and 33.205 — expressly not by ORS 90.100. A landlord reasoning from the state definition can reach the wrong answer about whether the ordinance applies at all. The same subsection provides that a landlord who authorises a property manager subject to ORS 696 does not waive a dwelling unit exemption because of the collective number of units that manager handles.

At least ninety days for any increase of 5% or more in rent or associated housing costs over a rolling twelve-month period — or the period designated in the rental agreement, whichever is longer. That is PCC 30.01.085 C, and note the wording: 5% or more, not “more than 5%”. An increase of exactly 5% is inside the rule. The increase notice must specify the amount of the increase, the amount of the new rent or associated housing costs, and the effective date as calculated under the Act.

Two thresholds, not one. The 5% figure governs notice. Relocation assistance is a separate and higher threshold of 10% or more. A landlord raising rent by 6% owes ninety days’ notice and the rights-and-obligations notice under PCC 30.01.085 D, but no money. A landlord raising it by 12% owes all of that and exposure to a tenant’s written request for the relocation tier. Conflating the two is the commonest error in Portland commentary in both directions — some pages report the notice threshold as 10%, others report the relocation trigger as five.

Portland does not cap the size of an increase; Oregon does. PCC 30.01.085 C opens with the words “As allowed by the Act”, and the city has no rent cap of its own. The ceiling is the statewide one, and it is a mechanism rather than a number. ORS 90.323(2) forbids any increase during the first year after the tenancy begins, more than one increase in any twelve-month period, an increase after the first year on less than ninety days’ written notice, and any increase above the maximum calculated under ORS 90.324(1). ORS 90.324(1)(b) then sets that maximum as the lesser of 10%, or 7% plus CPI, where CPI is the September annual twelve-month average change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, West Region (All Items) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and requires the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to calculate and publish the following calendar year’s figure no later than September 30. Because seven plus CPI has run above ten in recent years, the 10% ceiling has been the operative cap. A page that quotes only the seven-plus-CPI half of the formula is describing a limit that has not applied.

So a Portland increase has to clear both layers. It must be no larger than the published state maximum for the year in which it takes effect, must respect the state first-year freeze and the once-in-twelve-months limit, and must carry the Portland ninety-day notice with the rights-and-obligations description if it reaches 5%. Serve it with an Oregon rent increase notice, remembering that service by first class mail adds three days under ORS 90.155(2), and see our Oregon rent increase laws guide for the state layer in full.

Both Portland thresholds run on “rent or associated housing costs”, and the phrase is defined. No ranking page mentions it, yet it decides whether a fee increase counts. PCC 30.01.030 provides that associated housing costs “include, but are not limited to, fees or utility or service charges”, and means “the compensation or fees paid or charged, usually periodically, for the use of any property, land, buildings, or equipment”. It then draws the line: for the purposes of the chapter, housing costs include the basic rent charge and any periodic or monthly fees for other services paid to the landlord by the tenant, but do not include utility charges that are based on usage and that the tenant has agreed in the rental agreement to pay — unless the obligation to pay those charges is itself a change in the terms of the rental agreement.

What that means in practice. Introducing or raising a flat monthly parking, storage, pet, amenity, trash or valet-service fee counts toward the 5% and 10% thresholds, because it is a periodic fee for other services paid to the landlord. A usage-based utility bill the tenant already agreed in the lease to pay does not count, however much it rises — that is a provider’s charge, not the landlord’s. But newly making the tenant liable for a utility the landlord previously carried is a change in the terms of the rental agreement, and therefore does count.

The practical discipline is arithmetical. Because the measurement is over a rolling twelve-month period rather than per notice, a landlord who raises rent by 4% in March and adds a flat monthly storage fee worth another 2% in September has crossed 5% within twelve months, and the September change needs the ninety-day notice. Keeping a running twelve-month total of rent plus every flat recurring charge is the only reliable way to know which side of the line a change falls on. Note also that ORS 90.302(1) independently requires every fee to be described in the written rental agreement before it can be charged at all, so a Portland landlord adding a fee has two separate hurdles: it must be in the lease, and adding it may itself require ninety days’ notice.

One month’s rent — or half a month in addition where last month’s rent is also required. This is PCC 30.01.087 A, and it is the largest single divergence between state and city law on a Portland lease. ORS 90.300 imposes no ceiling at all, which is why almost every Oregon template page states, correctly for the rest of the state and wrongly for Portland, that there is no deposit cap.

The section has three limbs. First, if the landlord requires, as a condition of tenancy, a security deposit that includes last month’s rent, the landlord may not collect as an additional part of the security deposit more than an amount equal to one-half of one month’s rent. Second, if the landlord does not require last month’s rent, the landlord may not collect more than one month’s rent as a security deposit. Third, where the landlord conditionally approves an application subject to the applicant demonstrating financial capacity, or to offset risk factors identified by the applicant screening described in PCC 30.01.086, the landlord may require a further amount equal to one-half of one month’s rent as security deposit in addition — and must allow the tenant to pay that additional deposit in instalments over a period of up to three months, in instalment amounts reasonably requested by the tenant.

The third limb is not a free extra half month. It is available only on the back of a conditional approval made under the screening ordinance, and PCC 30.01.086 D.2.d supplies its own conditions: the landlord must communicate the conditional approval in writing, must indicate the amount of the additional security, and must give the applicant no less than forty-eight hours after that communication to accept or decline. The alternative the same paragraph offers is a guarantor, and where the guarantor is a friend or family member the landlord cannot require them to have income greater than three times the rent, nor require the guarantor agreement to exceed the term of the rental agreement.

And there are no exemptions. This is worth stating as its own point because it cuts against the intuition the rest of the chapter builds. PCC 30.01.085 carries twelve exemptions with a procedural precondition. PCC 30.01.086 carries five. PCC 30.01.087 contains no exemption subsection whatsoever. Its opening words apply it to “rental agreements for a dwelling unit covered by the Act”, full stop. A landlord with an owner-occupied duplex, holding a Housing Bureau acknowledgement letter that exempts them from relocation assistance and sitting outside the screening ordinance under PCC 30.01.086 G, is still bound by the deposit ceiling, the segregated account, the itemised property list, the condition report, the deduction limits, the notice of rights and the rent payment history.

In a segregated account at a secure financial institution, banked within two weeks of receipt — and the lease itself has to say where. PCC 30.01.087 B.1 requires that within two weeks following receipt of a tenant’s funds paid as a security deposit or for last month’s rent, the landlord deposit all of those funds into a secure financial institution account segregated from the landlord’s personal and business operating accounts.

The two weeks is a banking deadline, not a receipt deadline. The deepest Portland-specific ranking page states it as a duty to deliver a receipt disclosing the institution within two weeks of move-in. That is not what the ordinance says. The disclosure obligation is not a two-week clock at all — it is a term of the agreement: “The rental agreement must reflect the name and address of the financial institution at which the security deposit is deposited and whether the security deposit is held in an interest-bearing account.” It has to be in the lease at signing.

Interest, where the account bears it. All interest accrues proportionately to the benefit of the tenant and must be returned with the unused security deposit. The landlord is required to pay that interest in full, less an optional 5% deduction for administrative costs, unless it is used to cover claims for damage. And on the tenant’s request — no more than once per year — the landlord must provide a receipt of the account and any interest earned. Note the structure: Portland does not require an interest-bearing account, but it regulates one closely if you choose it, and it requires the lease to state which you have chosen.

The accounting and refund remain state law. PCC 30.01.087 B.2 says simply that a landlord must provide a written accounting and refund in accordance with ORS 90.300. So the familiar thirty-one-day rule is unchanged and remains two separate duties on the same clock: under ORS 90.300(12) a written accounting stating specifically the basis of any claim, with separate accountings for the security deposit and for prepaid rent, within thirty-one days after the tenancy terminates and the tenant delivers possession; and under ORS 90.300(13) the return of whatever is not claimed within the same thirty-one days. Failing either, or withholding in bad faith, costs twice the amount under ORS 90.300(16). What Portland changes is what must travel with that accounting, covered below. Use our Oregon security deposit itemization and deposit return letter forms for the state-law paperwork.

Two further duties sit at the end of the section. PCC 30.01.087 E requires that contemporaneously with delivering the ORS 90.300(12) written accounting, the landlord also deliver a written notice of rights regarding security deposits specifying all of the tenant’s rights to damages under the section — and it supplies a safe harbour, satisfied by delivering a copy of the section itself together with contact information for the nearest Legal Aid Services of Oregon, or the online and physical address of the Oregon State Bar. PCC 30.01.087 F requires that within five business days of receiving a request from a tenant, or of delivering a notice of intent to terminate a tenancy, the landlord provide a written accounting of the tenant’s rent payment history covering up to the prior two years, together with a fully completed rental history form available on the Portland Housing Bureau website. That second trigger is easy to miss: serving a termination notice starts a five-business-day clock on a document most landlords do not know exists.

Only what the lease itemised, and never interior painting. PCC 30.01.087 C narrows the ORS 90.300(7) deduction rules substantially, and the narrowing starts in the lease. The landlord may apply security deposit funds only for the repair and replacement of those fixtures, appliances, equipment or personal property that are identified in the rental agreement, and any such item whose condition the landlord plans the deposit to cover must be itemised by description and incorporated into the rental agreement. An item that is not on the lease cannot be charged for, whatever happens to it.

The general limit. A landlord may claim only the costs reasonably necessary to repair the premises to its condition existing at the commencement date, and may not claim any portion of the deposit for routine maintenance; for ordinary wear and tear; for replacement of fixtures, appliances, equipment or personal property that failed or sustained damage due to causes other than the tenant’s acts or omissions; or for any cost that is reimbursed by the landlord’s property or comprehensive general liability insurance or by a warranty. That last clause is unusual and worth noticing: an insured loss cannot be recovered twice.

Flooring — the discrete impacted area rule. A landlord may apply the deposit to the cost of repair or replacement of flooring material only if the work is necessitated by use in excess of ordinary wear and tear, and the charge is limited to the costs of repair or replacement of the discrete impacted area and not for the other areas of the dwelling unit. The ordinance defines a discrete impacted area as “the general area of the dwelling unit where the repair or replacement is needed, which may include an entire room, closet, hallway, stairway, or other defined space, but not beyond”. A stain in one bedroom does not fund re-carpeting the flat.

Interior painting — effectively barred. A landlord may not apply the deposit to the costs of interior painting of the leased premises, except to repair specific damage caused by the tenant in excess of ordinary wear and tear, or to repaint walls that were painted by the tenant without permission. Routine repainting between tenancies is not deductible in Portland.

At move-out, three more duties (PCC 30.01.087 D.2 and D.3). Within one week following the termination date the landlord must conduct a walk-through of the unit, at the tenant’s option with the tenant or the tenant’s representative, to document damage beyond ordinary wear and tear not noted on the condition report. The tenant may choose to be present, and the landlord must give notice of the date and time of that final inspection at least twenty-four hours in advance. The landlord must then prepare an itemisation describing any repair and replacement by reference to the items identified in the rental agreement; must document any visual damage in excess of normal wear and tear with photographs provided to the tenant with the ORS 90.300(12) written accounting; must, for any labour cost greater than two hundred dollars, provide documentation showing that the cost is reasonable and consistent with typical hourly rates in the metropolitan region; and may not charge at all for the repair of any damage or the replacement of any malfunctioning or damaged item noted on the condition report.

What it costs to get this wrong. PCC 30.01.087 G makes a landlord who fails to comply with any requirement of the section liable to the tenant for up to two hundred fifty dollars per violation plus actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs. Because the section contains a dozen or more separate requirements, “per violation” is doing real work — and this exposure is additional to the ORS 90.300(16) double-damages remedy, not an alternative to it.

Yes — and Oregon does not, which is exactly why this duty is missed. ORS chapter 90 contains no move-in or move-out condition report, checklist or joint walk-through requirement anywhere, a negative established on our statewide Oregon lease page. Inside Portland, PCC 30.01.087 D fills the gap with a detailed, deadline-driven procedure.

The sequence, in the order the ordinance sets it. Prior to the commencement date, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to schedule a time convenient for both landlord and tenant for a walk-through of the unit, to complete a report noting the condition of all fixtures, appliances, equipment and personal property listed in the rental agreement and noting damage. Both the tenant and the landlord must sign the condition report. The landlord must take pictures of the items noted and share those photographs with the tenant. Should the parties be unable to schedule a mutually convenient time, the landlord must complete the condition report before the commencement date anyway, and share the photographs with the tenant on the commencement date.

Only then do the seven days run — and they belong to the tenant. This is where the deepest Portland-specific ranking page states the rule backwards, telling readers that “either party must complete the condition report within seven days of move-in”. What the ordinance actually provides is that within seven days following the commencement date the tenant may complete and submit to the landlord a condition report addendum on a form provided by the landlord — and that if the tenant does not, the landlord’s condition report becomes final. If the tenant does submit one, the landlord has seven days to dispute the addendum in writing; if the landlord fails to dispute it in time, the condition report as modified by the addendum establishes the baseline condition of the unit as of the commencement date, against which every move-out deduction is measured. If the landlord does dispute it and the parties cannot resolve the disagreement, the landlord must retain both documents and the dispute is resolved in court.

The report is a living document. The landlord must update the condition report to reflect all repairs and replacements impacting the dwelling unit during the term and provide the updated report to the tenant, and the tenant may complete or update the addendum to reflect those repairs and replacements. A report prepared once at move-in and filed away does not satisfy the subsection.

Why this is the most valuable duty on the page for a landlord. Read together with PCC 30.01.087 C.1, the condition report and the lease’s itemised property list are what make any deposit deduction possible. A landlord who itemises nothing in the lease and completes no condition report has, by the ordinance’s own logic, nothing to deduct against — and a landlord who does both, with photographs, has a documented baseline that is very hard to argue with. Our Oregon move-in / move-out checklist is the natural companion document, and in Portland it is discharging a legal duty rather than recording good practice.

More than any other jurisdiction in Oregon, and no ranking template page mentions it at all. PCC 30.01.086, Evaluation of Applicants for Dwelling Units, was added by Ordinance 189580 in 2019 and last amended by Ordinance 191973 effective January 1, 2025. It applies in addition to ORS 90.295, ORS 90.303 and ORS 90.304, not instead of them. It belongs on a lease page because it decides how the tenancy was formed and feeds two lease terms directly: the conditional approval that permits the extra half-month deposit, and the rules of residency which PCC 30.01.086 C.2.e permits a landlord to require all adult tenants and intended occupants to sign.

Advertising and the order of processing (PCC 30.01.086 C). If the landlord advertises a unit’s availability, the notice must be published at least seventy-two hours before the open application period begins, and must state when applications will be accepted, a description of the factors the landlord will consider if a screening fee is charged, and whether the unit is an accessible dwelling unit. The landlord must record the date and time of each complete application; applications received earlier than the open application period are recorded as eight hours after the period starts, which removes any advantage in applying early; and the landlord may process applications simultaneously but must accept, conditionally accept or deny in order of receipt. An applicant who asks must be told the recorded date and time within five business days. A landlord may refuse to process an application from someone with verifiable repeated rental agreement violations with that landlord where the most recent was within three hundred sixty-five days, or one that is materially incomplete or in which information was intentionally withheld or misrepresented.

Accessible units get priority. Where, during the first eight hours of the open application period, the landlord receives an application for an accessible dwelling unit from an applicant with a household member who is mobility disabled, the landlord must give that application priority and decide it before considering other applicants.

What the application form itself must contain (PCC 30.01.086 C.3). Five things: an opportunity for the applicant to affirmatively indicate a mobility disability or other disability status; a City notice relating to the right to request a modification or accommodation; the Portland Housing Bureau’s Statement of Applicant Rights and Responsibilities notices; where a screening fee is charged, a description of the screening criteria and evaluation process; and an opportunity to include supplemental evidence to mitigate potentially negative screening results.

Identification — what may not be demanded (PCC 30.01.086 D.1). A landlord may not reject an application as incomplete because an applicant or household member does not produce a Social Security number or prove lawful presence in the United States, may not inquire about the immigration status of a household member, and may not require proof of lawful presence. The landlord must accept any of, or a combination of, seven listed forms of identification: evidence of a Social Security number; a valid Permanent Resident Alien Registration Receipt Card; an immigrant visa; an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number; a nonimmigrant visa; any government-issued identification regardless of expiration date; or any non-governmental identification or combination permitting reasonable verification of identity.

The income ratio, and the one genuinely published annual figure in this chapter. PCC 30.01.086 D.2 caps what a landlord may demand, and the cap switches on a number the Housing Bureau publishes. A landlord may require gross monthly income of up to but not greater than two and a half times the rent where the monthly rent is below the maximum monthly rent for a household earning no more than 80% of the median household income as published annually by the Portland Housing Bureau, and up to but not greater than two times the rent where the rent is at or above that figure. The Bureau derives its annual Income and Rent Limits schedule from the federal Median Family Income for the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metropolitan area; the 2026 schedule took effect on the first of May 2026 and the 2025 schedule on the first of April 2025, on different median incomes. The switching point therefore moves every year, which is why a lease or screening policy that prints it goes stale — state the mechanism and look up the current schedule.

How the ratio must be calculated. The evaluation must include all income sources of an applicant, including wages, non-governmental rent assistance and monetary public benefits, and the landlord may also choose to consider verifiable friend or family assistance. It must be calculated on a rent amount reduced by any local, state or federal government rent voucher or housing subsidy available to the applicant — so a voucher holder is assessed against their own share, not the contract rent. And it must be based on the cumulative financial resources of all applicants.

Non-applicant tenants may not be screened for money. Where several people will reside together, they may choose which adults are the financially responsible applicants and which are non-applicant tenants. The landlord may screen only an applicant for financial responsibility. A non-applicant tenant may be screened only for factors related to maintaining the property, conduct consistent with the health, safety or peaceful enjoyment of others, and ability to comply with the rules of residency. And if the applicant qualifies, the landlord may not deny the applicant because a non-applicant tenant was denied — the landlord must allow the qualifying applicant to accept the unit without that person.

Two routes, and the individual assessment (PCC 30.01.086 D, E and F). After the general process, a landlord may either use screening criteria no more prohibitive than the low-barrier criteria, or use the landlord’s own criteria — in which case the landlord must conduct an individual assessment before denying anyone. The trigger is precise: if the landlord applies any single criterion more prohibitive than any of the low-barrier criteria, the individual assessment duty applies to every basis on which the landlord intends to deny.

The low-barrier criteria. A landlord adopting them agrees not to reject an applicant for: criminal history consisting of an arrest not resulting in conviction unless the charge is pending on the application date, a diversion or deferral programme, a conviction judicially dismissed, expunged, voided or invalidated, a conviction for conduct no longer illegal in Oregon, any juvenile adjudication, a misdemeanor sentenced more than three years before the application, or a felony sentenced more than seven years before it, in each case excluding court-mandated prohibitions present at the property; credit history consisting of a credit score of five hundred or higher, insufficient credit history unless withheld in bad faith, past-due unpaid obligations of less than one thousand dollars, a balance owed for prior rental property damage of less than five hundred dollars, a discharged bankruptcy, a Chapter 13 bankruptcy under an active repayment plan, or medical or education and vocational training debt; and rental history consisting of a possession action under ORS 105.105 to 105.168 that was dismissed or won by the applicant, that produced a judgment entered three or more years before the application, that produced a judgment entered less than three years before where the underlying termination was without cause or where the judgment was a default for failure to appear and the applicant shows credible evidence of having already vacated, or a judgment since set aside or sealed; any information from a rental reference check other than defaults in rent, three or more material violations within one year that drew notices, an outstanding balance, or violations resulting in a for-cause termination; and insufficient rental history unless withheld in bad faith.

The individual assessment itself. Where it applies, the landlord must accept and consider all supplemental evidence submitted with a completed application, and must also consider the nature and severity of the incidents that would lead to a denial, the number and type of them, the time elapsed since they occurred, and the age of the individual at the time. A denial afterwards must be non-discriminatory, must comply with PCC 30.01.086 D and all other law, and must be delivered as a written notice of denial within two weeks meeting ORS 90.304 and explaining both the basis for denial and the reasons the supplemental evidence did not adequately compensate for the factors relied on. Even under the low-barrier route a denial requires a written statement of reasons under ORS 90.304(1), and supplemental evidence must be considered before any criminal-history denial.

Disability modifications (PCC 30.01.086 D.6). An applicant with a disability who is otherwise approved and requests a modification may not be denied housing solely because the landlord denies the modification. If the landlord denies it, the landlord must give the applicant two successive twenty-four-hour periods in which to request alternative modifications. If no reasonable modification can be made, the applicant, if otherwise eligible, may still accept the unit without one. An applicant’s request for a modification or accommodation, or the nature of it, may never be a factor in a denial.

Exemptions, and note that they differ from the relocation exemptions. PCC 30.01.086 G disapplies the section to a leasing process for a unit that is regulated as affordable housing for households at or below 80% of median household income and subject to the Multnomah County Coordinated Access System or a formal referral agreement; not rented to or advertised to the general public; shared with a landlord using the unit as a primary residence, or shared with an existing tenant holding a separate rental agreement for the same unit; one unit in a duplex where the landlord’s principal residence is the second unit; or an accessory dwelling unit where the owner lives on the lot, or the reverse. The definitional cross-reference here is narrower than the one in PCC 30.01.085 J, and it is worth reading precisely: PCC 30.01.086 B.4 defines “dwelling unit” for this section by ORS 90.100, and it is only the two shared-residence exemptions in G.1.c that displace that, saying the unit is defined by Portland City Code Chapter 33.910 and not by ORS 90.100; the accessory dwelling unit exemption in G.1.e uses the Chapter 33.205 definition, and the duplex exemption in G.1.d names no zoning chapter at all. A landlord who reads PCC 30.01.085 J across into this section will get the scope wrong. Critically, these five carry no application form and no acknowledgement letter — the procedural coverage test that governs the relocation exemptions has no counterpart here. Where government funding or loan requirements for tenant screening conflict with the section, the funding requirements take precedence over only the conflicting portions.

Portland caps the mark-up; Oregon caps only the underlying cost. ORS 90.295 already limits an applicant screening charge to the cost of obtaining information about the applicant, requires a receipt and confirmation with a copy of the screening company’s receipt, allows the charge only once in any sixty-day period however many of the landlord’s units the applicant applies for, and requires nine specified written notices before it is taken. PCC 30.01.086 D.7 then adds three ceilings that turn on who does the work.

If the landlord conducts all of an applicant screening through a professional screening company, the landlord must not charge the applicant a screening fee greater than that charged by the screening company — no mark-up at all. If the landlord conducts some but not all of the screening through such a company, the fee must not be more than 20%-5% greater than the company’s cost. If the landlord conducts all of the screening and does not use a professional screening company, the fee must not exceed 10% more than what a professional screening company serving the Portland-Metro area would charge to complete the same work — a benchmark that requires the landlord to know the market rate.

The appeal, which is a Portland invention. PCC 30.01.086 D.8 requires a landlord to offer the applicant an opportunity for appeal for thirty days following a denial. The process must give the applicant the chance to correct, refute or explain the negative information that formed the basis of the denial; must prequalify the applicant for rental opportunities at the landlord’s properties in Portland for the three months following an approval on appeal; and must waive the applicant’s screening fee for those three months, though the landlord may first require the applicant to self-certify that no conditions have materially changed. A landlord operating several Portland buildings therefore carries a three-month prequalification obligation across the portfolio.

Communication deadlines. Within two weeks after the landlord or its screening company completes its evaluation, the landlord must provide the applicant with a written communication of acceptance, conditional acceptance or denial, and in the case of a conditional acceptance or denial must describe the basis for the decision. PCC 30.01.086 H makes a landlord who fails to comply with any requirement of the section liable to the applicant for up to two hundred fifty dollars per violation plus actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs, with a cause of action for an applicant materially harmed by intentional noncompliance. Our Oregon tenant screening laws guide covers the state layer.

Not if it sets or helps set the price using non-public data about other owners’ units. PCC 30.01.088, Prohibited Anti-Competitive Rental Practices, was added by Ordinance 192122 and took effect on February 17, 2026. It is the newest law affecting a Portland lease, it post-dates every ranking page on this query, and it changes how a landlord may lawfully arrive at the rent figure written into the agreement.

The prohibition has two limbs. “Price fixing” means, first, an agreement among two or more persons or entities to set, raise, lower, maintain or stabilise rental prices, fees or occupancy levels for dwelling units with different beneficial owners — written, verbal, or inferred from conduct. Second, and this is the limb that reaches ordinary landlords: establishing or enabling the establishment of the rental price, lease terms or occupancy level of a dwelling unit using a system, software, process, algorithm, model training, runtime operation or similar method involving information about historical, current or anticipated rental prices, price changes, supply, occupancy rates, lease terms or renewal dates of dwelling units with different beneficial owners. The section separately prohibits using any service, software or system that engages in price fixing.

What is expressly outside it. Four things do not constitute price fixing: collecting, analysing or communicating that information for uses other than establishing prices, terms or occupancy levels; conducting appraisals, feasibility studies or market research; routine property management activities that do not enable coordinated decision-making across different beneficial owners; and collecting, analysing or communicating public data without referencing any non-public data. “Public data” is defined generously — government records and public disclosures required by law, widely distributed media including a property’s own website and promotional materials and internet listing services, and online services that make public recommendations about rental prices or lease terms, whether or not registration or payment is required. So checking listing sites and public rent recommendations is fine; feeding a model with other owners’ non-public occupancy and renewal data is not.

The coverage test (PCC 30.01.088 E). The section does not apply to contracts executed before its effective date; does not apply to dwelling units regulated, subsidised or certified as affordable housing by a government or to the administration of a government rental assistance programme; and does not apply to the dwelling units of a beneficial owner of five or fewer dwelling units. Where a unit has multiple beneficial owners, the section applies if together they own more than five, whether jointly or independently. A “beneficial owner” is anyone who directly or indirectly exercises substantial control over the ownership interest, or owns or controls at least 20%-5% of it.

The penalties are tiered by portfolio size. A prevailing plaintiff recovers the greater of actual damages or statutory damages of three hundred dollars per violation where the beneficial owner holds six to fifteen dwelling units, and the greater of treble damages or statutory damages of one thousand dollars per violation at sixteen or more. Violations multiply: each month a person charges a rent established in violation is a separate violation, and each contract executed in violation is a separate violation. The City Attorney may investigate, issue administrative subpoenas, and file complaints with the Code Hearings Officer under Portland City Code 22.03.020 seeking injunctive relief, damages, restitution, fees, enforcement costs and civil penalties of up to one thousand dollars per violation. Claims run for five years from the most recent violation.

One defence exists. Under PCC 30.01.088 D, a defendant that demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that it could not reasonably have known it used a service, software or system that engaged in price fixing is not liable. That is a high standard, and it is a reason for a landlord using any pricing tool to keep a record of what the vendor represented about its data sources. This lease builder offers an optional independent-pricing representation for the same reason.

Four Portland requirements on top of the ten state ones and the federal lead disclosure — and three of the four are terms of the rental agreement itself rather than separate handouts.

The Portland four. First, the rights and obligations and relocation amount notice under PCC 30.01.085 D — a description of the tenant’s rights and obligations and the eligible amount of relocation assistance, owed with every termination notice, every increase notice and every relocation payment. Second, the deposit account details under PCC 30.01.087 B.1 — the name and address of the financial institution and whether the account bears interest, which the rental agreement “must reflect”. Third, the itemised leased property and the condition report under PCC 30.01.087 C and D — every fixture, appliance, equipment item and piece of personal property whose condition the deposit is to cover, itemised by description and incorporated into the agreement. Fourth, the screening criteria and applicant rights material under PCC 30.01.086 C.3, which belongs on the application form but which a well-drafted lease records, because the conditional approval it produces is what authorises the additional half-month deposit.

The state set, unchanged inside the city. The smoking policy under ORS 90.220(4) and ORS 479.305, which must be in the rental agreement and is the most commonly omitted requirement in any Oregon lease; the hundred-year flood plain notice under ORS 90.228, also in the agreement itself; manager and owner identification under ORS 90.305, which requires two identifications rather than one; pending foreclosure, forfeiture or tax lien proceedings under ORS 90.310 at four or fewer dwelling units; a utility the tenant pays that benefits others under ORS 90.315(2); how a billed utility charge is assessed and allocated under ORS 90.315(4); every fee, described in the written agreement, under ORS 90.302(1); the smoke alarm testing instructions under ORS 479.270 with the separate hard-of-hearing notice under ORS 479.258; the carbon monoxide alarm and its testing instructions under ORS 90.316 and ORS 90.317; and the opportunity to recycle under ORS 90.318, which bites harder in Portland than in much of the state because the city has implemented multifamily recycling service, so a landlord with five or more dwelling units on a single premises owes the notice at the time of entering into the rental agreement and annually thereafter. The federal lead-based paint disclosure applies to any target housing built before 1978, which describes a large share of Portland’s stock.

What is not required. Neither Oregon nor Portland requires a lease disclosure about naturally occurring soil gas, insect infestation history, nearby ordnance sites, scheduled building removal, the offender registry, asbestos or prior drug manufacture. Those are other states’ requirements, and a Portland lease carrying them has been imported from elsewhere. Two specific corrections are worth repeating from the state layer: there is no Oregon carbon monoxide alarm certification for a tenancy — the certification idea comes from ORS 105.838, a sale provision whose remedy under ORS 105.840 runs to a purchaser or transferee — and ORS 479.260 is likewise the sale rule for smoke alarms, while ORS 479.270 is the letting rule.

Three different penalty regimes, and they are routinely reported as one. Each operative section of chapter 30.01 carries its own private right of action, and the amounts differ by an order of magnitude.

PCC 30.01.085 K — relocation assistance and the ninety-day notice. A landlord that fails to comply with any of the requirements set forth in the section is liable to the tenant for an amount up to three times the monthly rent as well as actual damages, relocation assistance, reasonable attorney fees and costs. Any tenant claiming to be aggrieved has a cause of action in any court of competent jurisdiction. Note that the relocation assistance itself is recoverable in addition to the three-times multiplier.

PCC 30.01.086 H and PCC 30.01.087 G — screening and deposits. Each makes the landlord liable for up to two hundred fifty dollars per violation plus actual damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs. The screening section requires material harm from intentional noncompliance for the applicant’s cause of action; the deposit section requires only that the tenant be aggrieved. “Per violation” matters: each of these sections contains a dozen or more discrete requirements.

PCC 30.01.088 C — anti-competitive practices, with the tiered damages and City Attorney enforcement described above.

The fee asymmetry deserves its own sentence. All three Portland sections award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the tenant or applicant only. There is no reciprocal city entitlement for a landlord who successfully defends. That sits on top of ORS 90.255, which awards fees to the prevailing party in any action on a rental agreement or arising under ORS chapter 90 notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary — a two-way statutory entitlement that a lease clause can neither create nor narrow, and which ORS 90.245(1)(a) reinforces by voiding any provision waiving a tenant’s rights under the chapter.

And the city exposure stacks on the state exposure. A defective termination can produce three months’ rent plus actual damages under ORS 90.427(9) and up to three times the monthly rent plus damages, the relocation assistance and fees under PCC 30.01.085 K. A mishandled deposit can produce twice the amount withheld under ORS 90.300(16) and two hundred fifty dollars per violation under PCC 30.01.087 G. Under ORS 90.245(2), deliberately using a lease containing a known prohibited provision and attempting to enforce it adds actual damages plus up to three months’ periodic rent on its own. Chapter 30.01 also carries a general compliance and enforcement provision at PCC 30.01.100, and under PCC 30.01.085 L the City Administrator holds broad power to define terms, prepare forms and control the application, issuance, use and expiration of exemption notices and acknowledgement letters — which is why the Housing Bureau’s administrative rules, and not the Code alone, decide whether an exemption actually holds.

A side-by-side, so it is clear where the city layer bites and where it does not. Every entry in the state column is set out in full on our configurable Oregon lease form.

One state change from 2025 reaches every Portland fixed-term lease signed since the start of 2026, and it is not in the Oregon Revised Statutes. Section 2, chapter 115, Oregon Laws 2025 (House Bill 2134, approved by the Governor 22 May 2025, effective 1 January 2026) was added to ORS 90.100 to 90.465 without a section number of its own, so it appears in no codified section and in no ranking page. It gives the tenant a counter-notice right, and all four of its limiters matter:

• The trigger is narrow. It applies only where, during a fixed term tenancy, the landlord gives a notice under ORS 90.427(5) terminating the agreement on or after the expiration of the fixed term — that is, the qualifying-landlord-reason route. It is not triggered by any other termination notice.
• What the tenant may do. The tenant may give the tenant’s own written notice terminating the agreement on a date designated in that notice at least thirty days after it is delivered to the landlord, and that notice may end the tenancy during the fixed term.
• What the landlord loses. If the tenant terminates this way the landlord may not collect the ORS 90.302(2)(e) fee — the abandonment-or-relinquishment fee, which that paragraph caps at one and one-half times the monthly rent — nor any unpaid rent that would otherwise have accrued after both (a) the date designated in the tenant’s notice and (b) the tenant’s return of possession. The statute uses “(a) … and (b) …”, so it is conjunctive: both conditions must be met before the rent stops running.
• The scope limiter, which is the one most easily dropped. Section 3 of the same act applies it only to fixed term rental agreements entered on or after the effective date — 1 January 2026. It is not retroactive, and a fixed term signed in 2025 does not carry it.

How it sits with the Portland layer, and what is genuinely unsettled. Chapter 115 is a state right and it changes nothing in Portland City Code chapter 30.01: the ninety-day floor in PCC 30.01.085 B, the relocation tiers and the rights-and-obligations notice all still attach to the landlord’s own notice. Note the timing, though. The landlord’s Portland relocation payment is due not less than forty-five days before the termination date given in the landlord’s notice, while a tenant’s chapter 115 counter-notice can designate a date as little as thirty days out — so a tenant can lawfully be gone before the city payment ever fell due. Neither text resolves what happens then. Chapter 115 does not mention relocation assistance or any local ordinance; PCC 30.01.085 measures its deadline from the landlord’s designated termination date and says nothing about a tenant who ends the tenancy first; and none of the twelve exemptions in PCC 30.01.085 I covers it. We do not resolve it here, because the sources do not. A Portland landlord served with a chapter 115 counter-notice should take advice rather than assume the city obligation has evaporated — PCC 30.01.085 K prices getting it wrong at up to three times the monthly rent plus the tenant’s fees. The rest of the state layer is set out in full on our Oregon lease agreement page.

A sourcing note that matters for anyone checking this page. The “Upcoming and recent changes” panel at the foot of each Portland City Code page is not the currency test — on chapter 30.01 its newest entry is an ordinance effective 1 March 2024, while the code text itself carries ordinances effective 1 January 2025 and 17 February 2026. The reliable indicator is the parenthetical history line at the head of each section. Read the sections directly at portland.gov/code/30/01, and the relocation exemption rules and forms at the Portland Housing Bureau.

• Using an Oregon statewide template inside the city. It will carry no deposit ceiling, no condition report, no relocation tier and no bank disclosure — four separate defects on the same page.
• Treating a relocation exemption as automatic. Seven of the twelve need a Housing Bureau acknowledgement letter given to the tenant before signing.
• Filing the exemption application after serving a notice. The administrative rule says failure to follow the process invalidates the exemption.
• Serving a thirty-day no-cause notice in the first year. Lawful elsewhere in Oregon; PCC 30.01.085 B requires not less than ninety days in Portland.
• Using the state sixty-day sale notice. The Housing Bureau states it does not apply inside city limits.
• Paying the state and city relocation payments separately. PCC 30.01.085 H allows the offset only where both are paid at once, as a single payment.
• Assuming a small landlord is exempt from the city payment. The ORS 90.427(6)(b) four-unit exemption removes only the state payment.
• Reading the notice trigger as “more than 5%”. It is 5% or more, and it is measured on rent or associated housing costs over a rolling twelve months.
• Forgetting that a flat monthly fee counts toward the percentage. PCC 30.01.030 includes periodic fees for other services in associated housing costs.
• Omitting the rights-and-obligations notice from an increase notice. It is owed at 5% even though no money is payable below ten.
• Taking a full month’s deposit plus last month’s rent. Where last month’s rent is required, the additional deposit is capped at half a month.
• Treating the extra half month as freely available. It exists only on a written conditional approval, and must be payable in instalments over up to three months.
• Commingling the deposit. It must be banked in a segregated account within two weeks of receipt.
• Leaving the bank out of the lease. PCC 30.01.087 B.1 makes the institution’s name and address, and whether the account bears interest, a term of the agreement.
• Charging against the deposit for an item the lease never itemised. PCC 30.01.087 C.1 forbids it outright.
• Re-carpeting the whole unit from the deposit. Flooring is limited to the discrete impacted area.
• Repainting between tenancies at the tenant’s expense. Interior painting is not deductible except for specific damage or unauthorised tenant paint.
• Skipping the condition report, or running it after move-in. It belongs before the commencement date, signed and photographed.
• Charging for something noted on the condition report. PCC 30.01.087 D.3 bars it.
• Failing to give twenty-four hours’ notice of the move-out inspection. A separate duty from the ORS 90.322 entry notice.
• Missing the rent payment history trigger. Serving a notice of intent to terminate starts a five-business-day clock.
• Rejecting an application for want of a Social Security number. Prohibited by PCC 30.01.086 D.1.
• Demanding three times the rent in income. The ceiling is two and a half times, or two times above the published 80% median rent.
• Screening a non-applicant tenant for financial responsibility. Not permitted.
• Adding a blanket crime-free addendum without checking the low-barrier criteria. Any stricter criterion triggers the individual assessment duty.
• Offering no appeal after a denial. Thirty days, with three months of prequalification and a fee waiver on success.
• Marking up a screening fee. No mark-up at all where a professional screening company does all the work.
• Setting rent with a pricing tool fed by other owners’ non-public data. Prohibited since 17 February 2026, unless the beneficial owner holds five or fewer units.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Portland raises the stakes at both ends, and it raises them asymmetrically. Ending a tenancy costs ninety days plus a four-figure relocation payment before anyone reaches a courtroom, and getting the paperwork wrong runs to up to three times the monthly rent under PCC 30.01.085 K, up to two hundred fifty dollars per violation under PCC 30.01.086 H and PCC 30.01.087 G, and three months’ rent plus actual damages under ORS 90.427(9) — with the tenant’s attorney fees on top and no reciprocal city entitlement running the other way. At the same time, Portland constrains what a landlord may look at and how: the low-barrier criteria in PCC 30.01.086 E.1, the individual assessment duty in PCC 30.01.086 F, the income ratio ceilings in D.2, and the ORS 90.303 bar on considering old or dismissed eviction actions, most arrests, marijuana convictions and immigration status. The response is not to screen less; it is to screen properly, on verifiable income, a clean payment history and the rental-history factors the ordinance expressly leaves available — defaults in rent, three or more material violations in a year that drew notices, an outstanding balance, and terminations with cause. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and our Oregon tenant screening laws guide covers the state layer. Screen first, document the condition report second, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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