Free Tennessee Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Tennessee residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF — and the only one built on the fact that Tennessee’s landlord-tenant act reaches only seventeen counties. Written to Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-101 to 66-28-523, and to the title 66 chapter 7 law that governs the other seventy-eight.

Tennessee Title 66 Chapter 28 17 Counties Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Tennessee residential lease agreement has to answer a question that almost no other state forces on a landlord: which body of Tennessee law governs this property? Tennessee enacted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-101 to 66-28-523, but 66-28-102(a) confines it to “counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census.” That reference is frozen. Seventeen of Tennessee’s ninety-five counties qualify; in the other seventy-eight the Act’s deposit account, grace period, late-fee ceiling, entry provisions, habitability duty, abandonment procedure and retaliation defence are not law at all, and Tenn. Code Ann. 66-7-109 supplies a different set of notice periods instead. Nine of the ten pages ranking for this query state the Act as though it were statewide, and the one that mentions the split uses the wrong test. This form asks the county question first, and the generated lease branches on the answer.

Complete the fields below to generate a Tennessee residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, and the generated lease cites the controlling Tennessee section at each point — starting with the county question that decides whether those sections bind you at all. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with a Tennessee move-in / move-out checklist, which in this state does double duty: it is your condition record and, used properly, the comprehensive damage listing that Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-301(b) makes the difference between keeping part of a deposit and keeping none of it.

Only if the county exceeded seventy-five thousand people in the 2010 federal census. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-102(a) is one sentence and it is the single most important sentence in Tennessee residential tenancy law: “This chapter applies only in counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census.” Its history line records that the current form dates from 2021 Tenn. Acts ch. 182, effective 1 July 2021, and a full scan of the Secretary of State’s register of all 1,142 public chapters enacted by the 114th General Assembly in 2025 and 2026 turned up no later amendment.

Three consequences follow, and each of them changes how a lease should be drafted. First, the test is historical, not current. Most Tennessee population classifications in the Code are written as “according to the x federal census or any subsequent federal census“, which lets a county move in or out as it grows. 66-28-102(a) is not written that way: it names the 2010 census and stops. A county cannot grow into the Act and cannot shrink out of it. Second, the classification is not a local choice. Unlike Kentucky, where a city or county adopts the uniform act by ordinance, no Tennessee county can opt in or out. Third, in a covered county the Act is exclusive: 66-28-102(e) provides that “in the counties in which this chapter applies, this chapter occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants”, and the governing body of such a county “shall not enact or enforce regulations that conflict with, or are an addition to, this chapter.”

That preemption clause cuts the other way too, and it is worth noticing. Because 66-28-102(e) is expressed to apply only “in the counties in which this chapter applies”, the field preemption it creates does not reach the seventy-eight counties the Act does not cover. Our Tennessee landlord-tenant laws guide covers the wider framework.

Seventeen of ninety-five. Because 66-28-102(a) fixes the reference to the 2010 federal census, the covered counties are a question of published census data rather than of statutory drafting or local adoption. Working from the Census Bureau’s own 2010 county file for Tennessee, the counties that recorded more than seventy-five thousand people are:

• Shelby (927,644), Davidson (626,681), Knox (432,226) and Hamilton (336,463) — the four metropolitan counties, well clear of the line.
• Rutherford (262,604), Williamson (183,182), Montgomery (172,331), Sumner (160,645) and Sullivan (156,823).
• Blount (123,010), Washington (122,979) and Wilson (113,993).
• Bradley (98,963), Madison (98,294), Sevier (89,889) and Maury (80,956).
• Anderson (75,129) — inside the Act by one hundred and twenty-nine people, and the county most often left off published lists.

Two counties that people expect to see here are not on the list. Putnam County recorded 72,321 in 2010 and Greene County 68,831. Both have grown since, and both appear on at least one widely circulated list of covered counties — but because the statute names the 2010 census, growth after 2010 is irrelevant. Equally, the shorter list that circulates elsewhere names only eleven counties and omits Anderson, Bradley, Madison, Maury, Sevier and Washington. Neither list matches the statute. If you are drafting for a property near the line, the safe course is to look up the county’s 2010 census count rather than its current population, and to note the answer in the lease so that both parties know which rulebook they are under.

One further point about the county, not the city. The classification in 66-28-102(a) is by county, so a rental inside a small municipality in Shelby County is covered, and a rental in an unincorporated part of Coffee County is not. What matters is the county in which the dwelling unit sits.

The lease, title 66 chapter 7, and the forcible entry and detainer chapter. This is the half of Tennessee that no ranking template addresses, and the Code marks it out expressly. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-7-109(g) provides that “nothing in this section shall apply to rental property located in any county governed by the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act” — so the section is written for the other seventy-eight counties, and its notice periods are different from chapter 28’s.

Under 66-7-109(a)(1), fourteen days’ notice by a landlord is sufficient notice of termination for the purpose of evicting a residential tenant where the termination is for the tenant’s neglect or refusal to pay rent that is due and in arrears upon demand; for damage beyond normal wear and tear caused by the tenant, members of the household or guests; or for a willful or intentional violent act, or behaviour constituting or threatening to be a real and present danger to the health, safety or welfare of the life or property of other tenants, the landlord, the landlord’s representatives or other persons on the premises. Where the breach is remediable and the tenant cures it before the date specified, the tenancy continues; where substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months, the landlord may terminate on at least fourteen days’ written notice.

66-7-109(b) is the provision that most surprises landlords who have read only about chapter 28: “For all other defaults in the lease agreement, a thirty-day termination notice from the date such notice is given by the landlord shall be required for the purpose of eviction of a residential tenant.” A lease violation that is not nonpayment, damage or violence therefore takes thirty days outside the covered counties and fourteen inside them. The same section carries three days for a violent act, drug-related criminal activity or a real and present danger by a tenant who is not mentally or physically disabled — a subsection written specifically for non-covered counties — three days for an unauthorized subtenant or occupant who refuses to vacate, and sixty days where a rent-paying tenant aged fifty-five or over is displaced from a federally assisted older-persons facility for new property development. It does not apply at all where the rental period is less than fourteen days.

What is absent outside the seventeen counties matters as much as what is present. There is no statutory security deposit procedure, no dedicated-account requirement, no statutory grace period, no late-fee ceiling, no statutory notice before entry, no statutory habitability duty of the 66-28-304 kind, no essential-services repair-and-deduct, no statutory abandonment procedure and no retaliation defence. That does not leave a tenant with nothing — contract terms, local building and housing codes and general principles of law and equity all still operate, and several statewide statutes discussed below apply in every county — but it does mean the lease is the primary source of rights. That is why this generator, told the county is not covered, does not simply delete the protections: it restates the Act’s standards as express contractual undertakings the tenant can enforce as terms of the agreement.

One thing does not change with the county line. Tennessee’s forcible entry and detainer procedure at Tenn. Code Ann. 29-18-101 to 29-18-135 is not part of the Uniform Act and applies everywhere. Unlawful detainer is defined by 29-18-104 as the case where the defendant entered by contract as tenant, assignee, personal representative or subtenant and willfully, without force, holds over possession from the landlord. Possession is recovered through that proceeding in every county, and never by lockout or utility shut-off. See Tennessee eviction notice laws.

There is no limit anywhere in Tennessee. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-301 contains no maximum, and outside the covered counties there is no deposit statute at all, so no cap could exist there either. What the section regulates instead, in a covered county, is procedure — and Tennessee’s procedure is unusual in two respects worth knowing before you take a deposit.

The first is the account. 66-28-301(a) requires all landlords of residential property requiring security deposits prior to occupancy “to deposit all tenants’ security deposits in an account used only for that purpose, in any bank or other lending institution subject to regulation by the state or any agency of the United States government.” It is a dedicated deposit account, not a trust account in the Alaska sense, and the statute does not require per-tenant sub-accounting.

The second is what the tenant is told. 66-28-301(h) requires the landlord to notify the tenant “at the time such persons sign the lease and submit the security deposit, of the location of the account required to be maintained pursuant to this section” — and then says in terms that the landlord “shall not be required to provide the account number.” Tennessee is deliberate about that boundary: the tenant is entitled to know where the money sits, not to the account details. It is the mirror image of Kentucky, where the account number must be disclosed.

66-28-104(14) defines the deposit itself, and the definition does work. A security deposit is “an escrow payment made to the landlord under the rental agreement for the purpose of securing the landlord against financial loss due to damage to the premises occasioned by the tenant’s occupancy other than ordinary wear and tear and any monetary damage due to the tenant’s breach of the rental agreement.” The same paragraph adds a sentence that no template carries: a security deposit “shall in no way infer that the landlord is providing any service for the personal protection or safety of the tenant beyond that prescribed by law.”

Tennessee sets no deadline at all, and this is the single most misreported rule in the state. Section 66-28-301 contains no return period. Every one of the ten pages ranking for this query prints thirty days, and three of them cite 66-28-301(g)(1) as the authority. Open the subsection and it says something else entirely.

66-28-301(g) begins “Nothing in this section precludes the landlord from recovering the costs of any and all contractual damages to which the landlord may be entitled, plus the cost of any additional physical damages to the premises that are discovered after an inspection that has been completed pursuant to subsection (b)” — and then limits that extra recovery to damage discovered before the earlier of thirty days after the tenant vacated or abandoned, or seven days after a new tenant takes possession. It is a cut-off on the landlord’s claim, giving the tenant certainty that a bill will not arrive months later. It is not a clock on the refund, and nothing in it obliges the landlord to pay anything by any date.

The other figure that gets mistaken for a deadline is the sixty days in 66-28-301(f). That subsection deals with the opposite situation: where the tenant leaves owing no rent and a refund is due, the landlord “shall send notification to the last known or reasonably determinable address, of the amount of any refund due the tenant”, and if no response is received within sixty days of sending that notification the landlord “may remove the deposit from the account and retain it free from any claim of the tenant.” That rule runs in the landlord’s favour. It is an abandoned-money provision, not a refund period.

Two practical consequences follow. For a tenant: give the landlord a forwarding address in writing when you vacate, because the 66-28-301(f) notification goes to the last address the landlord can reasonably determine, and a notification you never see starts a sixty-day clock you will lose. For a landlord: the absence of a deadline is not a licence to sit on the money, because 66-28-301(c) forfeits the right to retain any of it where the account and the listing requirements were both missed, and a court asked to decide a deposit dispute will look at how promptly the landlord acted.

A structured mutual inspection with a signed listing, and a written dissent requirement that decides most disputes. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-301(b) is the longest subsection in the section and no ranking page prints it. It works like this.

The trigger. On requesting the tenant to vacate, or within five days after receiving written notice of the tenant’s intent to vacate, the landlord may give the tenant notice of the tenant’s right to be present at the inspection, and may advise the tenant to request a time set by the landlord during normal working hours. The word is “may”: the notice is a landlord’s option, and it is the option that unlocks the waiver described below.

The timing. The landlord may require the inspection to take place after the tenant has completely vacated, is ready to surrender possession and has returned all means of access — provided the inspection is either on the day the tenant completely vacates or within four calendar days of the tenant vacating. Four days, and they are calendar days.

The waiver, which only works if the lease says so. If the landlord provides written notice of the right to be present and the tenant schedules an inspection but fails to attend it, “the tenant waives the right to contest any damages found by the landlord as a result of such inspection by the landlord; provided, that notice of the tenant’s waiver upon such circumstances is set out in the rental agreement.” That proviso turns a statutory consequence into a drafting decision, and the builder above makes it an explicit choice rather than burying it.

The listing and the signatures. Where a mutual inspection happens, landlord and tenant “shall then inspect the premises and compile a comprehensive listing of any presently ascertainable damage to the unit that is the basis for any charge against the security deposit and the estimated dollar cost of repairing the damage“, and both shall sign it. Except as subsection (g) provides, the signatures are conclusive evidence of the accuracy of the listing. That is a stronger evidential rule than most states have, and it cuts both ways.

The dissent trap. “If the tenant refuses to sign the listing, the tenant shall state specifically in writing the items on the list to which the tenant dissents.” Under 66-28-301(d) a tenant who disputes the final listing may sue in circuit or general sessions court, but “the tenant’s claim shall be limited to those items from which the tenant specifically dissented in accordance with the listing”; otherwise “the tenant shall not be entitled to recover any damages under this section.” A tenant who signs without dissent, or who ignores the listing, has given away the claim.

When there is no inspection right at all. 66-28-301(b)(2)(B) removes the right where the tenant has vacated without giving written notice, abandoned the premises, been judicially removed, not contacted the landlord after the landlord’s notice of the right to a mutual inspection, failed to appear at the arranged time, or not requested a mutual inspection or is otherwise inaccessible. In those cases the landlord may inspect alone and compile the listing, provided a written copy is sent by certificate of mailing on the tenant’s written request. Our Tennessee security deposit itemization form produces that listing, and the Tennessee security deposit laws guide works through the section in more detail.

Total forfeiture of the right to retain anything. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-301(c) is one sentence: “No landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the security deposit was not deposited in an account as required by subsection (a) and a listing of damages is not provided as required by subsection (b).”

Read the conjunction carefully, because it matters. The sanction bites where the landlord failed both to hold the money in a dedicated account and to provide the damage listing. A landlord who did one but not the other is not automatically caught by 66-28-301(c), though the missing step will still be evidence in any dispute and the listing requirement is separately load-bearing under (b) and (d). The safe course is obvious: open the account, tell the tenant where it is at signing, and produce the listing.

What Tennessee does not provide is equally worth stating. There is no double-damages provision, no treble-damages provision, no statutory penalty figure and no automatic attorney-fee award tied to the deposit section. A tenant enforcing the deposit rules relies on 66-28-301(c) plus the general remedy in 66-28-501(a), which does carry reasonable attorney’s fees after fourteen days’ written notice. Templates that promise a Tennessee tenant double the deposit are describing another state.

None, by statute — which is exactly why the lease clause matters. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-403(a) provides only that “the tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter onto the premises, including entering into the dwelling unit, in order to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the premises to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, workers or contractors.” There is no hour count in that subsection, and none anywhere else in the section for ordinary entry. The deepest template ranker for this query nonetheless tells landlords that “Tennessee landlords are required to give tenants at least 24 hours’ notice before entering the unit” and cites 66-28-403(a) for it. The subsection does not say that.

What the section does contain is a closed list. 66-28-403(e) provides that “the landlord has no right of access to the premises except” by court order; as permitted by that section, by 66-28-506 and by 66-28-507(b); if the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises; if the tenant is deceased, incapacitated or incarcerated; or within the final thirty days of the termination of the rental agreement to show the premises to prospective tenants. Nothing outside that list gives a landlord the right to be inside the dwelling unit.

The only notice period in the section is attached to that last item, and it is conditional. 66-28-403(e)(5) permits entry in the final thirty days “for the purpose of showing the premises to prospective tenants; provided, that such right of access is set forth in the rental agreement and notice is given to the tenant at least twenty-four (24) hours prior to entry.” A Tennessee lease that omits the clause leaves the landlord with no showing right at all — a real drafting consequence that no ranking template flags. The builder above makes it an explicit checkbox, and the Tennessee notice to enter form produces the notice itself.

The rest of the section fills in the edges. 66-28-403(b) allows entry without consent in an emergency, defined as “a sudden, generally unexpected occurrence or set of circumstances demanding immediate action”. 66-28-403(c) allows entry where utilities have been turned off through no fault of the landlord, to ascertain damage and make repairs resulting from the lack of utilities — an unusual provision that exists in few other states. 66-28-403(d) forbids the landlord to abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant, and 66-28-513(b) supplies the remedy: injunctive relief or termination, plus actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees, for an unlawful entry, a lawful entry in an unreasonable manner, or repeated demands for entry that have the effect of unreasonably harassing the tenant. 66-28-513(a) gives the landlord the mirror remedy where the tenant refuses lawful access. See Tennessee landlord entry laws for the wider picture.

Five days and 10% of the rent past due — in a covered county, and with two riders nobody prints. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-201(d), in its current form since 2013 Tenn. Acts ch. 206, provides:

“There shall be a five-day grace period beginning the day the rent was due to the day a fee for the late payment of rent may be charged. The date the rent was due shall be included in the calculation of the five-day grace period. If the last day of the five-day grace period occurs on a Sunday or legal holiday, as defined in 15-1-101, the landlord shall not impose any charge or fee for the late payment of rent; provided, that the rent is paid on the next business day. Any charge or fee, however described, which is charged by the landlord for the late payment of rent, shall not exceed ten percent (10%) of the amount of rent past due.”

Three things follow. First, the due date counts as day one. Rent due on the first is chargeable a late fee from the sixth, not the seventh, and the statute says so in terms. Second, the Sunday and legal holiday extension is absolute: if day five falls on one, no charge may be imposed at all provided the rent arrives the next business day. Third, and most consequentially, the cap is 10% of the amount of rent past due, not 10% of the monthly rent. Four of the rankers state it as monthly rent. The difference is not academic: a tenant who pays part of the rent reduces the lawful fee proportionately, and a landlord who charges 10% of the full monthly figure after a partial payment has exceeded the cap.

All of that sits inside chapter 28, so it binds only in the seventeen covered counties. Outside them Tennessee sets no grace period and no late-fee cap — the lease is the only source of both, which is why this builder asks for the percentage and the grace period rather than assuming them. See Tennessee late fee laws.

Rent itself is governed by 66-28-201(c): rent is payable without demand at the time and place agreed; unless otherwise agreed it is payable at the dwelling unit; periodic rent is payable at the beginning of any term of one month or less and otherwise in equal monthly instalments at the beginning of each month; and on agreement rent is uniformly apportionable from day to day. Where there is no lease agreement at all, 66-28-201(b) makes the tenant liable for the reasonable value of the use and occupancy.

A returned payment is handled outside chapter 28 altogether. Tenn. Code Ann. 47-29-102 authorises the payee of a dishonoured check, draft or order to assess a handling charge not exceeding thirty dollars, and it applies in every county because it is a general dishonoured-instrument statute rather than a landlord rule. The separate civil action in 47-29-101 requires fraudulent intent, does not apply where the maker pays in full within ten days of notice, and reaches treble damages only after thirty days from a certified-mail notice warning that treble damages will be sought — with the additional award capped at five hundred dollars.

No, and one ranker cites the wrong statute for it. There is no rent-increase notice statute in Tennessee. One ranking page tells landlords that if no notice period is listed in the lease they “should provide at least 30 days’ written notice before increasing the rent in a month-to-month lease”, and cites Tenn. Code Ann. 66-35-102. That section is titled “Rent control by local governments prohibited — Zoning provisions — Affordable housing” and does the opposite job: it forbids a local governmental unit from enacting, maintaining or enforcing an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling the amount of rent charged for private residential or commercial property, and since 1 July 2024 also forbids inclusionary requirements that units be sold or rented below market rates, subject to a carve-out for purely voluntary incentive programmes. It contains no notice period and says nothing about a landlord raising rent.

What a Tennessee landlord actually uses is the periodic-tenancy machinery. In a month-to-month tenancy in a covered county, 66-28-512(b) requires at least thirty days’ written notice before the periodic rental date to terminate — and the practical route to a higher rent is to give that notice and offer new terms, or to agree a new rent by consent. In a fixed-term lease the rent cannot be changed unilaterally at all. See Tennessee rent increase laws and the Tennessee rent increase notice form.

Four duties, and one of them has a unit-count threshold. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-304(a) requires the landlord to comply with the requirements of applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; to keep all common areas of the premises in a clean and safe condition; and — the threshold — “in multi-unit complexes of four (4) or more units, provide and maintain appropriate receptacles and conveniences for the removal of ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste from common points of collection”, subject to the tenant’s own disposal duty in 66-28-401(3).

Where the code-compliance duty in paragraph (1) is greater than a duty imposed by another paragraph, 66-28-304(b) makes paragraph (1) controlling. And 66-28-304(c) permits a written agreement that the tenant perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling — but only “if the transaction is entered into in good faith and not for the purpose of evading the obligations of the landlord”, and 66-28-304(d) forbids the landlord to treat performance of that separate agreement as a condition of any obligation under the rental agreement.

The tenant’s side is 66-28-401, and one phrase in it is worth quoting because it is more generous to tenants than the usual formulation. The tenant must “keep that part of the premises that the tenant occupies and uses as clean and safe as the condition of the premises when the tenant took possession” — a standard measured against move-in condition, not against a landlord’s idea of clean. The tenant must also comply with tenant obligations under building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; dispose of ashes, rubbish, garbage and other waste to the designated collection areas and into receptacles; not deliberately or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove any part of the premises or permit anyone else to, and not engage in any illegal conduct on the premises; and act, and require others on the premises with consent to act, so as not to disturb the neighbours’ peaceful enjoyment. See Tennessee habitability laws.

Only for essential services, and only after written notice. Tennessee gives no general repair-and-deduct remedy. What it gives is Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-502, which applies where the landlord “deliberately or negligently fails to supply essential services”. The tenant must first give written notice specifying the breach, and may then do one of three things:

• Procure the services and deduct. Obtain the essential services during the period of noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable costs from the rent. There is no dollar ceiling in the subsection.
• Recover the diminution in value — damages based on the reduction in the fair rental value of the dwelling unit, but only if the tenant continues to occupy the premises.
• Procure substitute housing and be excused from paying rent for the period of noncompliance, recovering in addition the actual and reasonable value of that housing.

In any case under that subsection the tenant may also recover reasonable attorney’s fees. “Essential services” is defined in 66-28-502(a)(3) as “utility services, including gas, heat, electricity, and any other obligations imposed upon the landlord which materially affect the health and safety of the tenant” — broader than a bare utilities list. A tenant who proceeds under the section may not also proceed under 66-28-501 or 66-28-503 for the same breach, and the rights “do not arise until the tenant has given written notice to the landlord and has shown that the condition was not caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a member of the tenant’s family, or other person on the premises with the tenant’s consent.”

For everything else, the route is 66-28-501(a): on fourteen days’ written notice, the tenant may recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney’s fees for any noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or any section of the chapter. If the agreement is terminated for noncompliance after sufficient notice, 66-28-501(b) requires the landlord to return all prepaid rent and security deposits.

Fire or casualty is handled separately by 66-28-503, amended in 2013. If damage substantially impairs use of the dwelling unit — and 66-28-104(15) defines “substantially impaired” as deemed unfit for human habitation by a governmental authority, a much harder test than it sounds — the tenant may immediately vacate and must notify the landlord in writing within fourteen days of the intention to terminate, in which case the agreement ends as of the date of vacating. If restoring the premises requires the tenant to vacate, the landlord may terminate within fourteen days of giving written notice. Either way prepaid rent and deposits are returned, and rent is accounted for as of the date the tenant returns the keys or in fact vacated, whichever is earlier. Statewide and independently of chapter 28, 66-7-102 lets a lessee surrender premises rendered untenantable and unfit for occupancy by the elements or any other cause, without liability for rent after the surrender, where the destruction occurred without the lessee’s fault and no express written agreement says otherwise.

In a covered county, fourteen days for a curable breach, seven on a repeat, three for violence, thirty to end a month-to-month tenancy. The section is Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-505, and it has two riders that never make it into a summary.

Under 66-28-505(a)(2), where the breach is remediable by paying rent, the cost of repairs, damages or any other amount due under the agreement, the landlord may inform the tenant that the agreement terminates if the breach is not remedied within fourteen days after receipt of the notice. Rider one: any repairs the tenant proposes to make in order to cure “must be requested in writing by the tenant and authorized in writing by the landlord prior to such repairs being made”, and the notice itself must tell the tenant so. Rider two: if substantially the same act or omission recurs within six months, the landlord may terminate on at least seven days’ written notice, with no further chance to cure. Where the breach is not remediable by payment, 66-28-505(a)(3) sets a termination date not less than fourteen days after receipt.

66-28-517 is the three-day route, and it is narrower than the usual “unconditional quit” description. It applies where the tenant or any other person on the premises with the tenant’s consent willfully or intentionally commits a violent act; behaves in a manner constituting or threatening to be a real and present danger to the health, safety or welfare of the life or property of other tenants or persons on the premises; creates a hazardous or unsanitary condition affecting the same; or refuses to vacate after entering as an unauthorized subtenant or occupant. The notice must specifically detail the violation and runs from receipt. The tenant is entitled to immediate access to court to seek an injunction against the termination, and the failure to seek or obtain one may not be used as evidence in the possession action. If the landlord’s termination is willful and not in good faith, the tenant recovers actual damages plus reasonable attorney’s fees. See the Tennessee unconditional quit notice and the Tennessee notice to cure or quit.

Periodic tenancies are 66-28-512: ten days for week-to-week, and thirty days for month-to-month — measured to the periodic rental date specified in the notice, not to any date the terminating party chooses. See Tennessee lease termination laws and the Tennessee tenant notice to vacate.

Holding over is 66-28-512(c), and Tennessee is one of the states with no rent multiplier. The landlord may bring an action for possession, back rent and reasonable attorney’s fees plus any other damages the lease provides; and if the holdover is willful and not in good faith, the landlord may also recover actual damages and fees again. There is no double-rent or treble-rent provision anywhere in chapter 28, so a holdover clause imported from a state that has one is describing another state’s remedy.

And 66-28-508 is the trap on the landlord’s side: “If the landlord accepts rent without reservation and with knowledge of a tenant default, the landlord by such acceptance condones the default and thereby waives such landlord’s right and is estopped from terminating the rental agreement as to that breach.” The words “without reservation” are what a landlord has to work with — an express written reservation when accepting a late or partial payment keeps the default alive.

Yes, and it has a typographic condition that most word-processed leases would fail. This is the most overlooked provision in Tennessee residential tenancy law and no ranking page mentions it.

Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-505(b) provides: “Notwithstanding subsection (a), if the tenant waives any notice required by this section, the landlord may proceed to file a detainer warrant immediately upon breach of the agreement for failure to pay rent without the landlord providing notice of such breach to the tenant; provided, however, that this subsection (b) shall not reduce the tenant’s grace period as provided in 66-28-201. The tenant’s waiver pursuant to this subsection (b) shall be set out in twelve (12) point bold font or larger in the rental agreement.”

66-28-201(c) says the same thing from the other direction: “Notice is specifically waived upon the nonpayment of rent by the tenant only if such a waiver is provided for in a written rental agreement.”

Read together, three conditions have to be satisfied for the waiver to work: it must be in a written rental agreement; it must be printed in twelve point bold font or larger; and it never touches the five-day grace period, so the landlord still cannot file before the grace period has run. The builder above makes the waiver an explicit option and, when you select it, the generated lease prints the waiver paragraph in twelve point bold as the statute requires. When you do not select it, the lease says so expressly, so nobody is left guessing.

Yes — and unusually, the clause is doing real work. Tennessee’s prohibited-provisions section, Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-203, forbids only two things: a term authorising any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement, and a term by which the tenant agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or its costs. It says nothing at all about attorney fees. So the flat bans found in Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Delaware, Nebraska and Kentucky have no Tennessee counterpart, and Arizona’s prevailing-party condition is not imposed by statute here either.

What Tennessee does instead is scatter fee awards through the chapter in both directions, and then make one of the landlord’s depend on the lease. 66-28-505(d): “The landlord may recover reasonable attorney’s fees for breach of contract and nonpayment of rent as provided in the rental agreement.” Omit the clause and the landlord has no contractual fee entitlement for the two commonest claims a landlord brings.

The landlord’s fee awards that arise by statute regardless of the lease are 66-28-202(b) against a trespasser, 66-28-510 after termination, 66-28-512(c) on a holdover, 66-28-513(a) where the tenant refuses lawful access, and 66-28-406(f)(2) and 66-28-505(f)(3) on a service-animal misrepresentation. The tenant’s fee awards arise by statute and cannot be contracted away, because 66-28-201(a) and 66-28-203(b) both forbid a tenant agreeing to waive or forego rights or remedies under the chapter: 66-28-501(a) for any landlord noncompliance after fourteen days’ written notice, 66-28-502(a)(2) on essential services, 66-28-504 on unlawful ouster, 66-28-513(b) on abusive entry, and 66-28-517(e) on a willful bad-faith termination.

That is why the clause in this builder runs to the prevailing party in both directions. A landlord-only clause would sit against the tenant’s non-waivable statutory entitlements and would be the obvious candidate for review under 66-28-204, which lets a court refuse to enforce, or limit the application of, an unconscionable provision.

The penalty for a genuinely prohibited clause is worth stating precisely, because it is milder than several neighbouring states. Under 66-28-203(b) such a provision “included in an agreement is unenforceable”, and “should a landlord willfully provide a rental agreement containing provisions known by the landlord to be prohibited by this chapter, the tenant may recover actual damages sustained.” No rent multiple, no fixed penalty, and the landlord’s willfulness and knowledge must be shown.

Three under state law and one under federal law — and the first of the three is missing from every ranking page.

1. The fire and casualty insurance advisory (66-28-201(a)). The last sentence of the subsection that governs what a rental agreement may contain reads: “The landlord or the landlord’s agent shall advise in writing that the landlord is not responsible for, and will not provide, fire or casualty insurance for the tenant’s personal property.” It is a mandatory written advisory. It is not the same thing as requiring the tenant to carry renters insurance — the advisory is compulsory, the requirement is a matter of agreement — and no ranking Tennessee page lists it among the state’s required disclosures.

2. Owner, manager and maintenance contact identification (66-28-302), rewritten effective 1 January 2025. As amended by 2024 Tenn. Acts ch. 907, the landlord or a person authorised to enter into a rental agreement on the landlord’s behalf must disclose to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy: the name and address of the agent authorised to manage the premises, which may include a third-party management company; the name and address of an owner of the premises or a person or agent authorised to act for the owner for acceptance of service of process and for receipt of notices and demands; and either a telephone number or electronic mail address for maintenance services, or an online portal system designed for landlord-tenant communication. The maintenance contact is the new part, and no ranking page has caught up with it. The information must be kept current and the section is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner or manager. A person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each landlord for service of process and for receiving notices and demands — and under 66-28-104(5) a manager who fails to disclose is the landlord for the purposes of the whole chapter.

3. The security deposit account location (66-28-301(a) and (h)). Where a deposit is taken in a covered county, the tenant must be told at signing where the dedicated account is held. The account number is expressly not required.

4. Federal lead-based paint (42 U.S.C. 4852d). Required for housing built before 1978, in all ninety-five counties, whether or not chapter 28 reaches the property. Tennessee adds no lead statute of its own. Our Tennessee lead-based paint disclosure form produces it.

What Tennessee does not require. There is no state radon disclosure, no flood-history disclosure, no insect-history disclosure, no asbestos disclosure, no contamination-history disclosure, no offender-registry notice, no pending-demolition notice and no utility-sharing statement. One ranking page lists Tenn. Code Ann. 66-7-108 among Tennessee’s lease disclosures; that section is titled “Commercial lease disclosure statement” and applies only to commercial property space of one thousand five hundred square feet or less and industrial real property of five thousand square feet or less, at the request of a prospective tenant. It creates no residential duty at all, and a disclosure list built on it is built on the wrong chapter.

Two independent triggers, one procedure, and a six-month tail. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-405 is more structured than most abandonment statutes and no ranking page sets it out.

Trigger one (66-28-405(a)): the tenant’s unexplained or extended absence from the premises for thirty days or more without payment of rent as due is prima facie evidence of abandonment, and the landlord is then expressly authorised to reenter and take possession.

Trigger two (66-28-405(b)): nonpayment of rent for fifteen days past the rental due date, together with other reasonable factual circumstances indicating that the tenant has permanently vacated — the statute names removal of substantially all of the tenant’s possessions and personal effects, and voluntary termination of utility service — is also prima facie evidence. The second trigger carries a procedure the first does not.

Under that procedure the landlord must post notice at the rental premises and also send it by regular prepaid mail to the tenant at the premises address, and the notice must state four things: that the landlord has reason to believe the premises abandoned; that the landlord intends to reenter and take possession unless the tenant contacts the landlord within ten days of the posting and mailing; that if the tenant does not, the landlord intends to remove the possessions and re-rent; and that if the tenant does not reclaim them within thirty days of the landlord taking possession of them, the landlord intends to dispose of them. The notice must also include a telephone number and a mailing address for the landlord. If the tenant makes contact within the ten days and says they intend to remain, the landlord must go through the ordinary termination and judicial process.

Under either trigger, 66-28-405(c) requires the landlord to remove and store the tenant’s possessions for not less than thirty days. The tenant may reclaim them within that period. If not, the landlord may sell or otherwise dispose of them and apply the proceeds to unpaid rents, damages, storage fees, sale costs and attorney’s fees — and any balance is to be held by the landlord for six months after the sale.

Do not confuse that with the post-judgment rule. Tenn. Code Ann. 29-18-127(b) applies after a writ of possession has been executed: the plaintiff places the defendant’s personal property on the premises, in an appropriate area clear of the entrance and at a reasonable distance from any roadway, and shall not disturb it for forty-eight hours, after which the remaining property may be discarded. Forty-eight hours after a writ; thirty days after an abandonment. Several ranking pages run the two together.

Through the general sessions court, in every county, on a compressed timetable. The forcible entry and detainer chapter at Tenn. Code Ann. 29-18-101 to 29-18-135 is not part of the Uniform Act and does not depend on the county’s population.

• What it is. 29-18-104 defines unlawful detainer as the case where the defendant entered by contract, as tenant or as an assignee, personal representative or subtenant of a tenant, and “willfully and without force, holds over the possession from the landlord”. 29-18-107 gives original jurisdiction to any general sessions judge of the county.
• Notice of trial. Under 29-18-117 the officer serving the warrant notifies the defendant of the time and place of trial, “the time not to be less than six days from the date of service”. Under 29-18-118, as amended in 2024, the judge may postpone the trial up to seven days on good cause.
• Judgment. Under 29-18-125 the judge ascertains the arrearage of rent, interest and damages and gives judgment for them where the plaintiff recovers possession.
• The ten-day pause. Under 29-18-126, “no execution or writ of possession shall issue against the defendant upon any judgment, under this chapter, until after the lapse of ten days from the rendition of the judgment.”
• Appeal bond. Under 29-18-130, as amended in 2024, a defendant who prays an appeal must execute a bond, or post a cash deposit or an irrevocable letter of credit from a regulated financial institution, or provide two good personal sureties, in the amount of one year’s rent of the premises, and the plaintiff need not post a bond to obtain possession if the defendant appeals without complying.
• Removal. 29-18-127 supplies the form of the writ and the forty-eight-hour rule described above.

Since 1 April 2026 there has also been a rule about filming an eviction, and no ranking page carries it. Public Chapter 657 of 2026 adds a section to chapter 18 prohibiting a “participant in an eviction process” — a private entity or person serving or executing civil process related to an eviction, or an affiliate, but expressly not a law enforcement officer acting officially — from publishing, transmitting or broadcasting, in real time or near real time, in a manner that is accessible to the public, any video of the service or execution of that process without the individual’s express written permission, unless the purpose is legal documentation of the service. “Civil process related to an eviction proceeding” is defined to include an eviction notice, a judgment of possession and a writ of possession. A victim has a private right of action, and the court may award a minimum of twenty-five thousand dollars in statutory damages per intentional violation, plus actual damages, punitive damages, equitable relief and reasonable costs and attorney fees. Subsection (d) permits transmission to the landlord, the property owner, counsel for either, a law enforcement agency, the court, or the property management company.

Only within narrow limits, and only in a covered county. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-514(a) bars a landlord from retaliating “by increasing rent or decreasing services or by bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession” because the tenant “has complained to the landlord of a violation under 66-28-301” — that is, of the security deposit section — “or has made use of remedies provided under this chapter.”

Read that protected-activity list against the ones most states have. There is no protection in terms for a complaint to a code-enforcement agency, no protection for organising or joining a tenants’ organisation, and the first limb is tied specifically to the deposit section. The second limb, use of the chapter’s remedies, is broader and does most of the work.

What Tennessee also does not provide: no presumption of retaliation from timing, no window of months, no civil penalty, and no statutory damages figure. 66-28-514(b) then preserves the landlord’s action for possession where the code violation was caused primarily by lack of reasonable care by the tenant or someone in the household or on the premises with the tenant’s consent; where the tenant is in default in rent; or where code compliance requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of use of the dwelling unit — while providing that maintaining such an action does not release the landlord from liability under 66-28-501(b).

And in the seventy-eight non-covered counties there is no retaliation statute at all. That is one of the clearest practical differences between the two halves of Tennessee, and it is a reason for a tenant in a non-covered county to want the protection written into the lease.

A short list, plus a lien rule and a rules-and-regulations test that most templates ignore.

Prohibited outright (66-28-203(a)). No rental agreement may provide that the tenant authorises any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement, or that the tenant agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord to the tenant arising under law, or to indemnify the landlord for that liability or the costs connected with it. Under 66-28-203(b) any such provision is unenforceable, and a landlord who willfully provides an agreement containing provisions known to be prohibited is liable for the tenant’s actual damages.

Void by anti-waiver (66-28-201(a) and 66-28-203(b)). “A rental agreement cannot provide that the tenant agrees to waive or forego rights or remedies under this chapter.” That is what stops a lease stripping the tenant’s statutory attorney-fee entitlements, the essential-services remedy or the deposit protections.

Prohibited liens (66-28-509). One sentence, and almost never quoted: “A contracted lien or security interest on behalf of the landlord in the tenant’s household goods shall not be enforceable unless perfected by a Uniform Commercial Code filing with the secretary of state. All other liens are hereby expressly prohibited under this chapter. The landlord shall be responsible for releasing the lien at expiration or termination of the lease.” Boilerplate giving the landlord a lien over the tenant’s belongings is asserting a lien the chapter prohibits.

Unenforceable rules (66-28-402). A landlord’s rule binds the tenant only if its purpose is to promote convenience, safety or welfare, preserve the property from abusive use or fairly distribute services and facilities; it is reasonably related to that purpose; it applies to all tenants; it is explicit enough to inform the tenant what to do; it is not for the purpose of evading the landlord’s obligations; and the tenant has notice of it when entering into the rental agreement. A rule adopted later binds only if reasonable notice of adoption is given and it does not work a substantial modification of the agreement.

Unconscionability (66-28-204). A court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable agreement or provision, or limit its application. Note subsection (c), added in 2018: a provision authorising a landlord to hold a tenant in breach in accordance with 66-28-505(f) — the service-animal misrepresentation rule — “is not unconscionable and is fully enforceable.”

From 1 January 2027 a Tennessee landlord may not prohibit lawful firearm possession by a residential tenant, and not one page in this search result mentions it. Public Chapter 606 of 2026, signed by the Governor on 6 April 2026, adds Tenn. Code Ann. 66-7-113 to chapter 7 and Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-206 to chapter 28 in parallel terms, and adds a new subdivision (7) to 66-28-402(a) so that a landlord’s rule is unenforceable if it violates the new section.

The rule: a landlord shall not prohibit lawful possession, carrying, transportation or storage of a firearm, any part of a firearm, or firearm ammunition by a residential tenant within the tenant’s dwelling unit or leased residential premises; in a vehicle located in the parking area provided for tenants by the landlord; or, subject to the next paragraph, in other locations controlled by the landlord, but only to the extent necessary to directly enter or exit those places.

The landlord keeps a real power. Under subsection (b) a landlord may require that a tenant transport a firearm between a vehicle and the residence only while it is concealed or holstered on the tenant, or stored within a carrying container, and keep it so while in other common areas including an elevator or shared hallway; and where a tenant does not comply, the landlord may request compliance and exercise any other remedies expressly agreed in the lease, provided those remedies do not prohibit lawful possession within the residence.

Six categories are excluded: premises leased to a state agency or department; a facility or entity licensed, regulated or contracted with the department of mental health and substance abuse services or the department of children’s services; a hospital licensed under title 68 chapter 11 part 2, including its whole licensed campus; a nursing home, home for the aged, adult care home, assisted care living facility or memory care facility licensed under title 68 chapter 11; an independent living facility in respect of a dwelling unit opening directly into an interior corridor or common area serving such a facility; and educational property subject to Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1309.

The remedy is heavier than the ordinary prohibited-provision remedy: a tenant adversely affected may sue for declaratory and injunctive relief, actual damages, punitive damages and recovery of attorney fees. No civil liability arises for a landlord solely from complying.

Smoke alarms in every rental, statewide; carbon monoxide alarms only in hotels. Both statutes sit in title 68 and apply in all ninety-five counties, independently of chapter 28.

Tenn. Code Ann. 68-102-151 governs a one-family or two-family rental unit — any rental building containing one or two living units with independent cooking and bathroom facilities, “whether designated as a house, cottage, duplex, or condominium, or by any other name”. It is unlawful to own or operate one without an approved smoke alarm in each living unit whose warning sound is audible in the sleeping rooms, or to tamper with or remove one. A violation is a Class A misdemeanor, and each day a violation continues is a separate offence.

Tenn. Code Ann. 68-120-112 governs an apartment building — three or more living units with independent cooking and bathroom facilities, expressly excluding condominium projects — and hotels. A smoke alarm is required in every living unit, audible in the sleeping rooms, and a violation is a Class C misdemeanor. Two limits are worth knowing: subsection (c)(3) applies the section only to buildings existing before 1 January 2016, with newer buildings governed by the statewide building construction safety standards under 68-120-101; and the carbon monoxide alarm requirement in subsection (b)(3) is written for a hotel with a fossil-fuel-burning heater, appliance or fireplace, requiring an alarm within ten feet of each sleeping room.

Under both statutes the split of responsibility is the same, and it is a lease-drafting point: the tenant maintains the alarm in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions during the tenancy, but on termination of a tenancy the owner must ensure that any required smoke alarm is operational before reoccupancy. So the alarm check belongs in the turnover routine, not only in the move-in checklist.

The negative finding matters too: no Tennessee statute requires a carbon monoxide alarm in an ordinary rented house or apartment. A landlord may of course install one, and many local codes and insurers encourage it, but a template that states a Tennessee carbon monoxide requirement for a dwelling is over-reading 68-120-112.

In five defined situations, each with conditions the rankers omit.

Domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking (66-28-205, with the statewide twin at 66-7-112). A tenant may terminate a residential rental or lease agreement entered into or renewed on or after 1 July 2021 by giving the landlord written notice that the tenant or a household member is a domestic abuse victim, sexual assault victim or stalking victim as defined in 36-3-601, regardless of whether the victim is an adult or a child. To do it without liability for future rent and early-termination penalties the tenant must provide: written notice requesting release; a mutually agreed upon release date within the next thirty days of the notice; and either a copy of a valid order of protection issued or extended under 36-3-605 following a hearing at which the court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the person is such a victim — so an ex parte order does not qualify — or documentation evidencing a criminal charge based on a police report. The documentation must be dated no more than sixty days before the notice. The landlord must not reveal identifying information about the tenant without written consent. The tenant vacates within thirty days, remains liable for the rent for the full month in which the tenancy terminates and for previous obligations outstanding, and the section releases no other party to the agreement. Only subdivision (b)(4) may be varied by agreement.

Where domestic abuse is the reason for an eviction (66-28-517(g), statewide twin at 66-7-109(e)). Only the perpetrator may be evicted. The landlord may not evict the victims, minor children under eighteen, or innocent occupants who occupy under a lease agreement, based solely on the domestic abuse; and the perpetrator remains financially liable for all amounts due under the present lease even if removed from it. The landlord may remove the perpetrator from the lease and require the remaining adult tenants to qualify for and enter a new agreement for the rest of the term. The victim and all adult tenants must agree in writing not to allow the perpetrator to return and to report a return immediately — and a violation of that agreement is cause to terminate the tenancy as to everyone. The rights do not arise until the victim has been judicially granted an order of protection for the specific incident, has given the landlord a copy, and the order does one of four listed things.

Fire or casualty (66-28-503). Covered above: immediate vacation plus written notice within fourteen days, where use is substantially impaired.

Landlord noncompliance (66-28-501(a)). Fourteen days’ written notice, then damages, injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees; and where the agreement is terminated after sufficient notice, the return of all prepaid rent and deposits.

Acceptance into public housing on a physical disability (66-7-110, statewide). This one appears on no ranking page. A person with a physical disability “shall be permitted to terminate a rental lease relative to such person’s primary residence without incurring penalties or being obligated to pay rent after ceasing to occupy the property if such person is accepted as a resident of a public housing facility” — unless the current landlord has made significant modifications to the residence to address accessibility. The tenant presents written evidence of the acceptance, and the landlord provides written acknowledgement of the termination. “Person with a physical disability” means a person meeting the standard for being permanently and totally disabled under 71-4-1102.

Military service members rely on the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act rather than on a Tennessee statute. See Tennessee breaking lease laws.

Pets are a matter of agreement; service and support animals are not, and Tennessee has an unusually detailed documentation rule. Tenn. Code Ann. 66-28-406, amended by 2024 Tenn. Acts ch. 754, with the statewide twin at 66-7-111, lets a tenant or prospective tenant with a disability request an exception to a policy that prohibits or limits animals or that requires any payment to have an animal on the premises.

Where the disability is not readily apparent or known, the landlord may ask for reliable documentation of the disability and of the disability-related need; where the disability is apparent but the need is not, the landlord may ask for documentation of the need. “Reliable documentation” means written documentation from a healthcare provider, from an individual or entity with a valid unrestricted licence, certification or registration to serve persons with disabilities, or from a caregiver, reliable third party or governmental entity — in each case with actual knowledge of the disability. And it expressly does not include documentation “provided through a website, the primary function of which is to provide a certificate, registration, license, or similar document for a service animal or support animal for a fee.”

The landlord may verify the documentation but may not obtain confidential or protected medical records, and may deny the request where accurate reliable documentation is not provided after a request. Misrepresenting a disability or a disability-related need, or providing documentation falsely stating that an animal is a service or support animal, is deemed material noncompliance and default under 66-28-505(f), and the landlord may terminate the tenancy and recover damages including reasonable attorney’s fees — and 66-28-204(c) confirms that a lease clause authorising the landlord to do so is not unconscionable. Under 66-28-406(g) a landlord is not liable for injuries caused by a permitted service or support animal.

Two statewide accessibility provisions sit outside chapter 28 and apply in every county. 66-7-104(c)(2) requires a person renting property that is three or more stories tall to give priority in access to units on floors one and two to physically disabled persons whose disability would prevent reasonable access to higher floors — with no duty to seek out disabled occupants or hold a unit vacant — and a violation is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to fifty dollars. 66-7-106 provides that a legally blind person may not be denied a lease because of a guide dog, that no deposit may be required with respect to the dog, and that no restrictions may be imposed on the animal’s whereabouts while its master is in attendance, while leaving the person liable for damage the animal causes. See Tennessee pet and assistance animal laws.

Three Tennessee-specific provisions that most templates leave out.

Utility accounts (66-28-521). “If a written rental agreement requires the tenant to have utility services placed in the tenant’s name and the tenant fails to do so within three days of occupancy of the rented premises, the landlord may have such utility services terminated if the existing utility service is in the name of the landlord.” Three days, not ten — one ranking page says ten — and the power exists only where a written agreement imposes the duty.

The service-interruption ban (66-28-511 and 66-28-504). A landlord may not recover or take possession by action or otherwise, “including willful diminution of services to the tenant by interrupting or causing the interruption of electric, gas, water or other essential service”, except in case of abandonment, surrender or as the chapter permits. Where the landlord does unlawfully remove or exclude the tenant, or willfully diminishes services, 66-28-504 gives the tenant possession or termination plus actual damages, punitive damages when appropriate, and a reasonable attorney’s fee, and requires the return of all prepaid rent and deposits.

Towing (66-28-518 to 66-28-520). Three regimes, and they differ. An unauthorized vehicle — defined by 66-28-104(17) as one not registered to a tenant, occupant or known guest that has remained more than seven consecutive days — may be towed on ten days’ written notice posted on the vehicle. A vehicle may be towed immediately and without notice for failing to comply with the landlord’s posted permit-parking policy, or with posted signage about traffic lanes, fire lanes, hydrants, accessible parking or blocked trash receptacles. A vehicle with flat or missing tires, unable to operate under its own power, with a broken or missing windshield or more than one broken or missing window, with missing fenders or bumpers, or out of title and registration compliance for more than thirty days, may be towed on ten days’ posted notice under 66-28-519 — and where the owner is not present the tower must first give local law enforcement the vehicle identification number, registration, plate and description. A nuisance vehicle, meaning one incapable of operating under its own power and detrimental to the health, welfare or safety of persons in the community, may be towed on twenty-four hours’ posted written notice under 66-28-520.

A short list of sections that change outcomes and appear in none of the ranking templates.

• 66-28-108 — electronic notice, but no compulsory email address. If the tenant provides an electronic mail address in the rental agreement, notices required by the chapter may be sent to it, unless a provision requires a different form — “provided, however, that the landlord shall not require the tenant to provide an electronic mail address as a condition of entering into a rental agreement.” Several online lease builders make an email address a required field.
• 66-28-202(b) — the trespasser provision. A person taking possession without paying rent and failing to sign a written rental agreement delivered to them, or entering without oral agreement, is “deemed to be a trespasser”, may be evicted forthwith, and may be held liable for damages, rent for the term of the trespass and reasonable attorney’s fees — unless that person pays rent that the landlord accepts, in which case they become a tenant. 66-28-202(a) adds that if the landlord never signs the written agreement, acceptance of rent without reservation binds the parties on a month-to-month tenancy.
• 66-28-506 — the landlord’s repair-and-bill remedy. Where the tenant’s noncompliance materially affects health and safety and can be cured by repair, replacement or cleaning, and the tenant fails to act as promptly as an emergency requires or within fourteen days of written notice, the landlord may enter, have the work done in a workmanlike manner and bill the actual and reasonable cost as rent on the next periodic due date.
• 66-28-404 and 66-28-507 — extended absence. The lease may require the tenant to notify the landlord of an anticipated absence over seven days, on or before the first day of it; 66-28-507(a) gives the landlord actual damages for a willful failure only where the agreement imposed the duty. During any absence over seven days the landlord may enter at times reasonably necessary.
• 66-28-305 — the two-step release on a sale. A landlord who conveys the premises in a good faith sale to a bona fide purchaser is relieved of liability only as to events after written notice to the tenant of the conveyance and transfer of the security deposit to the purchaser. Both steps.
• 66-28-522 — manager testimony. “Notwithstanding a rental agreement to the contrary, a manager may testify against a tenant under this chapter in the same manner as a landlord or owner.” Added in 2021, and it overrides a contrary lease clause.
• 66-28-107 — landlord registration, in one place only. Landlords must register with the local building-code enforcement agency, with a fee of up to ten dollars a year, notice of an ownership change within thirty days, and a fine of fifty dollars a week for failure — but subsection (c) confines the section to a county with a metropolitan form of government and a population over five hundred thousand by the 2000 census or a later one, which in practice means Davidson County.
• 66-28-523 and 66-7-109(i) — sixty days for an older tenant. Added in 2023, and applying on both sides of the county line: sixty days’ notice where a rent-paying tenant aged fifty-five or over is evicted from a federally assisted older-persons facility to allow new property development, meaning razing it for another use or renovating it so tenants must vacate and it can be offered at market rate.
• 66-7-107 — the district attorney’s eviction power. Where premises are knowingly used to violate specified drug or prostitution offences, the district attorney general may require the owner to state an intent to evict diligently and in good faith, and may bring the eviction as though the district attorney were the landlord if the owner does not respond within five days or does not prosecute diligently. The identity of the person who provided the evidence is confidential, and the landlord bears the cost of physically removing the tenant’s belongings, capped at two hundred dollars per order.
• 66-28-515 and 66-28-516 — mitigation and good faith. The aggrieved party “has an obligation and duty to mitigate damages”, and every duty under the chapter carries an obligation of good faith in its performance or enforcement.

Over one year, yes; over three years, in writing and registered. Two different thresholds sit in two different titles, and neither ranker states both.

Tenn. Code Ann. 29-2-101(a)(4), the statute of frauds, bars an action “upon any contract for the sale of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or the making of any lease thereof for a longer term than one (1) year” unless the agreement, or a memorandum or note of it, is in writing and signed by the party to be charged. Subsection (c) confirms that a writing includes a record, so an electronic agreement qualifies.

Tenn. Code Ann. 66-7-101 goes further for longer terms: “Leases for more than three (3) years shall be in writing, and, to be valid against any person other than the lessor, the lessor’s heirs and devisees, and persons having actual notice thereof, shall be proved and registered as provided in chapters 22-24 of this title.”

So a twelve-month Tennessee lease may be oral and still enforceable; an eighteen-month lease must be written; and a five-year lease must be written and registered if it is to bind a purchaser of the reversion. Tennessee requires no subscribing witnesses and no notarization for an ordinary residential lease. And whether or not writing is legally required, several things in this state exist only if the lease creates them: the entry notice period, the final-thirty-days showing right, the extended-absence duty, the utility-account deadline in 66-28-521, the notice waiver in 66-28-505(b), the move-out inspection waiver in 66-28-301(b)(1)(A), and the landlord’s contractual attorney-fee entitlement under 66-28-505(d).

Verified 6 August 2026 against the codified text, the Secretary of State’s register of enacted acts, and two enrolled public chapters. Tennessee’s codified text is published in a 2024 edition, and the 2024 session is genuinely inside it — 66-28-302 carries the note “Amended by 2024 Tenn. Acts, ch. 907, s 1, eff. 1/1/2025”, and 66-28-406, 29-18-118, 29-18-130 and 66-35-102 all carry 2024 amendments. The gap that had to be closed by hand was therefore the 114th General Assembly, whose 2025 and 2026 regular sessions post-date the codification.

We closed it from the Secretary of State’s own public-acts register, exported as a four-column table of every enacted chapter of the biennium: 1,142 public chapters, numbered 1 to 1142 with no gaps, each row carrying the chapter number, the subject heading, the abstract and the bill number. Exactly two of those 1,142 chapters carry the subject heading “Landlord and Tenant”: Public Chapter 606 and Public Chapter 657, both covered above. A separate keyword scan of all 1,142 abstracts for landlord, tenant, tenancy, lease, rental, eviction, detainer, security deposit, dwelling, habitability and rent surfaced no other act that changes a residential lease rule, and the General Assembly’s own composite abstract digests for 2025 and 2026 — which name the Code titles and chapters each act amends — agree.

Two limits are worth stating rather than glossing. First, the register’s abstracts are a sentence each, so an act whose abstract mentions none of those words could in principle touch a residential tenancy through a section elsewhere in the Code; we read all 1,142 abstracts and none looked like a candidate, but that is a reasoned negative rather than a full-text sweep of every enrolled act. Second, the 114th General Assembly also held two extraordinary sessions, whose acts are published separately, and those were not swept. Nothing in the regular-session record suggests a landlord-tenant provision in either.

The single most perishable fact on this page is the 1 January 2027 commencement of Public Chapter 606. From that date a firearm-prohibition clause is unlawful in any Tennessee residential lease entered into, amended, extended or renewed, and the remedy includes punitive damages and the tenant’s attorney fees. Diarise it.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Tennessee rewards care at both ends: the deposit procedure in 66-28-301 is unforgiving of paperwork done out of order, and the county classification in 66-28-102(a) means a landlord can be operating under a materially different rulebook from a colleague one county away. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and Tennessee tenant screening laws covers what you may and may not ask. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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