Free North Carolina Landlord Forms
Every North Carolina landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the General Statutes section and the deadline that triggers it — plus the official Administrative Office of the Courts form numbers and the four statutory fees a landlord may actually charge.
Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. North Carolina landlord law sits mainly in Chapter 42 of the General Statutes, and it is a chapter defined as much by what it leaves out as by what it says: there is no entry statute at all, no statutory cure period for a lease breach, and one of the shortest month-to-month notice periods in the country.
The short version
- Nonpayment of rent — ten days after demand for all past-due rent, G.S. 42-3. Forfeiture is implied in every lease, so you need not have reserved a right of re-entry.
- Other lease breaches — no statutory cure period exists. The lease supplies the terms, not the statute.
- Month-to-month termination — seven days, G.S. 42-14. Week-to-week is two days; year-to-year is a month or more.
- Entry — North Carolina has no entry statute at all. Any twenty-four-hour figure you read is not law.
- Security deposit — capped on a sliding scale by tenancy length: two weeks, one and a half months, or two months.
- Four statutory fees — a late fee plus one of three eviction-related fees, and you may keep only one of the three per complaint.
- Court — summary ejectment before a magistrate, on form AOC-CVM-201.
Three Things North Carolina Does Not Have
Most state guides list rules. For North Carolina the more useful starting point is the absences, because each one is routinely filled in by writers who assume every state works the same way.
1. There is no landlord entry statute. Chapter 42 contains no entry, access or viewing provision of any kind. A search for North Carolina entry rules will return the confident assertion that “the practical standard applied in North Carolina courts is twenty-four hours’ advance notice” — there is no such statute and no cited authority for it. What governs entry in North Carolina is the lease. If you want a defined notice period, write one in; the Code will not supply it.
2. There is no statutory cure period for a non-rent breach. The summary ejectment ground at G.S. 42-26(a)(2) is that the tenant has “done or omitted any act by which, according to the stipulations of the lease, his estate has ceased” — so whether a cure is available, and how long it runs, is whatever the lease says. This is neither a one-number nor a two-number structure; there is no number at all. Any page publishing an “X-day North Carolina cure notice” is describing a lease term, not a statute.
3. There is no deposit interest requirement. Nothing in Article 6 requires a landlord to pay interest on a security deposit.
Two related absences are worth noting for balance. The grounds of holdover after the term expired and desertion of the premises while in rent arrear both require “demand made for its surrender” under G.S. 42-26(a)(1) and (3), but the statute assigns no day count to either. And Chapter 42 contains no add-days-for-mailing rule.
Every North Carolina Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy
Alphabetical form lists are the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.
Starting the tenancy
- North Carolina residential lease agreement — the master document, and it carries unusual weight here. With no entry statute and no statutory cure period, the lease is the only source of both. It is also where any late fee must be created, since the statute caps a fee but does not create one.
- Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not North Carolina law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
- Move-in / move-out condition checklist — the most valuable optional form here, because G.S. 42-52 bars withholding for normal wear and tear and limits you to actual damages.
During the tenancy
- Notice to enter the property — used purely as good practice and to satisfy a lease term. There is no statutory period behind it in North Carolina.
- Rent increase notice — North Carolina has no rent control. For a month-to-month tenancy the operative constraint is the G.S. 42-14 seven-day termination period, which is unusually short.
- Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Useful for documenting that rent was five or more days late before a fee was charged.
- Lease Renewal Agreement
- Rental Application
- Roommate Agreement
- Sublease Agreement
When the tenant breaches
- Ten-day notice to pay rent or quit — the G.S. 42-3 demand for all past-due rent.
- Notice to cure or quit — used to enforce a lease term, since the statute prescribes no cure period. Set the period from your own agreement.
- Unconditional quit notice — for a holdover or a lease ground that has already ended the estate, where you are making the demand for surrender the statute contemplates.
Ending the tenancy without fault
- Notice of non-renewal — used when a fixed term is ending and you do not intend to renew.
- Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side of G.S. 42-14. Seven days for month-to-month.
After the tenant moves out
- Security deposit itemisation — G.S. 42-52, the written itemisation of damage that must be mailed or delivered within thirty days.
- Security deposit return letter — the covering document that goes with the balance.
Ending a Tenancy: Seven Days, and It Catches People Out
Section 42-14 sets some of the shortest periodic-tenancy notice periods in the country.
| Tenancy | Notice |
|---|---|
| Week-to-week | 2 days |
| Month-to-month | 7 days |
| Year-to-year | 1 month or more before the end of the current year |
| Manufactured-home space, year-to-year | at least 60 days before the end of the current rental period |
| Manufactured-home community conversion | 180 days (G.S. 42-14.3) |
Seven days for a month-to-month tenancy is short enough that landlords moving from a thirty-day state often over-notice without realising, which is safe but slow. The manufactured-home figures run the other way and are far longer than the residential norm — sixty days for a space, and a hundred and eighty for a community conversion.
One point we could not resolve: the text of G.S. 42-14 is party-neutral and silent on whether the periods can be varied by a written lease. We are not asserting either way. Our North Carolina lease termination laws guide covers the counting.
Nonpayment: Ten Days, and Forfeiture Is Automatic
Under G.S. 42-3 the landlord makes a demand for all past-due rent and the tenant has ten days. The section contains a provision that saves a great many North Carolina landlords from their own leases:
Forfeiture is IMPLIED in every lease with a fixed rent date. Section 42-3 provides that the landlord need not have “declared such forfeiture or reserved the right of reentry in the lease”. In most states a landlord whose lease omits a forfeiture clause has a problem; in North Carolina the statute writes it in for you. That is a genuine advantage, and it is why a bare, poorly drafted North Carolina lease still supports a nonpayment ejectment.
There is one carve-out worth knowing. Under G.S. 42-26(b), arrears for water and sewer under G.S. 62-110(g) or electric service under G.S. 62-110(h) cannot be a basis for terminating the lease. If you bill utilities through and the tenant falls behind on those specifically, that is a debt to pursue, not a ground to evict.
Security Deposits: a Sliding Cap and a Trust-Account Duty
North Carolina is one of the few states whose deposit cap varies with the length of the tenancy, under G.S. 42-51(b).
| Tenancy | Maximum deposit |
|---|---|
| Week-to-week | 2 weeks’ rent |
| Month-to-month | 1½ months’ rent |
| Longer than month-to-month | 2 months’ rent |
Under G.S. 42-50 the deposit must sit in a trust account with a licensed, federally insured depository institution or a trust institution authorised in North Carolina — or the landlord may instead furnish a bond from an insurer licensed in the state. Either way the landlord must tell the tenant the name and address of the institution, or the name of the bonding insurer, within thirty days of the lease commencing.
Thirty days, and a sixty-day fallback
Section 42-52 requires a written itemisation of damage plus the balance, mailed or delivered, no later than thirty days after termination. North Carolina then does something sensible that many states do not:
If the damages cannot be determined within thirty days, the landlord gives an INTERIM accounting at thirty days and a FINAL accounting within sixty. That removes the usual dilemma of a landlord waiting on a contractor’s quote as the deadline runs. But note it is a two-step obligation, not an extension — the interim accounting at thirty days is still required.
Withholding is limited to actual damages and nothing may be withheld for normal wear and tear. The penalty under G.S. 42-55 is structural: a wilful failure to comply with the deposit, bond or notice requirements voids the landlord’s right to retain any portion of the deposit, and the court may award attorney’s fees taxed as costs.
Pet fees are separate and uncapped. Under G.S. 42-53 a landlord may charge a reasonable, nonrefundable pet fee, with no statutory maximum. Because it is nonrefundable it sits outside the deposit accounting entirely. Our North Carolina security deposit laws guide covers the trust-account mechanics.
The Four Fees You May Charge — and the One-Fee Rule
This is the most misunderstood part of North Carolina landlord law, and the section governing it — G.S. 42-46 — was amended four times across 2024 and 2025 and retitled “Authorized fees, costs, and expenses.” Any summary written before mid-2025 is stale.
| Fee | Amount | When it may be charged |
|---|---|---|
| Late fee | Monthly rent: greater of fifteen dollars or five per cent. Weekly rent: greater of four dollars or five per cent | Only if rent is five calendar days or more late, and one fee per late payment |
| Complaint-filing fee | greater of fifteen dollars or five per cent of monthly rent | Only if the tenant cured and the landlord dismissed the action |
| Court-appearance fee | 10% of monthly rent | Only if the landlord prevailed in small claims court |
| Second trial fee | Up to 12% of monthly rent | Following a successful appeal |
The one-fee rule. Under G.S. 42-46(h) a landlord may charge and retain only ONE of the complaint-filing, court-appearance and second-trial fees per complaint — not all three, and not one per stage. And any other administrative fee is expressly declared contrary to public policy. If your lease contains a menu of processing, administrative or convenience charges, that subsection is the one to read against it.
Separately recoverable, and expressly not “administrative fees”, are court filing fees, service-of-process costs, and attorneys’ fees where a written lease provides for them — the last capped at fifteen per cent of the amount owed, or fifteen per cent of monthly rent where the default is something other than nonpayment (G.S. 42-46(i)–(k)).
Since 1 July 2025 there is also a renters-insurance rule at G.S. 42-46(l): a tenant may not be forced to use a designated carrier or agent, and a landlord who obtains cover may charge its actual cost plus an administrative fee not exceeding fifty dollars per year — and only where the tenant failed to prove cover within three business days of a request. See our North Carolina late fee laws guide.
North Carolina Court Forms and Summary Ejectment
An eviction in North Carolina is a summary ejectment action heard by a magistrate. The Administrative Office of the Courts publishes a properly numbered form set, which is the strongest entity signal available on this query.
| Step | AOC form |
|---|---|
| Start the case | AOC-CVM-201 — Complaint in Summary Ejectment |
| Summons | AOC-CVM-100 — Magistrate Summons |
| Judgment | AOC-CVM-401 — Judgment in Action for Summary Ejectment |
| Appeal | AOC-CVM-303 — Notice of Appeal to District Court |
| Stay on appeal | AOC-CVM-304 — Bond to Stay Execution |
| Writ | AOC-CV-401 — Writ of Possession, Real Property |
| Writ after 30 days | AOC-CV-412 — Request for Issuance of Writ where the judgment is more than thirty days old |
| Vacation rental | AOC-CVM-204 — Expedited Summary Ejectment |
Service is handled by the sheriff under G.S. 42-29, and the section is prescriptive: the sheriff mails copies by the end of the next business day, must attempt telephone contact, and must make at least one visit within five days of issuance of the summons but at least two days before the appearance date; if personal service fails, the summons is posted conspicuously. The appearance date is not to exceed seven days from issuance under G.S. 42-28.
Tender defeats the action outright. Under G.S. 42-33, if the tenant pays or tenders the rent due and the costs of the action, “all further proceedings in such action shall cease.” Note both limbs — rent alone is not enough, the costs must be covered too. It is worth knowing which way that cuts before you file: a tenant who can find the arrears plus costs on the courthouse steps ends the case.
On costs, the current Civil Court Costs Chart effective 1 January 2026 puts the magistrate total at ninety-six dollars — eighty dollars general court of justice fee, twelve dollars facilities, four dollars telecommunications — plus thirty dollars sheriff service per item or party, so a typical one-defendant eviction is about one hundred twenty-six dollars.
Small claims jurisdiction is capped at ten thousand dollars in controversy under G.S. 7A-210(1), a figure last changed in 2013 — any source claiming a recent increase is wrong. Assignment to a magistrate under G.S. 7A-211 is discretionary (“may”), and the defendant must be a county resident, so summary ejectment is not automatically a magistrate matter regardless of amount.
Which North Carolina Form Do I Need?
- The tenant has not paid rent. Make the G.S. 42-3 demand for all past-due rent and give ten days. You do not need a forfeiture clause in the lease.
- The arrears are water, sewer or electric service. Those cannot ground a termination under G.S. 42-26(b).
- The tenant has breached the lease in another way. Check what your lease says — the statute supplies no cure period.
- The term has expired and the tenant is holding over. Make the demand for surrender the statute contemplates and file.
- Nobody is at fault and the tenancy should end. Seven days for month-to-month, two for week-to-week, a month or more for year-to-year.
- It is a manufactured-home space or community. Sixty days, or one hundred eighty for a conversion.
- You need to get into the property. Follow the lease. There is no statutory period.
- The tenant has moved out. Thirty days for the itemisation and balance; interim at thirty and final at sixty if damages cannot yet be determined.
- The notice period has run. File AOC-CVM-201 with AOC-CVM-100 and expect an appearance date within seven days of issuance.
How to Fill Out a North Carolina Ten-Day Demand
- Confirm the arrears are rent, not utilities. Water, sewer and electric arrears are carved out by G.S. 42-26(b).
- Demand ALL past-due rent. Section 42-3 is framed around the whole arrears, not a selected month.
- Name every tenant on the lease and identify the premises exactly as the lease does.
- State the figure and the period it covers.
- Give ten days and state the end date rather than leaving the tenant to count.
- Do not rely on a forfeiture clause — you do not need one, and citing a clause you do not have is worse than citing the statute.
- Check your late fee before adding it. Five days late minimum, one fee per late payment, and the greater of fifteen dollars or five per cent.
- Date it, sign it, and record delivery.
What Happens If the Form Is Wrong
The distinctively North Carolina risk is not a miscounted notice period — it is charging a fee the statute does not permit. Section 42-46 declares any administrative fee outside its list contrary to public policy, and it allows only one of the three eviction-related fees per complaint. A lease that stacks a filing fee, an appearance fee and a processing charge is not merely unenforceable on those terms; it is asserting something the statute has expressly disapproved.
The second is the deposit trust account. The penalty under G.S. 42-55 is a forfeiture of the right to retain anything, and it is triggered by wilful non-compliance with the account or notice requirements rather than by any dispute about damage.
As everywhere, a notice that lengthens a period or gives the tenant more information than required creates no problem for the landlord. Given that month-to-month notice is only seven days, over-noticing in North Carolina is cheap insurance.
What This Page Does Not Have
We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. North Carolina landlords also commonly want a rental application, a sublease or assignment agreement, a rent receipt, and an abandoned-property notice. Those are not yet published as North Carolina-specific forms. Landlords working through a real-estate agent will also encounter the North Carolina Association of Realtors numbered form set, which is a private publisher’s product and separate from both our forms and the AOC’s.
We have also declined to state a few things we could not verify: whether the G.S. 42-14 periods can be varied by a written lease; any day count for the holdover and desertion grounds; whether the Rules of Civil Procedure add days to the ten-day demand when it is mailed (Chapter 42 itself contains no add-days rule); and the text of G.S. 42-46(i)(4), which the General Assembly’s own PDF prints garbled.
Common North Carolina Landlord Form Mistakes
- Publishing or relying on a twenty-four-hour entry rule. North Carolina has no entry statute.
- Assuming a statutory cure period for a lease breach. There is none; the lease supplies it.
- Using thirty days to end a month-to-month tenancy. It is seven.
- Evicting over water, sewer or electric arrears. Expressly carved out.
- Taking a flat two months’ deposit on a month-to-month tenancy. The cap there is one and a half.
- Holding the deposit outside a trust account or failing to give the institution’s name within thirty days.
- Treating the sixty days as an extension. The interim accounting at thirty days is still required.
- Charging more than one of the three eviction-related fees per complaint.
- Adding administrative or processing fees beyond the statutory list. Contrary to public policy.
- Charging a late fee before rent is five days late, or more than once per late payment.
- Assuming small claims has risen above ten thousand dollars. It has not since 2013.
Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid North Carolina Form Sites
North Carolina’s search results are unusually crowded with subscription template sites, several of them behind access walls. The deepest freely readable competitor is a lease-form page carrying a genuinely rich state-law block. What none of them does is pair a per-form index with the AOC form numbers and the fee rules that were rewritten four times in two years.
That currency point matters more than depth on this query. A page describing North Carolina landlord fees from a pre-2025 source will omit the renters-insurance subsection entirely and may state attorneys’ fees without the fifteen per cent cap. Every figure here was read from the General Assembly’s own HTML with the amendment history checked.
Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial, and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.
North Carolina Landlord Forms: FAQ
How many days is a North Carolina notice to pay rent or quit?
Ten days after demand for all past-due rent, under G.S. 42-3. Forfeiture is implied in every lease with a fixed rent date, so the landlord need not have declared a forfeiture or reserved a right of re-entry in the lease.
How much notice must a North Carolina landlord give before entering?
There is no statutory entry provision in North Carolina at all. Chapter 42 contains no entry, access or viewing section. The commonly published claim that twenty-four hours is the practical standard applied in North Carolina courts has no statutory basis and no cited authority. Entry is governed by the lease.
What is the North Carolina cure period for a lease violation?
There is none in statute. G.S. 42-26(a)(2) makes the ground an act or omission by which, according to the stipulations of the lease, the tenant’s estate has ceased — so the cure terms come from the lease. Any published “X-day North Carolina cure notice” is describing a lease term.
How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in North Carolina?
Seven days under G.S. 42-14 — one of the shortest in the country. Week-to-week is two days and year-to-year is a month or more before the end of the current year. A manufactured-home space takes at least sixty days, and a community conversion one hundred eighty.
What is the North Carolina security deposit cap?
It is tiered by tenancy length under G.S. 42-51(b): two weeks’ rent for week-to-week, one and a half months’ rent for month-to-month, and two months’ rent for anything longer.
Where must a North Carolina landlord hold a security deposit?
In a trust account with a licensed federally insured depository institution or a trust institution authorised in North Carolina, or the landlord may furnish a bond from an insurer licensed in the state, under G.S. 42-50. The tenant must be told the institution’s name and address, or the bonding insurer’s name, within thirty days of the lease commencing.
How long does a North Carolina landlord have to return a deposit?
A written itemisation plus the balance must be mailed or delivered no later than thirty days after termination under G.S. 42-52. If the damages cannot be determined in that time, the landlord provides an interim accounting at thirty days and a final accounting within sixty.
Can a North Carolina landlord charge a pet fee?
Yes. G.S. 42-53 permits a reasonable, nonrefundable pet fee with no statutory cap. Because it is nonrefundable it sits outside the security deposit accounting.
What late fee can a North Carolina landlord charge?
For monthly rent, the greater of fifteen dollars or five per cent; for weekly rent, the greater of four dollars or five per cent. It may be charged only if the rent is five calendar days or more late, and only one fee per late payment, under G.S. 42-46(a),(b).
What other fees can a North Carolina landlord charge?
Three eviction-related fees exist — a complaint-filing fee of the greater of fifteen dollars or five per cent of monthly rent, a court-appearance fee of ten per cent, and a second trial fee of up to twelve per cent — but the landlord may charge and retain only one of the three per complaint. Any other administrative fee is expressly contrary to public policy under G.S. 42-46(h).
What forms are used for a North Carolina eviction?
AOC-CVM-201 Complaint in Summary Ejectment with AOC-CVM-100 Magistrate Summons; judgment on AOC-CVM-401; appeal on AOC-CVM-303 with bond AOC-CVM-304; and the writ on AOC-CV-401. The appearance date is not to exceed seven days from issuance of the summons.
Can a North Carolina tenant stop an eviction by paying?
Yes. Under G.S. 42-33, if the tenant pays or tenders the rent due and the costs of the action, all further proceedings in the action shall cease. Rent alone is not sufficient — the costs must be covered as well.
Related North Carolina Guides
- North Carolina landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
- North Carolina eviction notice laws — the ten-day demand and summary ejectment.
- North Carolina security deposit laws — the tiered caps and trust accounts.
- North Carolina lease termination laws — the seven-day rule and its siblings.
- North Carolina breaking lease laws — early termination and mitigation.
- North Carolina rent increase laws — why North Carolina has no rent control.
- North Carolina late fee laws — the four fees and the one-fee rule.
- North Carolina landlord entry laws — why there is no statute.
- North Carolina habitability laws — the landlord’s repairing duties.
- North Carolina pet and ESA laws — pet fees and assistance animals.
- North Carolina tenant screening laws — background checks and adverse action.
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team
Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. For this page we read Chapter 42 in the General Assembly’s own HTML and checked the amendment history on every section — which is how we can say that G.S. 42-46 was amended four times in 2024 and 2025, and why we do not repeat the twenty-four-hour entry rule that much of this search result asserts for a state with no entry statute at all.
Screen North Carolina Applicants Before They Sign
Most North Carolina landlord-tenant disputes trace back to a tenant a thorough screening would have flagged. Order FCRA-ready credit, criminal and eviction reports and start every tenancy on solid ground.
Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about North Carolina landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. G.S. 42-46 was amended four times across 2024 and 2025, two of those retroactively, and court costs are revised annually. Confirm the current requirements with the clerk of court in your county or with a North Carolina attorney before you serve a demand or file a case.
