Free North Dakota Notice to Enter

This North Dakota Notice to Enter gives a tenant clear written notice before the landlord enters the rental unit. Under N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-07.3, the landlord must give reasonable notice naming a time certain and enter only at reasonable hours – there is no fixed hour figure; a landlord may enter anytime in an emergency. See our tenant screening laws by state hub and how to screen tenants guide to keep your North Dakota tenancies documented from the start.

Complete the fields below to generate a North Dakota Notice to Enter. N.D. Cent. Code 47-16-07.3 requires reasonable notice naming a time certain – there is no fixed hour figure – and entry only at reasonable hours. Name the exact day and time, state the purpose, list who will enter, and record how the notice is delivered.

Watch: North Dakota Notice to Enter explained

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North Dakota is one of the states that puts landlord entry in statute. N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-07.3 sets out when a landlord may enter an apartment, and its hook is distinctive: it does not name a number of hours. Instead, for any routine entry, it requires the landlord to give notice and obtain the tenant’s consent identifying a time certain – consent that the tenant may not unreasonably withhold – and to enter only at reasonable hours and in a reasonable manner. The lawful trigger is a specific agreed time, not a generic notice window, so a North Dakota notice should always name the exact day and time the landlord intends to enter.

The same provision pairs that access right with a second command that matters just as much: a landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass or intimidate the tenant. So the statute does two things at once. It grants the landlord a right of access for legitimate purposes on proper notice, and it caps that right by forbidding its abuse. Giving formally correct notice does not license an entry that is, in substance, harassment, and a landlord who enters repeatedly or at provocative times can violate the access duty even while technically announcing each visit.

The statute carries clear no-notice exceptions. A landlord may enter at any time in case of emergency – a fire, a flood, a gas leak, or another immediate threat to the property or its occupants. Entry is also allowed when the landlord reasonably believes the tenant has abandoned the premises, or reasonably believes the tenant is in substantial violation of the lease or rental agreement. Outside those situations, the reasonable-notice-and-consent structure governs. For every routine entry, this form gives the tenant clear written notice that names a time certain and leaves you a dated record that you provided it. The sections that follow walk through the purposes that justify entry, the timing that keeps an entry reasonable, how the emergency and abandonment exceptions work, what the lease can and cannot do, and – most important for a landlord managing risk – exactly what remedies a North Dakota tenant has when entry goes wrong.

N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-07.3(2) frames routine entry around an enumerated list of legitimate landlord functions, and that list is the practical guide to what counts as a proper reason to be in the unit. The statute authorizes entry, at reasonable hours and in a reasonable manner, for inspecting the premises; for making necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements; for supplying necessary or agreed services; and for exhibiting the dwelling unit to actual or potential purchasers, insurers, mortgagees, real estate agents, tenants, workmen, or contractors. The unifying test is the same one the no-abuse clause implies: the landlord must have a real, property-management reason to be inside, not a pretext for checking up on or pressuring the tenant.

Repairs and maintenance are the most common reason a landlord needs access – responding to a tenant’s repair request, performing scheduled upkeep, and addressing conditions the landlord is obligated to fix under the maintenance duty in § 47-16-13.1. Inspections – annual condition checks, move-out walkthroughs, and pre-renewal assessments – are equally routine, and a clear notice describing the inspection keeps it from feeling intrusive. Supplying agreed services covers utility work, pest control, and servicing of heating, cooling, and safety systems the landlord must maintain.

Showings are a frequent flashpoint, and North Dakota’s statute is unusually specific about who may be exhibited the unit: § 47-16-07.3(2) names actual or potential purchasers, insurers, mortgagees, real estate agents, tenants, workmen, or contractors. That breadth covers the end-of-lease re-rental showing, the for-sale showing to a buyer, and the access an insurer, mortgagee, or appraiser needs during a refinance or claim. Each is a legitimate purpose the legislature expressly blessed, but each also brings strangers into the tenant’s home, so generous notice of a time certain and reasonable scheduling matter most here.

Because showings cluster and involve outsiders, they are where the no-abuse limit and the “reasonable manner” requirement do their hardest work. A landlord marketing a unit should group showings into defined windows rather than scattering them across a tenant’s week, give the tenant as much lead time as the schedule allows, and offer a way to reschedule around the tenant’s commitments. A flurry of poorly-noticed showings can itself become an abuse of access even though no single visit broke a fixed rule – North Dakota has no fixed rule to break, so the reasonableness of the whole pattern is what a court would weigh. Across all of these purposes, the form lets the landlord state the exact reason, describe the work, and list everyone who will enter, which is the single most effective way to turn a potentially contested entry into a routine, documented visit.

It is worth being explicit about what is not a legitimate purpose, because that is where the no-abuse, no-harass, no-intimidate clause of § 47-16-07.3(2) bites. Entering to check whether the tenant is keeping the unit “well enough” without any maintenance reason, to look for lease violations on a hunch, to confront a tenant over a dispute, or simply to remind a tenant who is in control of the property are not property-management purposes; they are the kind of pretextual entries that look like harassment and that a court will treat as an abuse of access. The discipline of writing the purpose down on a notice is itself a useful filter: if a landlord cannot articulate a concrete, legitimate reason on paper, that is a strong signal the entry should not happen at all.

Because North Dakota sets no hour count, the words that do the real work are reasonable hours, reasonable manner, and a time certain the tenant consents to. A landlord who gives notice naming a specific time a