Tennessee Residential Lease Agreement

What a Tennessee lease must include

Standard lease elements

• Parties and the Tennessee county + street address of the rental.
• Lease term — fixed end date or a periodic (month-to-month) tenancy.
• Monthly rent amount, due date, and accepted payment methods.
• Security deposit amount (no statutory cap; URLTA separate-account requirement in URLTA counties).
• Utilities — which the landlord covers and which the tenant pays.
• Occupancy rules, pets, smoking, and entry procedures.
• Default, 14-day cure for noncompliance under URLTA § 66-28-501, and 30-day periodic-tenancy termination language.
• URLTA-applicability framework + the 30-day post-move-out damage-discovery deadline.
• Fire/casualty insurance disclaimer (verbatim statutory language).
• Signatures of all parties.

Tennessee-required disclosures

• Federal lead-paint disclosure and EPA pamphlet for any unit built before 1978. (42 U.S.C. § 4852d; 24 C.F.R. Part 35)
• Fire/casualty insurance disclaimer — landlord's fire or casualty insurance does not cover tenant's personal property; verbatim statutory language required in URLTA leases. (Tenn. Code § 66-28-201(a))
• Owner / agent identification — name and address of landlord (or authorized agent) in the lease body. (Tenn. Code § 66-28-302)

Tennessee-specific workflow

• URLTA applies only in counties with population >75,000 under the 2010 census (Davidson, Shelby, Knox, Hamilton, Rutherford). Tenn. Code § 66-28-102.
• No statutory deposit cap; in URLTA counties the deposit must be held in a separate account and the tenant notified of the account's location. Tenn. Code § 66-28-301(a), (h).
• Post-move-out damages must be discovered before the earlier of 30 days after vacating or 7 days after a new tenant takes possession. Tenn. Code § 66-28-301(g).
• Mandatory 5-day rent grace before late fees may be charged (URLTA). Tenn. Code § 66-28-201(d).
• Late fees capped at 10% of past-due rent (URLTA). Tenn. Code § 66-28-201(d).
• 14-day cure for general noncompliance (URLTA). Tenn. Code § 66-28-501; § 66-28-505.
• Essential-services failure remedy: substitute services + deduct, or substitute housing. Tenn. Code § 66-28-502.
• 24-hour entry notice for final-30-days showings (URLTA, when lease grants right). Tenn. Code § 66-28-403.
• 30-day periodic-tenancy termination floor.
• Self-help eviction prohibited; tenant has cause of action for damages + fees. Tenn. Code § 66-28-504.
• Statewide rent-control preemption: cities cannot impose rent control on private residential property. Tenn. Code § 66-35-102(a).

Tennessee — Landlord and Tenant Information

How a Tennessee lease is structured

1. The document opens with parties, the Tennessee county, and the rental-property address.
2. The property-location subphase surfaces the URLTA-applicability framework + the rent-control preemption + the Tennessee Human Rights Act non-discrimination + a single combined major-city overlay informational callout for Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Murfreesboro.
3. The term section identifies the arrangement as fixed-term with an end date or as a periodic tenancy with the 30-day termination floor.
4. The rent section sets the monthly amount, due date, accepted payment methods, and surfaces the URLTA 5-day grace floor + 10% statutory late-fee cap (§ 66-28-201(d)).
5. The security-deposit section captures the deposit amount and renders the no-statutory-cap framing, the URLTA separate-account requirement, the 30-day post-move-out damage-discovery deadline, and the warranty of habitability.
6. A dedicated Tennessee-disclosures subphase informs the user that the lease will automatically include the fire/casualty insurance disclaimer (§ 66-28-201(a)) and the owner-identification clause (§ 66-28-302).
7. The document closes with the URLTA 14-day cure for noncompliance, the essential-services failure remedy, the SCRA service-member protections, the self-help-eviction prohibition, the statutory attorney's-fees clause, and the Tennessee Human Rights Act non-discrimination clause — followed by signatures.

BuildMyLease assembles all of this for you in a guided interview.

Free Tennessee lease template vs BuildMyLease

Free Tennessee lease templates are everywhere, but most miss the URLTA county-applicability framework entirely, omit the fire/casualty insurance disclaimer that § 66-28-201(a) requires verbatim, and get the 5-day grace + 10% cap wrong. Here is the honest side-by-side.

Who this is for

This is for

• Tennessee landlords managing 1–25 private-market units (single-family, condo, small multi-family).
• Owners renting in URLTA counties (Davidson, Shelby, Knox, Hamilton, Rutherford) who want the URLTA framework rendered automatically.
• Owners renting in non-URLTA counties who want a contractually-strong default that follows the URLTA pattern even where statute does not require it.
• Landlords issuing a new fixed-term lease OR a periodic tenancy that needs the 30-day termination floor.

This isn't for

• Mobile-home park tenancies (separate Tennessee statutory regime).
• Section 8 / federally subsidized tenancies — those carry separate HAP-contract requirements that this document does not encode.
• Properties subject to specific local ordinances (Nashville Metro Code in particular has additional rental-licensing rules) — counsel review recommended for the specific overlay.
• Ongoing detainer proceedings — those require court forms, not a lease.
• Commercial leases.