8 Things a Tennessee Landlord Can’t Legally Do to Renters in 2026
When a problem comes up with your landlord, it helps to know where the line is.
Tennessee law puts some clear limits on what a landlord can do, though they apply only in certain counties.
Here’s what a landlord can’t do to you, and where those protections reach.
Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Rental rules and deadlines are subject to change.
1. Locking You Out
Your landlord can’t change the locks to push you out of your home.
Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-504 gives you a remedy when a landlord unlawfully removes you or excludes you from the premises.
You can recover possession or end the rental agreement.
Either way, you can also recover your actual damages, punitive damages when they’re appropriate, and a reasonable attorney’s fee.
If you end the lease, your landlord has to return all prepaid rent and your security deposit.
A lease can’t change that.
2. Retaliating After a Complaint
A landlord can’t raise your rent, cut your services, or file for possession of your home because you complained about a violation.
The same goes for using a remedy the act gives you, and § 66-28-514 bars both kinds of retaliation.
Even a threat counts.
The section makes exceptions, including a tenant who is in default on rent and a code violation caused mainly by the tenant’s lack of reasonable care.
So if you’re behind on rent, a complaint won’t stop a landlord from bringing an action for possession.
3. Interrupting Your Utilities
What if your landlord shuts off a utility that your rental agreement promises?
Section 66-28-504 treats a willful interruption of essential services the same way it treats a lockout, with the same remedies for you.
Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-502 goes further when a landlord deliberately or negligently fails to supply essential services.
The law defines essential services as utility services, including gas, heat and electricity, plus other landlord duties that materially affect your health and safety.
Written notice comes first.
After that, you can pay for the service yourself and deduct the actual, reasonable cost from your rent.
Another option is to stay put and claim damages for the drop in your home’s rental value.
Or you can rent substitute housing and owe no rent for that stretch.
4. Entering Without Your Consent
A landlord has no right to enter your home except in a short list of cases.
Having a key doesn’t change that.
Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-403 names them, among them a court order, an emergency, an abandoned or surrendered home, and a tenant who is deceased, incapacitated or incarcerated.
The law defines an emergency as “a sudden, generally unexpected occurrence or set of circumstances demanding immediate action.”
You can’t unreasonably withhold consent when your landlord wants to inspect or make repairs.
In the final 30 days of your lease, a landlord can show your home to prospective tenants if your rental agreement allows it.
For those showings, you also have to get at least 24 hours’ notice.
No landlord can use access to harass you, either.
Access has limits.
Psst! How much do you know about your rights as a renter? Flip each card and see how many you can get right.
5. Mixing Your Deposit With Other Money
A landlord who collects a security deposit has to put it in an account used only for that purpose.
That requirement comes from Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-301.
The account has to sit at a bank or lender regulated by the state or federal government.
A damage listing is the landlord’s list of any damage behind a charge against your deposit, with the estimated repair cost.
A landlord who skips both the separate account and the damage listing can’t keep any part of your deposit.
That’s every dollar of it.
6. Overcharging Late Fees
Can a landlord charge a late fee the very next day?
No.
Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-201(d) sets a five-day grace period that starts on your rent’s due date.
Once the fee is allowed, it can’t top 10% of the rent that’s past due.
The cap covers any charge or fee tied to late rent, however the lease describes it.
Renaming it doesn’t help.
The Math Behind a Landlord’s Late Fee
A landlord’s late fee is based on the rent that’s past due, which isn’t always the full month.
If you owe the full $1,200, the most a landlord can charge is $120.
If you paid $800 and still owe $400, the cap drops to $40.
The day your rent is due counts as day one of the grace period, so rent due on the 1st can be paid through the 5th with no fee.
If the fifth day lands on a Sunday or legal holiday, a landlord can’t charge a late fee as long as you pay by the next business day.
7. Writing Waivers Into Your Lease
A landlord can’t put a clause in your lease that waives your rights or remedies under the act.
Signing doesn’t change that.
That limit comes from Section 66-28-201(a).
The act makes one exception.
A written lease can waive the notice a landlord would give before filing a detainer warrant over unpaid rent.
The waiver has to appear in the lease in 12-point bold type or larger.
That waiver doesn’t cut your five-day grace period.
8. Refusing Health and Safety Repairs
A landlord can’t ignore building and housing codes that materially affect your health and safety.
Section 66-28-304 also requires a landlord to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to keep your home fit and habitable.
A landlord also has to keep common areas clean and safe.
After you give 14 days‘ written notice, you can recover damages, obtain a court order, and recover reasonable attorney’s fees.
Written notice starts the clock.
If you use the essential-services remedy in § 66-28-502 for a breach, you can’t also use § 66-28-501 for that same breach.
Psst! How much do you know about renter rules? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Renter Rights IQ
Answer these questions on deposits, inspections, and lease notices. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Under the act, how is a tenant’s false claim of a disability-related need for a service animal or support animal treated?
Where the Act Applies
The landlord limits above apply only where the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act does.
Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-102 sets the cutoff at more than 75,000 residents in the 2010 federal census.
Davidson County had 626,681 people in that census, Shelby County had 927,644, Knox County had 432,226, and Hamilton County had 336,463.
The 2010 count is the one that matters, so a county's growth since then doesn't change your coverage.
Anderson County had 75,129 people in 2010, just 129 above the cutoff.
That's a thin margin.
If your county came in under 75,000 in 2010, this act doesn't apply where you rent.
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