5 Things a Tennessee Landlord Has to Pay For That Renters Often Cover Anyway

If you rent a house or duplex in Tennessee, your landlord has to install the smoke alarm, not you.

In some counties, state law puts even more costs on the landlord.

Here’s what a Tennessee landlord has to pay for that renters often cover anyway.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Rental rules and county coverage are subject to change.

1. Repairs

Your landlord has to make whatever repairs keep your home in a fit and habitable condition.

The landlord also has to comply with building and housing codes that affect health and safety.

The Tennessee Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act sets those duties.

It applies only in counties with more than 75,000 people.

Many renters pay for a repair themselves.

That’s often the landlord’s bill.

If your landlord ignores a repair, you can give 14 days’ written notice and then seek damages, a court order, and reasonable attorney’s fees.

2. Smoke Alarms

Your landlord has to install an approved smoke alarm in each living unit of a rented house or duplex.

Apartment buildings with three or more units are covered by a similar rule if they were standing before 2016.

Keeping the alarm working is your job under the manufacturer’s instructions.

Once a tenancy ends, though, the landlord has to make sure the alarm works before anyone else moves in.

A lot of renters buy an alarm before they ever ask their landlord.

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance says landlords must provide a working smoke alarm in one- and two-family dwellings.

That rule sits in the state’s fire-prevention code, not the landlord-tenant act.

So every county is covered.

3. Essential Services

In the counties the act covers, a landlord who deliberately or negligently fails to supply gas, heat, or electricity can end up footing the bill.

The act calls them essential services, and the term also covers other landlord duties that materially affect your health and safety.

You have to give your landlord written notice that describes the problem.

After that, you can arrange the service and deduct the actual and reasonable costs from your rent.

When the services stay off, you can rent reasonable substitute housing and recover the value of that housing.

You owe no rent meanwhile.

These remedies don’t cover a problem that you, your family, or a guest caused.

4. Garbage Receptacles

In the counties the act covers, a landlord with a complex of four or more units has to provide and maintain receptacles for your garbage.

The same duty covers ashes, rubbish, and other waste.

The act makes tenants dispose of their waste at the designated collection areas.

That part is your job.

5. Common Areas

In the counties the act covers, your landlord has to keep all common areas of the building clean and safe.

The act's definition of premises includes grounds, areas, and facilities held out for the use of tenants generally.

The 14-day notice remedy applies to this duty too.

Attorney's fees are included.

If you've been sweeping the stairs for the whole building, you may be doing your landlord's job.

Leases That Shift Repairs

Your landlord can ask you to take on named repairs, but only if you agree in writing.

Remodeling counts too.

The deal has to be made in good faith, and it can't exist to dodge the landlord's duties.

And the landlord can't treat that separate agreement as a condition of any obligation under your rental agreement.

A lease also can't make you waive your rights or remedies under the act.

In a covered county, your landlord has to provide fit and habitable premises no matter what the lease states.

Lockouts and Willful Cutoffs

If your landlord unlawfully removes or excludes you, or willfully interrupts essential services, you can recover possession or end the rental agreement.

Either way, you can recover your actual damages and a reasonable attorney's fee.

Punitive damages are possible too.

If you end the rental agreement, the landlord has to return all prepaid rent and security deposits.

Fire or Casualty Damage

If fire or another casualty leaves your rental substantially impaired, you can move out right away.

You then have 14 days to tell your landlord in writing that you're ending the rental agreement.

Prepaid rent comes back.

The landlord also has to return any security deposit the act makes recoverable.

Counties Outside the Act

If you rent outside the covered counties, your lease should spell out each side's rights and duties, according to UT Extension.

If the lease says nothing, you'll need to negotiate as fair an arrangement with your landlord as you can.

Notice to Your Landlord

The written notice behind these remedies has to go to your landlord's last known or designated address in the lease.

A landlord can email the notices the act requires if you put an email address in your rental agreement, and the landlord can't make you provide an email address.

Notices that the act requires in another form don't qualify.

Retaliation Limits

A landlord can't raise your rent, cut your services, or file or threaten an eviction because you used a remedy the act provides.

A landlord can still go to court if you're behind on rent.