Landlord Atlas

What does Tennessee law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 29, 2026 All Tennessee topics →

Tennessee's habitability law reaches only part of the state, because the landlord-tenant act applies solely in counties with a population of more than 75,000 by the 2010 federal census.

Cited to T.C.A. § 66-28-102 (application of the chapter; county population threshold; preemption) (a), (e) and 10 more cited sources · Verified August 29, 2026

That is 17 of Tennessee's 95 counties and about 64 percent of its people. Inside them the landlord must comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety and must make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises fit and habitable — a duty unchanged since 1975, and one that names no heating, plumbing, electrical, water or hot-water standard of its own. A tenant there gives 14 days' written notice and may then recover damages, obtain an injunction and recover reasonable attorney's fees; for a deliberate or negligent failure to supply essential services the tenant may act at once on written notice, procuring the service and deducting the actual and reasonable cost with no ceiling, recovering the drop in fair rental value while still living there, or taking substitute housing rent-free. Tennessee gives tenants no right to withhold rent and no escrow, and its retaliation section carries no presumption and no time window. Rights under the chapter cannot be waived. In the other 78 counties none of this applies: there is no statutory repair duty, Tennessee has never recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a lease, and a tenant is left with a statewide right to surrender a building that has become untenantable — which a written lease clause can take away.

Tennessee habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from Depends on where in the state — see the coverage rules on this page
Duty source details Where Tennessee has a habitability duty, it is statutory. In the counties chapter 66-28 covers, T.C.A. § 66-28-304 requires the landlord to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety and to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition. Outside those counties there is no statutory duty and no substitute for it: Tennessee courts have never recognized an implied warranty of habitability in a residential lease, and the Court of Appeals twice declined to extend the state's construction-and-sale warranty, in Hays v. Gilliam (1983) and Winn v. Welch Farm (2011). The rule there remains the one the Tennessee Supreme Court stated in Hines v. Willcox (1896) — caveat emptor, softened only by a duty to make premises safe before letting them or to disclose dangers the landlord knows or should know about.
Who is covered Chapter 66-28 applies only in counties having a population of more than 75,000 according to the 2010 federal census. On the Census Bureau's published 2010 counts that is 17 of Tennessee's 95 counties — Shelby, Davidson, Knox, Hamilton, Rutherford, Williamson, Montgomery, Sumner, Sullivan, Blount, Washington, Wilson, Bradley, Madison, Sevier, Maury and Anderson — holding about 64 percent of the state's people. In the other 78 counties none of what follows applies: no repair duty, no 14-day notice remedy, no procure-and-deduct right for essential services, no retaliation bar and no anti-waiver protection. A tenant there has two things only. One is T.C.A. § 66-7-102, which applies statewide and lets a tenant surrender a building destroyed or so injured by the elements or any other cause as to be untenantable and unfit for occupancy, without liability for rent after the surrender, if the tenant was not at fault — a right an express written agreement to the contrary defeats. The other is the pre-letting disclosure duty of Hines v. Willcox, which sounds in tort and yields damages for injury rather than any relief from rent. The chapter also reaches only rental agreements entered into, extended or renewed after July 1, 1975, and it does not govern residence at an institution incidental to detention or care, occupancy under a contract of sale, transient hotel and motel lodging, condominium owners and cooperative proprietary lessees, primarily agricultural tenancies, or public housing to the extent federal regulation conflicts with state law. The switch is a population threshold written into the act's own first subsection, and it is pinned to the 2010 federal census — not to the 2020 census and not to current population. A reader finds their side of it by county, not by city or town: the question is the 2010 census count for the county the property sits in. The list does not move as people move; only the General Assembly can change it by amending the threshold, and a 2021 amendment touched that very section and left the 2010 pin standing. Tennessee publishes no county list of its own, so the counties named above are the ones that meet the threshold on the 2010 federal census figures the statute points to. Two margins are worth knowing: Anderson County, the smallest county inside, clears 75,000 by 129 people on the 2010 count, and Putnam County, at 72,321 in 2010 and about 80,000 in 2020, is the single county that sources using the wrong census wrongly place inside.
Where the repair standards live More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair Inside the covered counties the statute states a short general standard and then borrows the rest from local codes. The landlord must comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition; keep all common areas of the premises in a clean and safe condition; and, in multi-unit complexes of four or more units, provide and maintain appropriate receptacles and conveniences for removing ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste from common points of collection. That is the entire list. The uniform act's paragraph requiring electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning facilities and appliances to be kept in good and safe working order was never enacted in Tennessee, and neither was its paragraph requiring running water, reasonable amounts of hot water and reasonable heat. Those reach a Tennessee tenant only through the general fit-and-habitable phrase or through a local code — and the chapter defines building and housing codes broadly enough to take in any law, ordinance or governmental regulation concerning fitness for habitation, with the code duty controlling wherever it is greater than the others. The section has not been amended since it was enacted in 1975.
Heat standard type No heat-specific standard beyond the general duty
Heat standard details No heat-specific figures or season stated
Headline repair day count 14 days
Notice and repair-window rules Fourteen days is a tenant's notice period, not a landlord's deadline to repair. Under T.C.A. § 66-28-501(a) the tenant may recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney's fees for any noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or with any section of the chapter, upon giving 14 days' written notice. The chapter states no period within which the landlord must begin or finish a repair, and it states no habitability termination clock: the next subsection refers to a rental agreement terminated for noncompliance after sufficient notice without ever defining that right, its trigger or its length. The essential-services route runs on a different and faster footing — written notice, and then the tenant may elect a remedy immediately, with no waiting period at all. All of this applies only in the counties the chapter covers.
Repair and deduct Only for essential-service failures, not general repairs — Limit: No cap of any kind applies to the essential-services deduction. The statute allows the actual and reasonable costs of procuring the services, with no dollar limit, no per-period ceiling, no frequency limit, no receipt requirement, no contractor requirement and no advance approval. — Tennessee has no general repair-and-deduct remedy: no statute authorizes a tenant to fix an ordinary condition and take the cost out of the rent, and no decision supplies one. What exists is narrower and sits in T.C.A. § 66-28-502. Where the landlord deliberately or negligently fails to supply essential services, the tenant gives written notice specifying the breach and may then procure those services during the period of noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable costs from the rent. Three conditions travel with it. The failure must be deliberate or negligent, so an outage the landlord did not cause does not trigger the section on its text. The rights do not arise until the written notice is given and the tenant has shown the condition was not caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a member of the tenant's family, or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent. And the election is strict: a tenant who proceeds under this section may not also proceed under the 14-day-notice section or the fire-and-casualty section as to that breach. Outside the covered counties none of this exists.
Rent withholding or escrow No — no statute or decision provides a path — No Tennessee statute authorizes a tenant to withhold rent over the condition of the premises, and the chapter provides no escrow account and no rent-into-court procedure — this is a silence rather than an express bar. A tenant who simply stops paying is in default in rent, which is one of the three grounds on which a landlord may bring a possession action notwithstanding the retaliation section, with no gate on the amount or the duration of the default. The lawful money remedies are the ones the chapter names: damages, injunctive relief and reasonable attorney's fees on 14 days' written notice; and, for essential services, procuring the service and deducting the cost, damages measured by the diminution in the fair rental value of the unit while the tenant continues to occupy it, or reasonable substitute housing with rent excused for the period. Outside the covered counties there is no statutory money remedy at all.
Termination over habitability failures Only on conditions materially narrower than the general repair duty — Tennessee states no general habitability termination right — the noncompliance section refers to a lease terminated for noncompliance without defining the right. The one stated termination is for fire or casualty, and it carries a precondition most descriptions leave out. Where the dwelling unit or premises are damaged or destroyed by fire or casualty to an extent that the use of the unit is substantially impaired, the tenant may immediately vacate and must notify the landlord in writing within 14 days afterwards of the intention to terminate, in which case the agreement ends as of the date of vacating; where restoring the premises requires the tenant to move out, the landlord may terminate within 14 days of giving the tenant written notice. On termination the landlord returns all prepaid rent and recoverable deposits, and rent is accounted for as of the earlier of the return of the keys or the actual move-out. The precondition is in the definitions: substantially impaired means the dwelling unit or premises has been deemed unfit for human habitation by a governmental authority, so the right does not arise on the tenant's own assessment of the damage. Statewide, and this one does reach the counties outside the chapter, T.C.A. § 66-7-102 lets a tenant surrender a building destroyed or so injured as to be untenantable and unfit for occupancy, without liability for rent after the surrender, where the tenant was not at fault and the lease contains no written agreement to the contrary.
Essential-service remedies Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Essential-service failures get their own faster route in the covered counties. On written notice specifying the breach, and where the landlord's failure was deliberate or negligent, the tenant may elect one of three remedies immediately, with no waiting period: procure the essential services during the period of noncompliance and deduct their actual and reasonable costs from the rent; recover damages based on the diminution in the fair rental value of the dwelling unit, provided the tenant keeps occupying it; or procure reasonable substitute housing, in which case the tenant is excused from paying rent for the period of noncompliance and may also recover the actual and reasonable value of that housing. Reasonable attorney's fees are available in any case under the section. Choosing this route forecloses the 14-day-notice section and the fire-and-casualty section as to the same breach, and the chapter puts an obligation on the tenant to mitigate damages. The definition repays a careful read: essential services means utility services, including gas, heat and electricity, and any other obligations imposed on the landlord that materially affect the health and safety of the tenant. Water and sewer are not named in that enumeration, though they appear both in the chapter's separate definition of utilities and in its bar on a landlord interrupting electric, gas, water or other essential service, so a water or sewer failure has to run through the catch-all rather than through the list.
Retaliation protection Protected by a general retaliation statute — The section is a prohibition without machinery of its own, and it operates only in the covered counties. A landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, or bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession on the protected grounds. There is no rebuttable presumption and no lookback period anywhere in the chapter, so the tenant carries the burden of showing the landlord's purpose, and the section attaches no remedy of its own — a claim is routed through the 14-day-notice section's damages, injunctive relief and fees, or raised as a defense, since the chapter makes every right it declares enforceable by legal action. Three exceptions let the landlord bring a possession action anyway: the building or housing code violation was caused primarily by a lack of reasonable care by the tenant or another person in the tenant's household or on the premises with the tenant's consent; the tenant is in default in rent, with no gate on how much or how long; or compliance with the code requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the tenant of the use of the unit. Bringing such an action does not release the landlord from returning prepaid rent and deposits where the agreement was terminated for the landlord's noncompliance. Refusal to renew is not among the prohibited acts. — Two acts are protected, and the first is narrower than readers expect. The statute protects a tenant who has complained to the landlord of a violation under T.C.A. § 66-28-301 — and § 66-28-301 is the security-deposit section, not the maintenance section, which is § 66-28-304. A repair or habitability complaint therefore has to travel under the second limb, which protects a tenant who has made use of remedies provided under the chapter: on its face that means a tenant who has actually invoked one, such as by giving the 14-day written notice or an essential-services notice, rather than one who has only complained informally. The cross-reference has stood unamended since 1975 and no Tennessee decision construing it was located, so this is what the section says rather than how a court has applied it.
Damages, penalties, and defenses The chapter's money remedies, all confined to the covered counties, are damages, injunctive relief and reasonable attorney's fees on 14 days' written notice; and for essential services, procure-and-deduct, damages based on the diminution in fair rental value while the tenant remains in occupancy, or substitute housing with rent excused plus the actual and reasonable value of that housing, again with fees. A landlord who unlawfully removes or excludes the tenant, or willfully diminishes services by interrupting essential services provided for in the rental agreement, owes actual damages, punitive damages where appropriate and a reasonable attorney's fee, and the tenant may recover possession or terminate. There are no statutory multipliers and no civil penalties on the repair track. The tenant has an express obligation to mitigate damages. The landlord's stated answers are that the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the tenant, a family member or a person on the premises with the tenant's consent, which defeats the essential-services remedies outright, and the three exceptions to the retaliation bar. One provision that looks like a defense is not: a landlord who conveys the premises in a good faith sale to a bona fide purchaser is relieved of liability only as to events after written notice to the tenant of the conveyance and transfer of the deposit, which is a successor-liability rule and not an answer to conditions during that landlord's own ownership. Outside the covered counties the tenant's only recovery is tort damages for injury caused by an undisclosed latent danger the landlord knew of or should have known of.
Can the duty be waived or shifted Not waivable — any qualifier is stated on this page
Waiver and delegation rules Inside the covered counties waiver is barred outright: T.C.A. § 66-28-203(b) states that the tenant cannot agree to waive or forgo rights or remedies under the chapter, a prohibited provision included in an agreement is unenforceable, and a tenant may recover actual damages where a landlord willfully uses a rental agreement containing a provision the landlord knows the chapter prohibits. The chapter does let the landlord and tenant agree in writing that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling, but only where the transaction is entered into in good faith and not to evade the landlord's obligations, and the landlord may not treat performance of that separate agreement as a condition of any obligation under the rental agreement. Tennessee's version of that provision is wider than the uniform model's: it carries no limit to single-family dwellings, no separate-consideration requirement, and no carve-out shielding the code duty and the fit-and-habitable duty from being shifted, so the good-faith and anti-evasion standard is the only stated check and it has to be read together with the anti-waiver section. No Tennessee decision construing it was located. Outside the covered counties the position reverses completely: the one statutory condition-based right, the surrender right for a building rendered untenantable, applies only where no express written agreement to the contrary has been made, so a lease clause can remove it.
Leading court decisions Hines v. Willcox, 96 Tenn. 328 (1896) — Held that in the absence of a contract to repair or a warranty of condition both landlord and tenant must use reasonable care and diligence: a landlord who knows, or by reasonable care and diligence should know, that the premises are dangerous must make them safe before letting them or inform the tenant of their condition, and is otherwise liable in damages for resulting injury, while a tenant who neglects reasonable care or assumes a known risk cannot recover. The court twice disclaimed that this makes the landlord an insurer or warrantor of condition — the duty is discharged by disclosure, reaches only dangers not open to ordinary observation, is keyed to what the landlord knew when letting, and provides no rent remedy at all. • Hays v. Gilliam, 655 S.W.2d 158 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1983) — Declined to extend Tennessee's implied warranty of habitability beyond the setting the Supreme Court had given it, holding that the sale of a used six-apartment building fell squarely within caveat emptor and that broadening the exception is the province of the Supreme Court or the legislature. The court described the existing exception as running only to purchasers of newly built dwellings from builders, or of dwellings to be built by them. • Winn v. Welch Farm, LLC, No. M2010-02558-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 31, 2011) — Refused to adopt an implied warranty of suitability for residential construction for the buyer of unimproved real property, leaving Tennessee's implied-warranty line where earlier decisions had left it. It is the second occasion on which the Court of Appeals declined to widen the doctrine, and like the rest of that line it is a sale case rather than a lease case.
Local rules In the counties chapter 66-28 covers, the chapter says it occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants, and its operative prohibition is aimed at the governing body of a county subject to the chapter, which may not enact or enforce regulations that conflict with or are an addition to it. Whether that reaches a city ordinance in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville or Chattanooga is not settled by the text, which names counties, and no decision construing it was located, so the safest reading is the one the section actually states. Local codes are not shut out in any event: the landlord's first statutory duty is compliance with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, the chapter defines those codes broadly enough to include any local ordinance concerning fitness for habitation, and where that duty is greater than the chapter's other paragraphs it governs. In the 78 counties outside the chapter this preemption language does not apply.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Tennessee Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 29, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/tennessee/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Tennessee habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Tennessee have an implied warranty of habitability?
Depends on where in the state — see the coverage rules on this page. Where Tennessee has a habitability duty, it is statutory. In the counties chapter 66-28 covers, T.C.A. § 66-28-304 requires the landlord to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety and to make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Tennessee?
14 days. Fourteen days is a tenant's notice period, not a landlord's deadline to repair. Under T.C.A. § 66-28-501(a) the tenant may recover damages, obtain injunctive relief and recover reasonable attorney's fees for any noncompliance by the landlord with the rental agreement or with any section of the chapter, upon giving 14 days' written notice.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Tennessee?
Only for essential-service failures, not general repairs — Limit: No cap of any kind applies to the essential-services deduction. The statute allows the actual and reasonable costs of procuring the services, with no dollar limit, no per-period ceiling, no frequency limit, no receipt requirement, no contractor requirement and no advance approval. — Tennessee has no general repair-and-deduct remedy: no statute authorizes a tenant to fix an ordinary condition and take the cost out of the rent, and no decision supplies one.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Tennessee?
No — no statute or decision provides a path — No Tennessee statute authorizes a tenant to withhold rent over the condition of the premises, and the chapter provides no escrow account and no rent-into-court procedure — this is a silence rather than an express bar. A tenant who simply stops paying is in default in rent, which is one of the three grounds on which a landlord may bring a possession action notwithstanding the retaliation section, with no gate on the amount or the duration of the default.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Tennessee?
Protected by a general retaliation statute — The section is a prohibition without machinery of its own, and it operates only in the covered counties. A landlord may not retaliate by increasing rent, decreasing services, or bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession on the protected grounds.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Tennessee?
Not waivable — any qualifier is stated on this page. Inside the covered counties waiver is barred outright: T.C.A. § 66-28-203(b) states that the tenant cannot agree to waive or forgo rights or remedies under the chapter, a prohibited provision included in an agreement is unenforceable, and a tenant may recover actual damages where a landlord willfully uses a rental agreement containing a provision the landlord knows the chapter prohibits. The chapter does let the landlord and tenant agree in writing that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks, alterations and remodeling, but only where the transaction is entered into in good faith and not to evade the landlord's obligations, and the landlord may not treat performance of that separate agreement as a condition of any obligation under the rental agreement.

Citations

How this record was verified: Tennessee Code chapter 66-28 (the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act) and chapter 66-7, taken section by section from the State of Tennessee's official public-access code service, every section document current through the 2026 Regular Session and the 2026 Second Extraordinary Session and carrying its own history line; the General Assembly's own bill and public-chapter records for the 114th General Assembly, together with its published adjournment statement; United States Census Bureau county population files for the 2010 decennial counts the statute points to; and the official reporter text of Hines v. Willcox, together with Hays v. Gilliam, Winn v. Welch Farm, Foster v. Bue and Miller v. Mt. Laurel Chalets, each read in full.