What must a Massachusetts landlord disclose to a tenant, and what must the lease say?

No statute requires a residential lease to be in writing beyond the statute of frauds, so an oral tenancy is lawful. The landlord must give the tenant a copy of the signed lease within 30 calendar days.

No Massachusetts statute requires a residential tenancy to be in writing; a letting without a signed writing creates a tenancy at will, which is the default form of tenancy in the Commonwealth. Where there is a written agreement the copy duty is doubled. The statute reaches a landlord who agreed orally to execute a lease and then obtained the tenant's signature, and requires delivery of a copy signed and executed by the landlord within thirty days, on pain of a fine of up to three hundred dollars, with any waiver void. The Attorney General's regulation covers the rest of the field: it is an unfair and deceptive practice to fail to give the tenant an executed copy of any written rental agreement within thirty days of obtaining the tenant's signature, and that failure carries the consumer-protection remedy. Massachusetts requires no translation of a lease and prescribes no general type size.

Statute of frauds: Massachusetts states no express threshold in lease years. An interest in land created without a signed writing has the force and effect of an estate at will only (chapter 183, section 3), and the statute of frauds bars an action on a contract concerning an interest in land, or on an agreement not to be performed within one year, unless there is a signed writing or memorandum (chapter 259, section 1, clauses Fourth and Fifth). The seven-year figure that circulates is a recording rule, not a writing rule: a lease for more than seven years is not valid against anyone but the lessor, the lessor's heirs and devisees and a person with actual notice unless it, or a notice of lease, is recorded (chapter 183, section 4).

Format and plain-language rules: There is no general plain-language act and no general type-size rule, but two commands come close. Every written rental agreement must state the required contents fully and conspicuously, in simple and readily understandable language (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph b), and a failure is an unfair or deceptive act. The statement of condition must carry the statutory notice in twelve-point bold-face type at the top of its first page (chapter 186, section 15B, subsection 2, paragraph c). Where a landlord chooses to reproduce the lead notification inside the lease, the contents must appear in unaltered form and in their entirety, with no change to the words, no reordering and no reduction in type size.

Electronic leases and signatures: Chapter 186 says nothing about electronic signatures, so the general rule governs: under the Commonwealth's electronic-transactions act, where a law requires a record to be in writing an electronic record satisfies it, and where a law requires a signature an electronic signature satisfies it (chapter 110G, section 7). The act's exclusions cover wills, codicils and testamentary trusts, most of the commercial code, family-law and court documents; residential leases are not excluded. Neither the tenancy chapter nor the Attorney General's regulation authorizes or forbids sending any of the documents on this page by electronic mail, so the general rule decides that too. The only formatting constraint on a prescribed document is that the lead notification's wording, order and type size may not be altered when it is reproduced inside a lease.

Yes — a statute and an administrative rule require the landlord to disclose the owner's or managing agent's identity to the tenant, in the lease, in a separate writing, or by posting on the premises.

Massachusetts puts the identity duty in two regulations and one statute rather than in the tenancy chapter's own voice. Every written rental agreement must state, fully and conspicuously and in simple and readily understandable language, the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the owner and of anyone else responsible for the care, maintenance and repair of the property, and the name, address and telephone number of the person authorized to receive notices of violations of law and to accept service of process for the owner (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph b). Separately, every owner who does not live in the residence must post signage carrying the owner's name, street address and telephone number, and where applicable those of the corporation's president, the managing trustee or partner, or a property manager who lives elsewhere; the telephone number must be monitored at least once every twelve hours unless an alternative contact is given for a temporary absence, and the signage must be on durable material of at least twenty square inches placed by the mailboxes or visibly inside the residence (105 CMR 410.400). On a sale, the successor in interest must tell the tenant in writing within forty-five days of the transfer that the deposit or the last month's rent was transferred and is being held, giving the landlord's name, business address and business telephone number and those of any agent (chapter 186, section 15B, subsections 5 and 7A). The consequences differ by limb: the lease-clause and signage failures are unfair or deceptive acts carrying the consumer-protection remedy of up to treble damages and fees, a landlord may not refuse a notice sent to the person named in the agreement, and a blown successor notice forfeits the right to keep any part of the deposit and carries treble damages. There is no statewide landlord or rental registration in Massachusetts; registration is a city matter, as in Boston.

If the landlord fails to comply: the tenant may recover damages and a fine or penalty applies. Threshold: The lease limb binds only where the rental agreement is in writing, so an oral tenancy at will carries no identity clause. The posting limb binds every owner of a residence who does not live in it.

Yes — Massachusetts hands renters a state document and prescribes lease contents, which is why both apply, but neither limb is a summary of the tenancy law. The document is the Department of Public Health's Notice of Occupants' Legal Rights and Responsibilities, which explains the housing-code complaint route and the tenant's repair remedies and may be given to each occupant or posted. The lease contents come from the Attorney General's consumer-protection regulation rather than the tenancy chapter: a written agreement must identify the owner, the maintenance contact and the person who accepts notices and service, and must recite the security-deposit regime in full. Two further pieces of prescribed text bite only if the landlord chooses the practice, a tax-escalator clause and submetered water billing. The lead notification is a hazard document and is described in the hazard table, and the twelve-point notice at the top of the statement of condition is described in the move-in row. There is no model lease, no handbook, and no duty to tell the tenant where the law can be read.

Required items:

Notice of Occupants' Legal Rights and Responsibilities — a state-prescribed document to be handed over or attached; issued by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Climate and Environmental Health, Community Sanitation Program. Every owner of a residence must give each occupant a copy of the Notice of Occupants' Legal Rights and Responsibilities issued by the Department of Public Health, or post it by the mailboxes or visibly inside the residence (105 CMR 410.400, paragraph C). The notice summarizes what an occupant can do when the owner has not fixed problems the state housing code covers: it explains the local health inspection route and the fourteen-day hearing clock, states that a landlord may not raise the rent or evict in reprisal for a complaint, and sets out going to court, withholding rent, repairing and deducting up to four months' rent in a twelve-month period, and ending the lease early. The document says on its face that it is not legal advice. It is a housing-code rights notice rather than a summary of the tenancy law. The section states no penalty of its own; the state housing code is enforced by local boards of health, and an uncorrected housing-code violation is separately an unfair or deceptive act. Revision: May 2023 - revised November 2023, as printed in the footer of both pages; the agency file's file date of November 1, 2023 corroborates it and the face date governs. Given at move-in, handed over or posted. Languages: English, Khmer, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish. Typography: Where the posting route is used, the posting must be on durable material of not less than twenty square inches, placed adjacent to the mailboxes or inside the residence where occupants can see it. Threshold: Every residence within the state housing code. The delivery route reaches every owner; the posting duty for owner contact details reaches owners who do not live in the residence. Agency page. (105 CMR 410.400(C)–(D))

Required contents of a written rental agreement — words or content the lease itself must carry. It is an unfair or deceptive practice for an owner to enter into a written rental agreement that fails to state, fully and conspicuously and in simple and readily understandable language, three things: the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the owner and of anyone else responsible for the care, maintenance and repair of the property; the name, address and telephone number of the person authorized to receive notices of violations of law and to accept service of process for the owner; and a full recital of the security-deposit regime, covering the amount, the separate interest-bearing account, the receipt and notice of bank and account number, the annual interest, the separate written statement of condition and the tenant's right to attach a list of damage, the thirty-day return with interest less lawful deductions, the itemized list and written evidence of repair costs where damage is deducted, the bar on deducting for damage already listed, and the transfer of the deposit with interest to a successor owner. The substance is fixed; no form of words is prescribed. The duty attaches only where the agreement is written, and a failure is an unfair or deceptive act carrying the consumer-protection remedy. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Typography: Fully and conspicuously, in simple and readily understandable language. Threshold: Written rental agreements only. (940 CMR 3.17(3)(b)1.–3.)

Listed, but not a general duty counted above:

Tax-escalator percentage — a figure the landlord must compute and state in the lease. A residential lease may oblige the tenant to pay a share of an increase in the real estate tax only if the clause expressly states that the tenant pays only the proportion the leased unit bears to the whole of the taxed real estate, states the exact percentage of any increase the tenant will pay, and states that a proportionate share of any abatement the landlord obtains, less reasonable attorney's fees, will be refunded to the tenant. A clause that does not is against public policy and void, over-collection is refundable with interest at five percent a year from the date of collection, and a non-conforming escalator is separately an unfair or deceptive act. The term is required only where the landlord chooses to use an escalator clause, so it is listed here and not counted. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Computation: The landlord computes the share the leased unit bears to the whole of the taxed real estate and states it in the lease as an exact percentage of any tax increase. The statute supplies no default or fallback figure: where the percentage is missing, the clause is void rather than read down, and any amount over-collected under it is refundable with interest at five percent a year from the date of collection. (G.L. c. 186, § 15C)

Submetered water disclosure — words or content the lease itself must carry. A landlord may not charge a tenant separately for submetered water, or allow the tenant to be charged separately, unless the tenant has signed a written rental agreement that clearly and conspicuously provides for the separate charge and fully discloses in plain language the details of the submetering and billing arrangement. The text is required only where the landlord chooses to submeter and bill for water, so it is listed here and not counted. The conditions that travel with it, and the billing rules, are set out in the utility, fee and payment row. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Typography: Clearly and conspicuously, in plain language. Threshold: Only where water is submetered, only on the commencement of a new tenancy, and never for a tenant of a public housing development under the four named acts. (G.L. c. 186, § 22(f))

Lease contents the statutes or rules address, each in the circumstance it names:

• The names, addresses and telephone numbers of the owner and of anyone else responsible for the care, maintenance and repair of the property (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph b, item 1).

• The name, address and telephone number of the person authorized to receive notices of violations of law and to accept service of process for the owner (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph b, item 2).

• A full recital of the security-deposit regime, from the separate interest-bearing account and the receipts through the statement of condition, the annual interest, the thirty-day return and the transfer of the deposit to a successor owner (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph b, item 3).

• The conditions on which any automatic increase in rent will be determined, stated clearly and conspicuously (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph a, item 2).

• Where a tax-escalator clause is used, the tenant's proportionate share, the exact percentage of any increase the tenant will pay, and the refund of a proportionate share of any abatement (section 15C).

• Where water is submetered, a clear and conspicuous provision for the separate charge and a plain-language disclosure of the whole submetering and billing arrangement (section 22, subsection f).

• No penalty or interest for late rent until thirty days after the rent was due; a clause that goes further does not conform (section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph c; the figures are on the late-fee page).

Yes, where a security deposit is taken.

A landlord who takes a security deposit must give the tenant a separate written statement of the present condition of the premises, listing all damage then existing, including any sanitary-code or building-code violations certified by a local board of health or building official or adjudicated by a court. The statement must carry, in twelve-point bold-face type at the top of its first page, the statutory notice telling the tenant to read the list carefully, to sign it if it is correct, to attach a separate signed list of damage if it is not, to return it within fifteen days of receiving it or of moving in, whichever is later, and warning that a failure to return it may later be treated by a court as agreement that the list is complete and correct in a suit to recover the deposit. No deposit is taken, no statement is owed: the duty exists only where the landlord accepts a deposit, and the whole deposit section is off for a letting of one hundred days or less for a vacation or recreational purpose. The consequence is aimed at the deposit rather than at damages. A deposit may lawfully be held only if the statement was given, and no amount may ever be deducted for damage listed in the statement or in the tenant's own list signed by the landlord, unless the landlord repaired it and can prove the renewed damage was unrelated. A missing statement is also an unfair or deceptive act. It is not, on its own, a treble-damages event: the deposit section trebles only the failures to use a separate account, to comply on a transfer and to return the deposit.

When and who signs: On receipt of the security deposit, or within ten days after the tenancy commences, whichever is later. The landlord or the landlord's agent signs it. The tenant returns it signed within fifteen days after receiving it or within fifteen days after moving in, whichever is later, or attaches a separate signed list of damage the tenant believes exists, and the landlord must return a copy of that list within fifteen days with either a signed agreement or a clear statement of disagreement.

Deposit notice at signing: Within thirty days after receiving a security deposit the landlord must give the tenant a receipt naming the bank where the deposit is held and its location, the amount and the account number, and a failure entitles the tenant to immediate return of the deposit (section 15B, subsection 3, paragraph a). A receipt is also owed at the moment any deposit or last month's rent is taken. The amounts, the interest and the return rules are on the security-deposits and deposit-interest pages.

One in-force state hazard disclosure: lead (before signing). No state duty exists for mold, bed bugs, radon, methamphetamine, asbestos, or any other hazard.

Every state duty and every stated absence, hazard by hazard:

Lead (state add-on to the federal rule) — in force — a state duty, before signing, in a signed acknowledgment (a statute and an administrative rule). Before entering into a tenancy agreement the owner, or whoever is regularly paid the rent, must give a prospective tenant three things: the Department of Public Health's standard notification materials and completed standard form, which carries the owner's or managing agent's name, address and telephone number and the address and telephone number of the state childhood lead poisoning prevention program; a copy of the most recent lead paint inspection report, risk assessment, letter of interim control, letter of full compliance or abatement plan for the unit and for the common areas or exterior surfaces; and two copies of a statement certifying that the tenant received all of it, one kept by the tenant and one by the owner. The owner must also disclose any information actually known about where lead is, including lead that has been covered or encapsulated. The certification may be written into the lease, and where it is, the form's contents must be reproduced in unaltered form and in their entirety, with no change to the words, no reordering and no reduction in type size. If the tenant refuses to sign, the owner may check the box on the form recording that the documents were provided and the tenant refused. This is a state duty in its own terms and is separate from the federal lead rule described on the federal page. Knowledge standard: Any information actually known by the owner about the location of paint, plaster or other accessible structural materials containing dangerous levels of lead, including such materials that have been covered or encapsulated. Threshold: The statute reaches all premises; the regulation narrows the duty to a residential premises or dwelling unit built before 1978. Elderly housing for people aged sixty-two and over may modify how notification, disclosure and certification are carried out with the director's approval. Exempt are owners complying with the short-term vacation or recreational letting exemption of thirty-one days or less, and a dwelling unit with fewer than two hundred and fifty square feet of habitable room area or used as a rooming house, provided no child under six lives there. Document: Tenant Lead Law Notification and Tenant Certification, issued by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. Revision: CLPPP Form 95-17, Rev. 4/10/26, as printed in the footer of all ten pages; the agency file's file date of April 16, 2026 corroborates it. The Spanish version carries no form number and no revision on its face and was last changed in 2017, so it trails the current English revision. Agency page. In force since December 1, 1994. If the duty is not met: An owner who fails to comply is liable for all damages caused by the failure and is subject to a penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars, and a violation by a person engaged in trade or commerce is an unfair and deceptive act under the consumer-protection statute (chapter 111, section 197A, subsection e). Receiving the materials does not bar a tenant's or a child's claim against the owner.

Mold — no state duty. Massachusetts requires no mold disclosure. In the state housing code mold is a condition standard and an inspection subject: an inspector who finds excess moisture or the appearance of mold must investigate the sources, and environmental testing is not required to establish either and may not be the sole determinant. The health department publishes owner and occupant fact sheets on controlling excess moisture and mold, but no regulation requires a landlord to hand them over, so they are guidance rather than a prescribed document.

Bed bugs — no state duty. There is no bed-bug disclosure in Massachusetts, and the term appears nowhere in the General Laws. The state housing code reaches bed bugs only by naming them among the pests an owner must keep out and by telling a board of health, when an infestation is confirmed, to inspect the units next door. No statute or regulation requires an owner to tell a tenant about a past or present infestation. A bill that would add a bed-bug section to the tenancy chapter and order health regulations is before the Legislature and is not law.

Radon — no state duty. Massachusetts requires no radon disclosure to a tenant. Radon appears in the General Laws twice, both times in the licensing of home inspectors, where an informational brochure is owed to a purchaser who buys an inspection rather than to a tenant. The health department's radiation-control regulation is a radioactive-materials licensing program and reaches no rental.

Methamphetamine — no state duty. Massachusetts has no clandestine drug-laboratory statute and no regulation on drug-lab contamination. Methamphetamine appears in the General Laws only as a controlled substance in the criminal classification sections. Unlike many states, Massachusetts neither requires a landlord to disclose a former drug-manufacturing site nor bars renting one: there is simply no rule either way, and a contaminated unit is dealt with, if at all, through the housing code's fitness standards.

Asbestos — no state duty. No asbestos disclosure is owed to a Massachusetts tenant. What the state housing code imposes instead is a maintenance duty: every owner must keep asbestos-containing material in good repair and free from any release of asbestos dust or any powdered, crumbled or pulverized asbestos-containing material. The removal and work-practice provisions sit with the environmental and labor-standards agencies and bind contractors, and the asbestos provisions in the General Laws are worker-protection, licensing, procurement and cost-recovery rules.

Pesticide notice: a duty on the applicator, not the landlord — no state duty. Massachusetts places its pesticide notice on the applicator rather than the landlord, which is the opposite of how it is usually described. A commercial applicator or its employer must pre-notify the occupants of every residential unit between seven days and forty-eight hours before applying pesticides where residents live or have access, in writing giving the company's name and telephone number, the proposed date and time, the locations to be treated, the products with their registration numbers and active ingredients, the purpose, the preparation the label requires and an approved consumer information bulletin, and must post an approved notice at every entrance before starting. The applicator also hands the landlord an approved information bulletin for building managers and landlords. The landlord's only duty is to provide access once notice is received. Nothing else in this family exists: no pool notice, no military ordnance or noise-zone notice, no smoking-policy disclosure and no utility-history disclosure.

No.

Massachusetts requires no flood disclosure to a tenant, and it has no sales-side flood disclosure either, because the Commonwealth has no residential property-condition disclosure statute at all. The word flood runs through the General Laws in water-resource and wetlands administration, state funds and municipal finance, land use and zoning, insurance and a scatter of unrelated provisions, and the only one of them that touches a dwelling runs against lenders: a creditor may not require an owner of residential property of one to four units to buy flood insurance above the outstanding mortgage balance, covering contents, or with a deductible under five thousand dollars. The tenancy chapter says nothing about flooding, and neither the consumer-protection regulation, the state housing code nor the lead regulation carries a flood duty.

Yes — of the facts the rule names, some need not be disclosed and no cause of action arises from not disclosing some, each as stated here.

The fact or suspicion that real property may be or is psychologically impacted is not a material fact required to be disclosed in a real estate transaction, and no cause of action arises or can be maintained against a seller or lessor of real property, or a real estate broker or salesperson, by statute or at common law, for failing to tell a buyer or tenant that the property is or was psychologically impacted (chapter 93, section 114). The statute defines a psychological impact to include that an occupant is now or has been suspected to be infected with HIV or AIDS or another disease reasonable medical evidence suggests is highly unlikely to be transmitted by living in a dwelling, that the property was the site of a felony, suicide or homicide, and that it has been the site of an alleged parapsychological or supernatural phenomenon. The section names lessors and tenants in terms, so it reaches a tenancy and not only a sale. One limit ships with it: the section does not authorize a seller, lessor, broker or salesperson to make a misrepresentation of fact or a false statement. Silence is protected; a false answer is not.

Yes — the statute lists the lease provisions that are void or prohibited.

Massachusetts has a long roster and it is spread across the tenancy chapter rather than gathered in one section, with a further list in the Attorney General's regulation. Fourteen statutory items run from the indemnity and exculpation ban in section 15 through the entry, late-charge and deposit-conflict bans in section 15B, the tax-escalator, lease-copy and building-code-defect waivers in sections 15C to 15E, the jury-trial and constructive-eviction waivers in section 15F, the no-children clause in section 16, and the waivers of the anti-reprisal, attorney-fee, fire-insurance and domestic-violence protections in sections 18, 20, 21 and 28. The roster is framed around clauses that burden the tenant, though the indemnity ban in section 15 reaches a commercial lease as well and protects anyone the landlord's misconduct injures. The regulation adds a fifteenth item covering four further terms, including any term that violates any law. The sanction for using a prohibited clause is that it cannot be enforced, plus the consumer-protection remedy; the deposit section alone adds a forfeiture, and only where the landlord both used the conflicting clause and tried to enforce it.

The baseline is that the clause is against public policy and void or void and unenforceable, and nothing in the tenancy chapter voids the whole lease or gives the landlord a window to cure. Two things sit on top. Inside the security-deposit section only, a landlord who uses in a signed lease a provision conflicting with that section and attempts to enforce it, or tries to obtain a waiver of it, forfeits the right to keep any part of the deposit and to counterclaim for damage to the premises; use alone is not enough, and this forfeiture is not one of the three failures the section trebles. Separately, every prohibited lease term in the Attorney General's regulation is by definition an unfair or deceptive act, opening the consumer-protection remedy of up to treble damages, costs and fees. Where a tenant is removed or excluded other than by a valid court order, the tenant may recover possession or end the agreement and in either case recover three months' rent or three times the damages sustained, plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees.

The listed provisions:

• A clause whose effect is to indemnify or hold the landlord harmless, or to preclude or exonerate the landlord from any or all liability to the tenant or to anyone else, for injury, loss, damage or liability arising from the landlord's omission, fault, negligence or other misconduct (section 15; it reaches commercial as well as residential leases).

• A clause waiving the notices required before a summary process action for nonpayment or to quit a tenancy at will (section 15A).

• A clause letting the landlord enter the premises before the lease ends, except to inspect, to make repairs or to show the unit to a prospective tenant, purchaser or mortgagee, and except under a court order, on apparent abandonment, or to inspect for damage in the last thirty days of the tenancy (section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph a).

• A clause imposing interest or a penalty for a failure to pay rent until thirty days after the rent was due (section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph c).

• Any provision of a lease that conflicts with the security-deposit section, and any waiver by a tenant or prospective tenant of that section (section 15B, subsection 8).

• A residential tax-escalator clause that does not expressly state the tenant's proportionate share, the exact percentage of the increase the tenant pays, and the refund of a proportionate share of any abatement less reasonable attorney's fees (section 15C).

• A waiver of the duty to deliver an executed copy of the lease within thirty days (section 15D).

• A waiver of the rule barring a landlord from defending on the ground that a building-code defect existed when the premises were let (section 15E).

• A clause by which the tenant waives the right to trial by jury in litigation with the landlord, or agrees that no act or failure to act by the landlord will be treated as a constructive eviction, and any agreement purporting to exempt the landlord from liability under that section (section 15F).

• A clause allowing the landlord to terminate the lease if the tenant has or will have a child who occupies the premises (section 16).

• A waiver of the anti-reprisal protection (section 18).

• A waiver of the attorney-fee reciprocity covenant (section 20).

• A waiver of the fire-insurance disclosure owed on written request (section 21).

• A waiver of the domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking protections covering termination and lock changes, except as otherwise provided by law or by federal, state or local regulation (section 28).

• By regulation, any lease term that violates any law, fails to state clearly and conspicuously the conditions on which an automatic rent increase will be determined, contains a penalty clause that does not conform to the security-deposit section, or contains a tax-escalator clause that does not conform to section 15C (940 CMR 3.17, subsection 3, paragraph a).

By statute a one-way landlord attorney-fee clause is read as reciprocal, so the tenant has the same right on prevailing.

Where a residential lease says the landlord may recover attorney's fees and expenses incurred because the tenant failed to perform a covenant, or that amounts the landlord pays for them are payable by the tenant as additional rent, the law implies in that lease a covenant by the landlord to pay the tenant's reasonable attorney's fees and expenses incurred because the landlord failed to perform, or incurred in successfully defending an action or summary process the landlord brought arising out of the lease, and an agreement that the tenant may recover them in an action or by counterclaim (chapter 186, section 20). Any waiver of that section is void as against public policy. The covenant fires only where the lease itself carries a landlord's fee clause: a lease silent on fees implies nothing, and no statute awards fees to a prevailing landlord or tenant on its own force. Fees reach a tenant by other routes too, as a successful consumer-protection claimant, on the deposit remedies and on the unlawful-removal remedy, but those are remedy-specific and do not convert a clause.