What must a Vermont 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. No statute requires the landlord to give the tenant a copy of the lease.

No Vermont statute requires a residential rental agreement to be in writing, and the chapter's own definition covers agreements written or oral. What the conveyancing rules do is limit what an unwritten arrangement creates: an interest in land made without a writing has the effect of an estate at will only, and the assignment of a lease running more than a year must be by deed. There is no duty to give the tenant a copy of the lease, no translation duty and no plain-language or type-size rule. One document must be handed over separately at signing whatever the lease says, and that is the flood disclosure.

Statute of frauds: Vermont's statute of frauds has no lease-duration limb of its own. It reaches an agreement not to be performed within a year of its making and a contract for the sale of lands or of an interest in or concerning them (section 181 of Title 12). The operative writing rules for a tenancy are in the conveyancing chapter: an interest in land created or conveyed without a written instrument has the effect of an estate at will only, and the assignment of a lease for a term longer than one year must be by deed, signed, sealed, witnessed, acknowledged and recorded.

Format and plain-language rules: No type size, boldface or plain-language rule applies to a Vermont lease. One placement rule does apply, and it is strict: the flood disclosure must be made in a separate written document substantially in the department's form, so putting it in a lease paragraph does not comply.

Electronic leases and signatures: Vermont's Uniform Electronic Transactions Act is chapter 20 of Title 9, and it gives the general answer: an electronic record and an electronic signature have legal effect, the parties may agree how to conduct transactions electronically, and the act covers notarization and acknowledgment. The residential rental agreements chapter itself says nothing about electronic delivery, electronic signature or a tenant's consent to either, so there is no landlord-tenant carve-out and no consent form to complete.

Yes — an administrative rule requires the landlord to disclose the owner's or managing agent's identity to the tenant, by posting on the premises.

Vermont's only owner-identity duty is in a health rule rather than a statute, it is discharged by posting rather than in the lease, and it reaches pre-1978 rental housing. The Vermont Regulations for Lead Control require that a notice to occupants emphasizing the importance of promptly reporting deteriorated paint to the owner or the owner's representative be posted in a prominent place in a building containing rental target housing or a child care facility at all times the building is occupied, and that the notice include the name, address and contact information of the owner or the owner's representative. The rule says contact information rather than naming a telephone number, so any working contact route satisfies it. The statutory hook is the lead chapter's direction that an owner of rental target housing abide by any rules the commissioner prescribes on maintaining lead-based paint and on notice to tenants. Failure is enforced by the department, with an administrative penalty of up to five thousand dollars for each violation and each day of a continuing violation treated separately; no tenant remedy attaches, nobody becomes the owner's agent by operation of law and no eviction is barred. The landlord-tenant chapter itself has no identity duty at all: its one name-and-address provision runs the other way, requiring an incoming landlord who takes over a security deposit to give the tenant notice of the new landlord's name and address and of the transfer. Vermont has no rental-housing registry: the state's rental inspection program is complaint-driven, and the annual landlord certificate goes to the tax department rather than to the tenant.

Threshold: Rental target housing only: a pre-1978 dwelling offered for rent, excluding a studio, a dwelling in a building or project reserved for elders or people with disabilities, and a rented single room in an owner-occupied dwelling, with each of those carve-outs reopening where a child of six or younger lives there or is expected to. Outside pre-1978 rental housing no Vermont landlord must identify themselves at all.

No.

Vermont prescribes no general tenant-rights statement, summary, booklet or handbook, no model lease and no words a residential lease must carry. It also has no list of subjects a lease must address. Two prescribed documents do exist in Vermont law and both are subject-specific, so each is described where it belongs: the department's flood disclosure form, in the flood row, and the lead materials and compliance-statement copy, in the lead row. Three further provisions in the chapter say what a lease must NOT contain rather than what it must, and they are described with the void clauses.

No.

Vermont requires no move-in condition statement, inventory, checklist or walk-through, at any stage and whether or not a deposit is taken. The security-deposit section is the only place such a duty could sit and it does not: it defines the deposit, lists the four grounds for keeping any of it, sets the fourteen-day deadline for returning it with an itemized statement, sixty days for seasonal occupancy that is not the tenant's primary residence, prescribes hand delivery or mailing, and sets the forfeiture and double-damages remedy for a willful failure. Nothing in it turns on a record of the unit's condition at the start. One lead duty is easy to mistake for a move-in report and is not one: an owner of pre-1978 rental housing must inspect for deteriorated paint at least once a year and at each change of tenant, and must have the unit specially cleaned at each change of tenant, but no copy of that inspection goes to the tenant.

Deposit notice at signing: Where the landlord's interest is transferred the deposit passes to the new landlord, who must give the tenant actual notice of the new landlord's name and address and a statement that the deposit has been transferred (section 4461, subsection f). The fourteen-day itemized return statement and the rest of the deposit rules are on the security-deposits page.

One in-force state hazard disclosure: lead (before signing, annually, by posting, and when the event the section names occurs). 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, annually, by posting, and when the event the section names occurs, on an agency document (a statute and an administrative rule). Vermont has one of the strongest state lead add-ons in the country, and it is the only real hazard disclosure a Vermont landlord owes. Before entering into a lease of pre-1978 rental housing, the owner or the owner's representative must give approved tenants written materials approved by the Department of Health about lead hazards, which must say that lead is highly toxic to humans and particularly to young children and may cause permanent neurological damage even at low exposure, and a copy of the owner's most recent compliance statement, which is the statement the owner files with the department certifying that the required maintenance practices were done and naming the licensed firm that stabilized any deteriorated paint. The rule then adds a recurrence the statute does not state: once a year the owner must give an adult occupant of each unit a copy of the compliance statement and the approved written materials, and a copy of the compliance statement also goes to the owner's liability insurer. A notice urging occupants to report deteriorated paint promptly, carrying the owner's name, address and contact details, must stay posted in a prominent place in the building at all times it is occupied. One further duty fires on an event: an owner must fully inform a tenant who intends to run a child care facility on the premises of what the lead section requires. No tenant signature is required for any of it. Threshold: Rental target housing: a pre-1978 dwelling offered for rent, excluding a studio, a dwelling in a building or project reserved for elders or people with disabilities, and a rented single room in an owner-occupied dwelling, with each carve-out reopening where a child of six or younger lives there or is expected to. A property is exempt where a licensed inspector's written report says every accessible surface is free of lead-based paint and the report has gone to the department. Document: Written materials approved by the Department of Health regarding lead hazards, together with a copy of the owner's most recent compliance statement, issued by the Vermont Department of Health. Revision: No edition can be given for the approved written materials: the statute and the rule prescribe the class of document and a content floor but name no title, and no official page read on September 13, 2026 says which publication is the approved one. The department's own landlord page is the page checked weekly. The compliance statement is not a published edition at all; it is the owner's own filing, made on a form the department provides, and the copy owed to the tenant is a copy of the owner's most recent one. Agency page. If the duty is not met: The department may impose an administrative penalty of up to five thousand dollars for each violation it determines, with each day of a continuing violation treated as a separate offense, and the chapter's general enforcement powers apply. No tenant remedy is stated anywhere in the lead chapter.

Mold — no state duty. No Vermont statute or rule requires a landlord to disclose mold. The word appears in fifteen places in the statutes and every one is something else: industrial tooling liens, water and waste definitions, weights and measures, a cannabis testing laboratory license, consumer-protection definitions, hearing aids and ear molds, pesticide definitions and the word moldings. Mold does reach a Vermont tenancy as a standard rather than a disclosure: the statewide rental housing health and safety rule treats microorganisms and visible mold, and excessive moisture that may produce visible mold growth, as conditions the housing must not have. That is on the habitability page.

Bed bugs — no state duty. Vermont has no bed-bug disclosure, no infestation-history duty and no treatment notice. The term appears once in the whole of the statutes, in a pesticide-product registration section, and not at all in the statewide rental housing standard. An infestation is a repair and habitability question.

Radon — no state duty. A Vermont landlord owes no radon disclosure, and the state has no radon awareness act of the kind several other states have. Radon appears in exactly one section of the Vermont statutes, an exemption inside the potable water supply and wastewater permit provisions, and nowhere in the statewide rental housing standard.

Methamphetamine — no state duty. Vermont has no clandestine-laboratory law reaching property at all: no decontamination standards, no bar on occupying a contaminated dwelling, no owner immunity and no disclosure. The nine sections that mention methamphetamine are criminal offenses, controlled-substance definitions, a prevention council, a conspiracy section, an immunity-from-liability section, a firearms prohibition, a child welfare definition and police training standards.

Asbestos — no state duty. No Vermont statute requires an asbestos disclosure to a tenant. The state's asbestos chapter has four sections and they are definitions, contractor certification, a notification duty and application fees; the notification runs to the commissioner, not to anyone living in the building, and the word tenant does not appear in the chapter. The department's own asbestos control rule is a licensing and work-practice rule of the same family as the lead rule.

Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and inspection notices — no state duty. Vermont requires no pesticide notice, no ordnance or noise-zone notice, no pool notice and no alarm acknowledgment from a tenant. Its alarm certification belongs to a sale: the seller of a single-family dwelling must certify to the buyer at closing, signed and dated, that the dwelling has photoelectric or compliant smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms, and there is no rental equivalent. Where the Division of Fire Safety inspects a rental building, it is the commissioner rather than the landlord who must give a copy of the inspection report to tenants affected by a violation, and a notice of inspection to individual tenants where a whole building is affected.

Yes — a statute requires the landlord to disclose whether the property lies in a mapped flood zone to a prospective or current tenant, in a separate document.

A Vermont landlord must disclose, in advance of entering a rental agreement, whether any portion of the premises offered for rent is in a special flood hazard area mapped by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the notice must reach the tenant at or before the lease is signed, in a separate written document substantially in the form the Department of Housing and Community Development prescribes. The duty is to disclose whether, so an answer of no is still a required disclosure, and there is no unit threshold, no carve-out and no actual-knowledge qualifier. The department's form asks for the flood map number and its effective date and gives three answer boxes, yes, no, and no digital data available where the federal mapping does not cover the area. The form goes further than the statute in two ways worth knowing: it carries an attestation that the landlord or property manager completed it personally and reviewed the map rather than relying on anyone else, and it provides signature lines for the landlord and the tenants, though no statute requires a signed acknowledgment. It also tells tenants that flood insurance may be available to renters through the federal flood insurance program or privately, that a standard renter's policy does not typically cover flood damage, and that the landlord's policy does not cover the tenant's property; and it notes that tenants may ask for a physical copy or a print of the map before signing. The section states no consequence at all for failing to disclose, and neither the act that created it nor the chapter's other remedies supply one. A separate flood rule reaches sales rather than leases: a seller must give the buyer a copy or link to the flood insurance rate map or notice that none is available, say whether the property flooded or was damaged by flooding while the seller owned it, and say whether the seller carries or must carry flood insurance.

Threshold: None. Every residential rental agreement within the chapter's scope is covered, whatever the unit count, and a negative answer is still a required disclosure. Document: FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area / Mandatory Rental Disclosure Form, issued by the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development, Agency of Commerce and Community Development. Revision: Rev. 9/2024, as printed on the face of the form. The department's own file carries a later server date of January 31, 2025, which is a host stamp and not a revision. Agency page. In force since June 17, 2024.

Yes — the statute forbids disclosing the facts the rule names.

Vermont's rule in this family is a duty of silence rather than a protection for it. An owner, landlord or housing subsidy provider who holds documentation or information about a protected tenant's status as a victim of abuse, sexual assault or stalking must keep it confidential and must not allow or provide access to anyone else, unless the protected tenant authorizes it, a court order or a government regulation or a government review requirement compels it, or it is required as evidence in a court proceeding on the conditions the section sets. Vermont has no stigmatized-property statute: nothing says that a death, an illness or a registered offender nearby is or is not a material fact, so those questions are left to the general law.

No general list — a general rule voids clauses, and at least one specific clause is prohibited, as stated here.

Vermont has no roster of prohibited lease clauses: it has a general anti-circumvention rule, spread across three statutes, and, since July 1, 2026, one enumerated prohibition. The general rule is that no rental agreement may contain a provision that attempts to circumvent or circumvents the obligations and remedies the chapter establishes, and the two verbs matter: an ineffective attempt is caught as well as an effective waiver. The state's highest court has read that section narrowly, holding that it speaks precisely to what it covers, the obligations the chapter itself imposes, and does not reach a waiver of a right arising elsewhere. Two companion clauses do the rest: a waiver of the implied warranty of habitability is contrary to public policy and void, and a prospective waiver of the condominium-conversion protections is likewise void. The one enumerated prohibition is new and is invisible on the published chapter, which is current only through the 2025 session: a lease may not bar a tenant from possessing cannabis in the rental premises or using it within the dwelling unit, though it may still bar lighted cannabis intended for inhalation, and the rule yields where federal law requires the prohibition.

Sanction as the statute states it: The clause is unenforceable and void, and nothing else follows. No Vermont provision makes the mere inclusion of a prohibited term actionable: there is no damages figure, no rent multiple, no separate sanction for deliberate use or for attempting to enforce, no cure window and no rule voiding the whole agreement. Every remedy in the chapter is keyed to what the landlord does rather than to what the lease says.

The general provisions:

• Any provision that attempts to circumvent or circumvents the obligations and remedies the residential rental agreements chapter establishes is unenforceable and void (section 4454).

• Any provision by which the tenant waives the protections of the implied warranty of habitability is contrary to public policy, unenforceable and void (section 4457, subsection b).

• Any provision, in an oral or written lease, by which the tenant prospectively waives rights under the condominium-conversion subchapter is contrary to public policy, unenforceable and void (section 1337 of Title 27).

• A provision prohibiting a tenant from possessing cannabis or cannabis products within the rental premises, or from using them within the dwelling unit, is prohibited; a lease may still bar the use of lighted cannabis or cannabis products intended for inhalation, and the rule does not apply where federal law requires the agreement to prohibit possession or use (section 4468b, in force July 1, 2026).

Expressly permitted: A lease may still prohibit the use of lighted cannabis or cannabis products intended for inhalation within the rental premises, and a lease that federal law requires to prohibit cannabis possession or use is outside the new rule altogether.

No statute addresses attorney-fee clauses in residential leases as such.

Vermont has no reciprocity statute, no general prevailing-party rule for lease disputes, no cap and no ban on a landlord's fee clause; the phrase prevailing party does not appear in the residential rental agreements chapter. A one-way clause making the tenant pay the landlord's fees is not prohibited and stands, subject only to the anti-circumvention rule where it would cut across an obligation the chapter itself imposes. What Vermont does instead is grant fees one way to the tenant, section by section: a tenant may recover damages, costs and reasonable attorney's fees for a habitability failure; a landlord who willfully fails on a deposit owes double the amount wrongfully withheld plus reasonable fees and costs; an illegally evicted tenant may seek injunctive relief, damages, costs and reasonable fees; and a tenant subjected to retaliation may recover damages and reasonable fees. Two grants run the other way: a landlord may recover damages, costs and reasonable fees where the tenant breaches the use and maintenance duties, and a court may award the landlord fees where it finds after a motion and hearing that the tenant's action was not brought in good faith and was frivolous or intended only to harass.

Murray v. Williams, 169 Vt. 625, 740 A.2d 791 (Vermont Supreme Court; 1999; residential setting; bears on void or prohibited lease clauses): The court declined to read the residential rental agreements chapter's anti-circumvention section as preventing a landlord and tenant from waiving the right of redemption, saying that the section speaks precisely to what it covers, the obligations the chapter itself imposes on the parties. The decision sets the outer edge of the anti-circumvention rule rather than construing any disclosure duty.

Golden Key, LLC v. Harper, 170 Vt. 641, 751 A.2d 798 (Vermont Supreme Court; 2000; residential setting; bears on disclosures about the property's situation): The conversion notice required before residential rental property becomes a common interest community does not apply where the existing building is to be demolished and replaced by newly built condominiums; conversion generally involves little or no structural change. The decision fixes the boundary of the notice duty rather than its contents.