How does a North Carolina landlord lawfully end a tenancy, and when may a tenant leave early?

The military early-termination section, section 42-45, was narrowed in 2019, and which version governs a tenancy depends on the age of the lease. For a lease entered into, renewed or modified on or after October 1, 2019, section 42-45 reaches only a dual-status military technician under section 10216 of Title 10 of the United States Code. For a lease signed before that date and never renewed or modified since, the older text still governs, and it covered any member of the Armed Forces and the Active Guard and Reserve. Every other block on this page applies to all covered tenancies without regard to the lease date.

The switch is the date the lease was entered into, renewed or modified, set by Session Law 2019-161, section 1(e). A tenant or landlord finds the answer on the face of the lease: a lease signed, renewed or amended on or after October 1, 2019 takes the narrow section, and a lease older than that which has never been renewed or modified takes the wider one. Seven years on, very few tenancies still sit on the old side. Servicemembers outside the narrow section are not left without a remedy; their rights come from the federal servicemember act as brought into state law by section 127B-28.

The switch changes: when a tenant may end the lease early.

Landlord: 7 days. Tenant: 7 days.

Section 42-14 anchors only its longest period. A year-to-year tenancy is ended by a notice given one month or more before the end of the current year of the tenancy, so that notice lands at a period boundary and the tenancy ends when the year ends. The month-to-month and week-to-week limbs state a bare count of days and nothing else: seven days and two days run forward from the day the notice is given, and no clause ties either figure to the rent-due date, to the close of a rental period, or to the passing of a full rental period. A landlord who hands a month-to-month tenant a notice on 10 March has therefore ended the tenancy on 17 March, in the middle of the rental month, and the practical period is seven days rather than the rest of the month.

Whether the termination date must fall on a rental-period boundary or a rent-due date differs between tenancy types or is not settled by the statute; the rule for each is stated above.

Tiers: Three periods, selected by the length of the tenancy's own period: one month or more before the end of the current year for a year-to-year tenancy, seven days for a month-to-month tenancy, and two days for a week-to-week tenancy. Nothing turns on how long the tenant has lived there, the building, the size of the landlord's portfolio, the tenant's history, or where in the state the unit is. A separate 60-day period applies to the rental of a space for a manufactured home regardless of the term of the tenancy; that figure belongs to the manufactured-home-park page.

The statute says nothing about agreeing to a different period.

A statute requires the landlord's and tenant's periods to be equal.

Source of the period: a termination-notice statute states it.

One sentence of section 42-14 carries the whole rule, and it names no party: a tenancy from year to year may be terminated by a notice to quit given one month or more before the end of the current year of the tenancy, a tenancy from month to month by a like notice of seven days, and a tenancy from week to week by a like notice of two days. Because the section is written without an actor and North Carolina has no separate tenant-side termination statute, the same periods bind the landlord and the tenant alike. Seven days is one of the shortest month-to-month periods in the country, and it has stood since 1868. The section requires nothing else: no writing, no method of delivery, no statement of a ground, no effective date and no advisory language. It also carries no clause on whether a lease may set a different period, and the anti-waiver clauses elsewhere in Chapter 42 are each limited to their own Article, so none of them reaches section 42-14; no North Carolina appellate decision has decided whether a lease may lengthen or shorten the seven days. Ending the tenancy is not the same as getting possession. Section 42-26(a) allows a summary ejectment action only where the tenant holds over without the landlord's permission and after demand made for its surrender, so a landlord who wants a court order serves a second, separate document; the court process is covered on the eviction page. One older section, 42-23, applies the one-month figure to agricultural year tenancies in 25 named counties and creates no separate rule.

Only for a defined subset of tenancies. Covered: a tenancy where the landlord is a housing authority created under the Housing Authorities Law, Chapter 157, Article 1.

How a tenancy comes inside the rule: the state's housing-authority law imposes the ground requirement on authority tenancies.

Who is covered: Not covered: every private landlord in North Carolina, and a private landlord who rents to a household holding a federal voucher, because section 157-29 governs an authority as landlord rather than the source of the rent. For every tenancy outside a housing authority, no ground is required to end a periodic tenancy or to let a fixed term expire.

No-fault grounds: None. Section 157-29(c) allows an authority to terminate or refuse to renew only for a serious or repeated violation of a material term of the rental agreement, including failure to pay properly calculated rent, failure to meet the federal public-housing tenant obligations, or other good cause. It creates no owner move-in, withdrawal, demolition, sale or substantial-rehabilitation ground, so there is no no-fault route out of a covered tenancy.

Local ordinances: no statute or decision addresses them. No North Carolina statute addresses local just-cause or eviction-control ordinances either way. The state's express preemption, section 42-14.1, reaches two other subjects: no county or city may regulate the amount of rent charged for privately owned residential or commercial rental property, and none may bar a landlord from refusing to rent because the tenant's lawful source of income includes a federal housing assistance program, with four carve-outs for the locality's own property, agreements regulating subsidized rents, properties assisted with community development block grant money, and owners receiving local funding or incentives. Neither limb names eviction, termination, non-renewal or a ground requirement. The rent side of that statute is carried on the rent-increase page, which records North Carolina as a state that preempts local rent regulation. Silence here is not permission: North Carolina follows Dillon's Rule, so a city would need an affirmative grant of power before adopting a just-cause ordinance, and no statute grants one.

For every private landlord in North Carolina, no reason is needed to end a periodic tenancy or to let a fixed term expire; the party gives the section 42-14 notice and the tenancy ends. One statewide statute is different. Where the landlord is a public housing authority, section 157-29(c) allows termination or refusal to renew only for a serious or repeated violation of a material term of the rental agreement, which the statute illustrates with failure to pay properly calculated rent, failure to meet the federal public-housing tenant obligations, or other good cause; except for nonpayment, the tenant's own fault may be weighed in deciding whether good cause exists. Section 157-29(d) adds a real deadline for the authority: accepting rent does not waive a default, but the authority loses the default if it fails, within 120 days after learning of it, either to notify the tenant or to act on a remedy. Two narrow bars apply to every landlord. Section 42-42.2 forbids terminating a tenancy, refusing to renew, refusing to rent, or otherwise retaliating based substantially on the victim status of a tenant, an applicant or a household member, or on the tenant's or applicant's having ended a lease under section 42-45.1. Section 42-45(c) makes the military termination rights non-waivable. Retaliation for asserting repair rights is covered on the habitability page.

The term ends on its date; no statute requires notice from either side.

After the term, no statute governs conversion; the common-law rule applies. No statute converts a holdover into a new tenancy in North Carolina; a Supreme Court presumption does, and the landlord controls it. Where a tenant under a lease for a fixed term of one year or more stays past the end of the term, the landlord may either eject the tenant or recognize the tenant as a tenant. If the landlord recognizes the tenant, a new tenancy arises as of the end of the old term and, by presumption of law, it is a tenancy from year to year on the same terms as the old lease so far as they apply, unless a new contract or other circumstances rebut the presumption. That matters for the notice figure: a year-to-year tenancy is ended under section 42-14 by a notice given one month before the end of the tenancy year, not by seven days' notice. Where the lease itself lets the tenant extend the term without giving notice and the tenant holds over and keeps paying the rent the lease sets, the presumption is instead that the option to extend was exercised and the tenancy continues on the lease's own terms.

A lease for a stated term ends on its ending date and no North Carolina statute requires notice from either side before it does. Section 42-14 reaches only three tenancies — year to year, month to month and week to week — and a term of years is none of them. The eviction statute treats the position as ordinary: summary ejectment lies when a tenant in possession holds over after the term has expired, subject only to section 42-26(a)'s general requirement of a demand for surrender. North Carolina also has no statute requiring a landlord to remind the tenant before an automatic-renewal clause bites, and none requiring notice of non-renewal. What fills the gap is a common-law presumption about holdovers, described above, which can turn a one-year lease into a year-to-year tenancy if the landlord treats the holdover tenant as a tenant.

A tenant who stays past the end of the tenancy without the landlord's permission holds no tenancy at all until the landlord chooses to treat them as a tenant. The landlord's route to possession is a summary ejectment action, which section 42-26(a) allows once a demand for surrender of the premises has been made; the demand is a separate document from the section 42-14 notice to quit, and no form, method or period is prescribed for it.

Damages: No statutory enhancement: the landlord recovers ordinary rent or use and occupancy.

North Carolina has no double rent, no treble rent and no other statutory penalty for holding over. What the landlord recovers is ordinary compensation for the occupation. Section 42-28 lets a landlord bringing an ejectment action claim rent in arrears and damages for the occupation of the premises since the tenant's estate ended, up to the small-claims limit set by section 7A-210(1), and says that omitting the claim does not prejudice a later action to recover the same money. Where no rent was agreed, section 42-4 gives the landlord reasonable compensation for the occupation. A lease may of course set its own holdover rent, and no statute caps it.

What a consented holdover becomes: A holdover the landlord accepts after a fixed term of one year or more becomes, by presumption of law, a tenancy from year to year on the old lease's terms — not a month-to-month tenancy. The practical consequence is the notice: ending a year-to-year tenancy takes a notice given one month before the end of the tenancy year, which the Supreme Court has read as thirty days before that date, rather than the seven days a month-to-month tenancy takes.

Yes: an appellate decision imposes the duty; no statute does.

When it attaches: The duty is a general contract-law duty owed by the party who did not break the contract, and it attaches on the tenant's breach — which in practice means the day the tenant abandons the unit and stops paying. North Carolina has no abandonment statute, so nothing has to be declared or served before the duty starts running.

Burden of proof: on the tenant.

The standard: The landlord must use reasonable diligence to re-let the premises. A landlord who does not can recover only the difference between what the lease would have produced and the fair market value of what reasonable diligence could have produced, so an idle landlord's recovery is cut down to the gap the market would have left. Whether the landlord's efforts were reasonable depends on the facts of the case and is a question for the jury except in the clearest cases.

No authority addresses a clause accelerating the remaining rent.

Whether a lease may waive the duty is not settled.

No North Carolina statute imposes or mentions a duty to mitigate in a lease; the duty comes from contract law and the Supreme Court of North Carolina has stated it since at least 1928. When a tenant abandons the premises and stops paying rent, the landlord may recover only the damages that reasonable diligence in re-letting could not have avoided, and the ordinary measure is the difference between the rent the lease reserved and the rent obtained from a new letting. The burden runs the other way from most states: it is on the tenant, as the party who broke the lease, to prove that the landlord failed to use reasonable diligence. Whether a lease clause may waive the duty is genuinely open. The Court of Appeals upheld a no-mitigation clause in a commercial lease and, in the same opinion, said it was not deciding whether such a clause would work in a residential lease, which it described as an entirely different situation. So a North Carolina residential tenant facing such a clause has no answer from the appellate courts either way. Two further points a reader should have: every North Carolina appellate decision stating the duty arose from a commercial or corporate lease, or from an opinion that never said what the property was, and no decision has applied it to a dwelling; and no statute addresses a clause accelerating the rest of the rent on default, in either direction.

No statute addresses a fee a landlord may charge for ending a lease early; the general damages rules govern.

Cap on damages after an early departure: There is no general cap, but two specific terminations carry one. On a military termination under section 42-45, liquidated damages are owed only where the tenant has completed less than nine months of the tenancy and the landlord has actually lost money on the tenancy, and they may not exceed one month's rent below six months completed or half a month's rent between six and nine months; at nine months or more nothing is owed, and nothing at all is owed if the tenant terminates 14 or more days before occupancy. On a domestic-violence termination under section 42-45.1 the ceiling is zero: the tenant is not liable for any other rent or fees due only to the early termination. The foreclosure termination in section 42-45.2 is the same, prorated rent and nothing more.

No North Carolina statute authorizes, caps or bars a fee for ending a residential lease early, so a lease-break fee is a matter of contract. Section 42-46, the chapter's fee statute, is not the answer: it governs late fees and eviction-litigation charges, and its closing clause voids only administrative fees a landlord puts in a lease or claims for filing a summary ejectment complaint or for money owed. An early-termination fee is neither, so section 42-46 leaves it alone. What North Carolina does regulate is what the landlord may take out of the deposit. Section 42-51(a)(3) and (a)(5) allow the deposit to be applied to damages resulting from the tenant's not seeing out the rental period and to the costs of re-renting after the tenant's breach, including reasonable fees or commissions paid to a licensed real estate broker — the closest thing in state law to a re-letting-fee rule. The same subsection names the terminations for which nothing may be taken: a military termination under section 42-45, a domestic-violence termination under section 42-45.1, a tenant forced out by an unlawful self-help removal, and a constructive eviction. Section 42-52 then caps the whole route at the landlord's actual damages, so a liquidated sum cannot be taken from the deposit. Beyond that, a landlord's claim after an early departure is an ordinary contract claim and is limited by the duty to re-let described above. North Carolina's administrative code was read for a fee or disclosure rule and has none: the state has no housing or landlord-tenant agency, and the one rule mentioning early termination sits in the Real Estate Commission's rules and governs the contract between a landlord and a broker, not the tenant.

Early-exit rights by ground: domestic violence and related grounds, a statutory right to end the lease; military service beyond the federal act, state orders or National Guard duty are covered, a deployment or transfer threshold below the federal act's, a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right, and a statutory right to extend or renew the lease on return; death of the tenant, no statute; and other statutory grounds.

Domestic violence and related grounds: a victim may end the lease on notice.

Who qualifies: The right belongs to a protected tenant, which section 42-40(4) defines as a tenant or a household member who is a victim of domestic violence under Chapter 50B, or of sexual assault or stalking under Chapter 14. Two limits are worth knowing. A household member who is not on the lease can invoke the right, which is wider than many states. But human trafficking is not one of the covered grounds in North Carolina, so a trafficking survivor has no lease-break right under this section. The statute sets no relationship requirement, no requirement that the tenant share the lease with the abuser, and no requirement that the incident happened at the property.

Documentation: The list is closed and, for most victims, cumulative. The notice must be accompanied by one of exactly three documents: a valid protective order issued by a court under Chapter 50B or 50C other than an ex parte order, a criminal order restraining a person from contact with the protected tenant, or a valid Address Confidentiality Program card issued under section 15C-4 to the victim or to a minor member of the household. On top of that document, a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault must also submit a copy of a safety plan, dated during the term of the tenancy being ended, provided by a domestic-violence or sexual-assault program meeting the standards of section 50B-9, and the plan must recommend that the tenant relocate. Two features catch people out. An ex parte order is expressly excluded, so the order most survivors hold in the first days after seeking help will not work. And a police report, a statement from a counselor or advocate, and the tenant's own certification are not accepted at all. On the face of the text the safety-plan requirement is imposed only on victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, so a stalking victim needs only one of the three documents; no North Carolina court has construed the section. The notice and the documentation go to the landlord together.

Window: The statute sets no window tied to the incident. There is no requirement that the violence have happened within a stated number of days before the notice, and no deadline by which the tenant must act after it. What limits the right instead is the documentation: the protective order must be valid, and a domestic-violence or sexual-assault victim's safety plan must be dated during the term of the tenancy being ended.

Notice: 30 days; at least that many days must pass between the notice and leaving. The tenant gives the landlord a written notice of termination that names the date the termination takes effect, and that date must be at least 30 days after the landlord receives the notice. Thirty days is a floor rather than a fixed period: the tenant may name a later date and may stay in the unit until the date named. The clock starts on the landlord's receipt of the notice, not on the day the tenant sends it, so a mailed notice buys the landlord extra days. The statute prescribes no form for the notice beyond writing and the accompanying documents.

Rent owed: The tenant owes rent under the lease prorated to the effective date of the termination, payable when the lease would have required it. Nothing is owed for the period after that date.

Cost to the tenant: Nothing. The tenant is not liable for any other rent or fees due only to the early termination, and a tenant who ends the lease 14 or more days before occupancy begins is not subject to any damages or penalties at all. The deposit is protected from the other direction as well: section 42-51(a)(3) bars a landlord from applying the deposit to damages for the tenant's not seeing out the rental period where the tenant ended the lease under this section. Those two provisions together are what make the termination genuinely cost-free, and only one of them sits in the victim section.

Other tenants on the lease: the lease continues for the other tenants. The statute says so expressly. Whether the protected tenant is released or a court has excluded the abuser from the unit, the tenancy continues for any remaining tenants living there, and the excluded abuser stays liable under the lease along with any other tenant for rent and for damage to the unit. There is no ability-to-pay test and no requirement that the remaining tenants be re-screened or sign a new lease.

Locks: The victim may require the landlord to change the locks. Section 42-42.3 gives a protected tenant a lock change on two tracks, and the easier track is decoupled from the termination right. Where the abuser is not a co-tenant, oral or written notice to the landlord is enough, the tenant does not have to produce any documentation of the violence, and the landlord must change the locks or give the tenant permission to change them within 48 hours. Where the abuser is a co-tenant, the tenant must first give the landlord a copy of a court order requiring the abuser to stay away from the unit, and the landlord then has 72 hours; the landlord owes the excluded abuser no access and no key and is protected from a damages claim for the loss of use. The tenant bears the cost either way, and if the landlord misses the deadline the tenant may change the locks without permission and must give the landlord a key within 48 hours.

Later screening: a landlord may not deny, refuse to renew, or terminate because of victim status or a past victim-status termination. Section 42-42.2 sits outside the termination section and reaches further than it. A landlord may not terminate a tenancy, fail to renew a tenancy, refuse to enter into a rental agreement, or otherwise retaliate in the rental of a dwelling based substantially on the status of the tenant, an applicant or a household member as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, or on the tenant's or applicant's having ended a lease under section 42-45.1. Because it covers applicants and household members, it protects a survivor applying for the next apartment as well as one already in a tenancy. The evidence a tenant may offer under this section is deliberately wider than the closed list that unlocks the lease-break: law-enforcement, court or federal agency records, documentation from a domestic-violence or sexual-assault program, or documentation from a religious, medical or other professional. North Carolina therefore runs two different documentary standards, a broad one for proving victim status against discrimination and a narrow one for ending the lease.

The landlord's side: The statute creates no rights for the landlord in this process. It imposes two bars, on adverse action and on retaliation, and one duty, the lock change, with civil immunity for the landlord who excludes an abuser under a court order. The landlord may of course insist on the documents the statute lists, since the termination only operates when they accompany the notice.

A protected tenant — a tenant or household member who is a victim of domestic violence under Chapter 50B or of sexual assault or stalking under Chapter 14 — may end the lease by giving the landlord a written notice of termination naming an effective date at least 30 days after the landlord receives it. The notice must be accompanied by a Chapter 50B or 50C protective order other than an ex parte order, a criminal no-contact order, or an Address Confidentiality Program card, and a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault must also supply a dated safety plan from a qualifying program that recommends relocation. The tenant then owes rent prorated to the effective date and nothing else, and nothing at all if the termination comes 14 or more days before occupancy. Remaining tenants stay on the lease, and an abuser excluded by court order stays liable under it. A separate section gives the tenant a lock change on 48 hours' notice, or 72 hours where the abuser is a co-tenant and a stay-away order is produced. Human trafficking is not a covered ground, no time limit ties the right to the date of the incident, and North Carolina places no duty on the landlord to keep the tenant's documents or status confidential.

Military service: State orders or National Guard duty are covered; a deployment or transfer threshold below the federal act's; a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right; and a statutory right to extend or renew the lease on return.

When the state rights attach: Two qualifiers. Section 42-45 as narrowed in 2019 applies only to leases entered into, renewed or modified on or after October 1, 2019; an older lease never renewed since then is still governed by the wider pre-2019 text covering any member of the Armed Forces and the Active Guard and Reserve. And under the state servicemember act, a landlord is not exposed to its remedies for a state-active-duty member of the National Guard unless the member gives the landlord a written or electronic copy of the military order no later than 30 days after the military service ends.

North Carolina runs two military layers. The first, section 42-45, was cut back in 2019 and now reaches only a dual-status military technician under section 10216 of Title 10 of the United States Code. Such a technician may end the lease on written notice naming an effective date at least 30 days after the landlord receives it, either on permanent change of station orders requiring a move of 50 miles or more from the unit or on a premature or involuntary discharge or release from active duty, supported by a copy of the orders or a written verification signed by the commanding officer. A technician deployed with a military unit for 90 days or more may terminate on the same documentation, and that termination takes effect on whichever comes sooner: 30 days after the next rent payment falls due, or 45 days after the landlord receives the notice. If the technician dies on active duty, an immediate family member or the estate's lawful representative may terminate on the same footing, with a death certificate, a casualty report or a letter from the commanding officer; that termination also ends the lease obligations of co-tenants who are immediate family members, while a co-tenant who is not an immediate family member stays bound. Rent is prorated to the effective date, liquidated damages are capped as described under fees, and the section may not be waived or modified by agreement under any circumstances. The second layer, Chapter 127B, Article 4, is where every other North Carolina servicemember's lease rights now live. It brings the whole federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, including its residential lease-termination section, into state law and extends it to members of the North Carolina National Guard and to another state's Guard members living in North Carolina, on state active duty of more than 30 consecutive days — a shorter trigger than the federal act's own framework for comparable service. A dependent of a covered servicemember has the rights a dependent holds under the federal act's leases and rent subchapter. Section 127B-32 adds something no other state in this topic has: a Guard member whose lease expires while they are on state active duty, for any length of time, may extend the lease to end 10 days after the duty ends, on the same terms that applied in the month before expiry, provided they are current on rent and deposits and in good standing. The article overrides any agreement that cuts down its rights, and a knowing violation is an unfair or deceptive trade practice, exposing the landlord to an Attorney General action, a civil penalty of up to $5,000 per violation, and a private suit with attorneys' fees.

Death of the tenant: No statute gives a right to end the lease on the tenant's death.

Other grounds: Four further statutory grounds let a North Carolina tenant leave early. Casualty: section 42-12 lets a tenant surrender the tenancy where the building is destroyed or damaged so badly that it cannot be made reasonably fit for its purpose except at a cost above one year's rent, provided the tenant was not negligent, the lease says nothing about repairs or about such a case, and the use of the damaged building was the main inducement to renting it; the tenant must deliver or tender a writing to the landlord within 10 days of the damage and pay arrears and prorated rent, and is then discharged from rent accruing afterwards. The section does not apply if a contrary intention appears from the lease, so an ordinary repair clause switches it off. Foreclosure: under section 42-45.2 a tenant living in residential property with fewer than 15 rental units that is being sold in a foreclosure may, after the statutory notice, end the tenancy on a date named in the notice that is at least 10 days but no more than 90 days after the sale date, owing prorated rent and nothing else, provided the borrower has not cured the default. Unlawful removal: section 42-25.9(a) gives a tenant whom a landlord removes or tries to remove other than through the summary ejectment process a choice — recover possession or terminate the lease — plus actual damages as in an action for trespass or conversion, with punitive, treble and emotional-distress damages expressly excluded. Death on active duty: section 42-45(a3), described above, is the only death-triggered termination in North Carolina law. Ending a lease because the landlord will not keep the unit fit is covered on the habitability page. North Carolina has no age, disability, care-facility, health or job-transfer termination right.

No statute treats absence as ending the tenancy; the common law governs.

No North Carolina statute ends a tenancy because the tenant has gone. The tenancy runs until a section 42-14 notice takes effect, until a fixed term expires, until the landlord accepts a surrender, or until a court gives the landlord possession. The provision most often misread the other way is section 42-25.9(e), which says that personal property is deemed abandoned where the landlord finds evidence clearly showing the premises have been voluntarily vacated after the paid rental period expired and has no notice of a disability that caused the vacancy, and that a presumption of abandonment arises 10 or more days after the landlord posts a notice of suspected abandonment inside and outside the premises and gets no response. That rule opens with the words 'For purposes of subsection (d)' and its subject is the tenant's belongings, not the tenancy: it does not end the lease and it does not give the landlord possession. The nearest thing to an abandonment rule is a ground for going to court rather than a termination — section 42-26(a)(3) makes summary ejectment available where a tenant who is in arrear for rent deserts the premises and leaves them unoccupied and uncultivated, a subdivision with an agricultural cast that no modern residential decision has applied. What actually limits a landlord's recovery when a tenant walks away is the duty to re-let, not an abandonment statute. What the landlord may do with property left behind is covered separately from this page.

Section 42-14 prescribes nothing at all about how a termination notice is given. It does not require a writing, name a method of delivery, add days for mailing, require an officer to serve it, or set out anything the notice must contain. That silence is unusual and it appears to be deliberate: every other termination provision in Chapter 42 specifies its document, and one of them expressly accepts oral notice. What fills the gap in practice is the lease and the ordinary law of contract notice.

Documents in sequence: North Carolina uses three separate pre-court documents and prescribes a form for none of them. The section 42-14 notice to quit ends a periodic tenancy. The demand for surrender of the premises, required by section 42-26(a), is a precondition to filing a summary ejectment action and is a different document from the notice to quit. The section 42-3 demand for past-due rent is a third, used where the landlord relies on the lease's forfeiture clause. The court summons and complaint in an eviction case are served by the sheriff under a rule that belongs to the eviction page.

Electronic delivery: the termination statute is silent on it.

Chapter 42 cites no federal statute for terminations. The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act enters North Carolina law by express incorporation instead: section 127B-28(a) applies the rights, benefits and protections of that act to a servicemember engaged in military service as the state article defines it, and section 127B-28(d) makes a violation of the federal act, as expanded by the state provision, a violation of the state article — which carries unfair-trade-practice consequences, an Attorney General action and a private suit with fees. That is a materially stronger enforcement route than the federal act alone provides. The federal Violence Against Women Act supplies no lease-termination right and no North Carolina statute references it; the state's own victim right is keyed to Chapters 50B and 14.

The federal CARES Act 30-day notice to vacate for covered properties, as read in this state's courts: no state appellate decision construes it. No North Carolina appellate decision construes the federal 30-day notice for covered dwellings. The General Statutes are silent as well: no section references the CARES Act or a 30-day notice for covered dwellings, so North Carolina has not written a narrower version into its own law. There is no standing state court order on the subject either, so a landlord of a covered dwelling meets the federal requirement, if at all, only in the trial court's own practice. (Appellate picture read as of September 4, 2026.)

Kearney v. Hare, 265 N.C. 570, 144 S.E.2d 636 (1965) (Supreme Court of North Carolina; a general statement of law; bears on the end of a fixed term): Where a tenant under a lease for a fixed term of one year or more holds over after the term ends, the landlord may either eject the tenant or recognize the tenant as a tenant; on recognition a new tenancy arises as of the end of the old term and is, by presumption of law, a tenancy from year to year on the old lease's terms so far as they apply, endable by either party on notice given thirty days before the end of a tenancy year under section 42-14. Where the lease gives the tenant an option to extend without notice and the tenant holds over and pays the rent the lease sets, the presumption is instead that the option was exercised. The case arose from a farm lease, and no later decision applies the presumption to a dwelling.

Monger v. Lutterloh, 195 N.C. 274, 142 S.E. 12 (1928) (Supreme Court of North Carolina; arose from a commercial lease; bears on the duty to re-let): The ordinary measure of damages for a tenant's wrongful breach of a rental contract and abandonment of the premises is the difference, if any, between the rent the contract reserved and the rent received from a new letting, and the burden is on the defendant to show that in the exercise of good business prudence the landlord could have let the property to another and reduced the damages. The lease was a commercial one, for a building specially constructed for the tenant partnership.

Weinstein v. Griffin, 241 N.C. 161, 84 S.E.2d 549 (1954) (Supreme Court of North Carolina; a general statement of law; bears on the duty to re-let): Where the landlords took back possession before the term expired, the tenants were entitled to have the jury instructed either on the lease's liquidated-damages provision or on the landlords' duty to exercise due diligence to re-let the property and so reduce the loss. The opinion never states what kind of property was involved.

Isbey v. Crews, 55 N.C. App. 47, 284 S.E.2d 534 (1981) (North Carolina Court of Appeals; arose from a commercial lease; bears on the duty to re-let): The party who did not break a lease has a duty to reduce its damages, so when a tenant abandons the premises and stops paying rent the landlord recovers only the damages reasonable diligence in re-letting could not have avoided, measured as the difference between what performance would have produced and the fair market value obtainable with reasonable diligence; and the burden of showing that the landlord failed to use reasonable diligence rests on the party who broke the lease. The premises were commercial, being medical office space.

Chapel Hill Cinemas, Inc. v. Robbins, 354 N.C. 349, 554 S.E.2d 644 (2001), reversing 143 N.C. App. 571, 547 S.E.2d 462 (2001) for the reasons stated in the dissent (Supreme Court of North Carolina; arose from a commercial lease; bears on the duty to re-let): The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion, which restated the injured party's duty to protect itself from loss where it can do so with reasonable exertion or trifling expense and held that the reasonableness of those efforts depends on the facts of the particular case and is a jury question except in the clearest of cases. This is the most recent and highest North Carolina authority on the duty. The lease was commercial, for a cinema.

Sylva Shops Limited Partnership v. Hibbard, 175 N.C. App. 423, 623 S.E.2d 785 (2006) (North Carolina Court of Appeals; arose from a commercial lease; bears on the duty to re-let): A lease clause providing that the landlord has no obligation to reduce the tenant's damages by re-letting the premises is not contrary to law or public policy and is enforceable in a commercial lease. The court expressly stated that it was not deciding whether such a clause would be viable in a residential lease, which it described as an entirely different situation, so the residential question is open.