Tennessee’s Notice Requirements: How Much Warning Must Your Landlord Give?

Rent was due on the 1st. On the 6th a letter shows up on the door. Or no letter shows up at all, and a deputy hands you a detainer warrant for Davidson County General Sessions. Both moments feel like the same emergency. In Tennessee they are not the same clock.

This state does not use one notice for every problem. How much warning you get depends on what the notice is for, which county you live in, and whether your lease waived written notice in bold type. If you rent in Nashville, start with Title 66, Chapter 28. Then open the lease.

This is general information about Tennessee notice rules, not legal advice for your case.

Which Tennessee are you in?

Tennessee runs two landlord-tenant systems. The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, also called the TRLTA, lives in Title 66, Chapter 28. It covers counties with more than 75,000 people, including Davidson County. Smaller counties follow a different statute, § 66-7-109.

For unpaid rent, both systems usually give you 14 days after a written notice. For other lease problems, the smaller-county clock is often 30 days. The rest of this post follows Chapter 28, because that is the law in Nashville. If you live outside Davidson County, confirm whether Chapter 28 applies to you by checking § 66-28-102 against your county. Do not trust a blog list. Published county lists disagree, including on Greene and Putnam.

The five-day grace, and why “day six” is not court day

Under § 66-28-201(d), you get a five-day grace period before a late fee can start. The due date counts as day 1. If rent is due on the 1st, grace runs the 1st through the 5th. The earliest a landlord can charge a late fee, or send a nonpayment notice, is the 6th.

That late fee cannot go over 10 percent of the rent that is past due. If the last day of grace lands on a Sunday or a legal holiday, and you pay on the next business day, the landlord cannot add the late fee. Saturday does not get that roll. If the 5th is a Saturday, grace still ends Saturday.

You may have seen TenantGuard’s line about day six in our post on Nashville’s permanent Eviction Right to Counsel. Day 6 is the earliest notice date, not an automatic court date. The landlord still owes you the 14-day pay-or-cure letter described below, unless your lease waived that letter in bold type. Waiver does not erase the five-day grace. It can erase the letter.

The 14-day pay-or-cure notice

If Chapter 28 applies and your lease did not waive notice, § 66-28-505(a)(2) is the main unpaid-rent clock. The landlord must give you a written notice that names the breach. You then have 14 calendar days after you receive it, not 14 days after they print it, to fix a problem that money can fix.

Paying the rent in full inside that window keeps the tenancy. Do not treat a partial payment as a cure. For unpaid rent, remedy means paying what the notice says you owe, in full, on time, and getting a receipt.

The same 14-day idea covers other problems you can fix with money, such as the cost of repairs or other amounts the lease says you owe. A second strike is shorter. If the same breach comes back within six months after a notice, the landlord can give you 7 days and does not have to let you cure. A problem that money cannot fix is different again: at least 14 days, and no cure.

What it is for	How much warning	Can you fix it and stay?
Unpaid rent	14 days after you receive the notice	Yes, if you pay in full
Fixable breach (repairs or money)	14 days after receipt	Yes
Same breach within 6 months	7 days	No (§ 66-28-505(a)(2)(B))
Non-fixable breach	At least 14 days	No (§ 66-28-505(a)(3))
Violence, danger, or an unauthorized occupant	3 days	No (§ 66-28-517). You can ask a court for an injunction.
Month-to-month, no cause	30 days before the next rent date (§ 66-28-512)	N/A
Week-to-week	10 days	N/A

The waiver trap

This is the clause that turns a 14-day letter into a court warrant with no letter at all.

§ 66-28-505(b) and § 66-28-201(c) let a tenant waive the nonpayment notice in the written rental agreement. If that waiver is set out in 12-point bold type or larger, the landlord can file a detainer warrant after the grace period with no 14-day pay-or-cure letter. You can go from the 6th of the month to General Sessions without ever seeing a “pay or quit” page.

The waiver does not erase the five-day grace in § 66-28-201(d). The landlord still cannot charge a late fee, and still cannot file, during days 1 through 5. What the waiver can take is the written warning after that.

Find the clause. Search the lease for “waive,” “waiver,” “notice,” and “nonpayment.” Screenshot the paragraph with the page number visible. Check the font. Twelve-point bold or larger is what the statute requires. If the waiver is buried in 10-point gray text, that may be a defense. Preserve the page.

If you are staring at a lease and a notice and you cannot tell which clock you are on, upload both to TenantGuard.net. The first question is always the same: did you waive the letter?

The other clocks, in brief

A fixable breach is one you can cure by paying money or making a repair the lease allows you to cover. A non-fixable breach is one the statute treats as over once it happens. You still get at least 14 days after receipt under § 66-28-505(a)(3), but paying or patching does not put the lease back.

Violence, a real present danger, a hazardous or unsanitary condition that threatens people or property, or an unauthorized occupant, can move you onto a 3-day clock under § 66-28-517. That notice must spell out the violation. It is effective when you receive it, not when they write it. You can go to court right away and ask for an injunction to stop the termination. Three days is short. Do not wait to read the paper.

Month-to-month tenancies in Chapter 28 counties end with 30 days’ written notice before the next rent date, under § 66-28-512. If rent is due on the 1st, a notice handed over on the 15th does not end the tenancy on the next 1st. It has to land at least 30 days before a rent date. Week-to-week tenancies take 10 days. Tennessee has no statewide just-cause rule, so a landlord can end a month-to-month tenancy with that notice and no stated reason. If the 30-day letter arrives right after you complained about repairs or called an inspector, save both papers. Timing like that can support a retaliation argument. That is a different fight from counting the 30 days.

A fixed-term lease usually ends on the date printed in the lease. The landlord does not need a 30-day no-cause notice to let a one-year lease expire. Read the end date. If you stay past it without a new agreement, you can become a holdover.

Federal housing can add a longer clock. If you have a Section 8 voucher, live in public housing, or your building has HUD or other federal backing, you may be entitled to more warning than state law requires. Some properties still carry a leftover CARES Act 30-day notice rule. Do not assume the state 14-day letter is the only letter that matters. Ask the housing authority or a lawyer before you treat a short notice as the last word.

Two clocks do not belong in this post. The 24-hour notice a landlord usually must give before entering is a privacy rule, not an eviction rule. Read Tenant Privacy and Landlord Right of Entry for that. If the problem is a repair your landlord will not make, you generally have to put the landlord on written notice first. That is a habitability question. Damage claims and what you can be charged for are covered in Property Damage and Tenant Liability.

What a valid notice looks like

A Chapter 28 notice has to be in writing. It should specify the acts or omissions that make up the breach. If the problem is rent, it should state the amount. It should say the rental agreement will terminate, and if the problem is one you can fix, it should give you the 14-day cure.

Personal delivery or mail is how these papers usually arrive. Keep the envelope. The postmark and the date you found it both matter, because several clocks run from receipt. Do not treat a text, a voicemail, or a knock with no paper as the official notice. Write down the date and the words, then watch for the real letter or a warrant.

What to do this week

1. Photograph the notice, the envelope, and the date you received it. Take a picture of the door or mailbox if that is where it landed.
2. Search the lease for “waive,” “waiver,” and “notice.” Screenshot any clause that talks about skipping written notice for nonpayment. Check whether it is 12-point bold or larger.
3. Name the clock. Unpaid rent, a repeat breach, violence, month-to-month, or a waived letter are different timelines. Write the end date on a calendar.
4. If this is a pay-or-cure notice and you can pay, pay in full inside the 14 days and get a dated receipt. Do not rely on a verbal “you’re good.”
5. Do not ignore a detainer warrant. That paper is court, not another notice. Missing the General Sessions date can cost you the unit even if the notice was wrong.
6. A lockout, a changed lock, or a utility shutoff used to push you out is illegal self-help. The landlord has to go through court. Document it and get help the same day.

After the notice: the warrant is the lawsuit

A notice is not an eviction. An eviction in Davidson County starts when the landlord files a detainer warrant in General Sessions Court under Title 29, Chapter 18. The warrant is the lawsuit. It has a court date. You still live there until a judge says otherwise, and even after a judgment the landlord needs a writ to remove you.

If you already have the warrant, the notice fight becomes evidence: the right clock, receipt, a waiver in the type the statute requires, payment in full inside the window. TenantGuard will cover court day and the writ in later posts. Do not wait on those if a court date is already on the paper.

Do not wait for court day

Upload the lease and the notice at TenantGuard.net. The AI will help you name the clock and flag a waiver clause that may not meet the 12-point bold rule. You can also call the AI line at (620) 582-9634.

If you need a lawyer in Davidson County, start here:

• Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee: 1-800-238-1443 or 615-244-6610
• Conexión Américas ERTC: 615-270-9252
• Nashville Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC), for pre-filing mediation

The letter on the door is not the end of the tenancy. The warrant is not the lockout. Both move fast. Count the days you actually have, not the days you wish you had, and get the papers in front of someone who can read them before you have to stand up in General Sessions.