Rental Agreements

For manufactured (mobile) home park residents who own their homes and only rent lot space, lot rental agreements must be in writing and offered for terms of one year or more. If a resident chooses to decline the long-term lot agreement offered, and instead agrees to a month-to-month agreement, the month-to-month agreement will automatically renew unless the resident terminates it. The park owner cannot simply terminate the lot rental with a thirty-day termination notice. The owner must have cause to terminate the lot rental. For more information about lot rental agreements, see Ohio Revised Code 4781.40 

For tenants and landlords participating in publicly subsidized housing programs, there may be additional tenant protections and other requirements included in rental agreements. For more information about this, contact COHHIO at 888-485-7999 or rentinfo@cohhio.org.

For tenants renting unsubsidized apartments and houses, rental agreements can be written or verbal according to R.C. 5321.01. These agreements can be for a long, specific period of time (such as a one-year lease) or they can be on a month-to-month or even weekly basis.

It’s better for a tenant to have a written rental agreement, called a “lease.” Written leases are best for making clear what is expected of both tenants and landlords.

Every rental agreement, written or verbal, includes the condition that landlords and tenants fulfill their legal obligations, regardless of whether or not those obligations are stated in the agreement.

If a rental agreement includes terms or conditions that are prohibited by law, a court will not uphold those terms or conditions.

Rental agreements can include any conditions that are not prohibited by law, even if those conditions are a bad deal for the tenant. Landlords often try to hide penalty fees and other conditions unfavorable to tenants within the “fine print” of lease and lease addendum forms, so always be sure to carefully read the lease and any addenda!

If either party to a rental agreement (the landlord or the tenant) fails to uphold their part of the agreement or to abide by other parts of state, federal or local landlord-tenant law, then the other party can exercise the remedies provided by the law. 

Ohio Revised Code 5321.04 covers landlords’ key legal responsibilities, and R.C. 5321.07 - 5321.10 covers what tenants can do when landlords fail to fulfill those responsibilities.

R.C. 5321.05 covers tenants’ key responsibilities, and R.C. 5321.11 covers what landlords can do when tenants fail to fulfill those responsibilities. 

R.C. 5321.12 gives landlords and tenants the right to sue the other for damages suffered due to the other’s violation of the law and/or rental agreement.

R.C. 5321.17 covers tenants’ and landlords’ rights to terminate month-to-month and week-to-week tenancy by giving the other party proper advance notice. 

R.C. Chapter 1923 covers the rights and responsibilities of landlords with regard to evictions.