How to Be a Landlord in Ohio: Leases, Deposits & Evictions

To be a landlord in Ohio, you have to get the property into habitable condition, follow federal and state fair housing rules when you advertise and screen, put the arrangement in a written lease that avoids clauses Ohio voids, handle the security deposit under the strict rules in Revised Code Chapter 5321, and use the courts (never self-help) if you ever need to evict. The rest is detail, and the detail is where landlords get sued.

Make the Property Legally Rentable

Ohio law requires every rental to be “fit and habitable” before a tenant moves in. The dwelling has to comply with the building, housing, health, and safety codes that affect tenant welfare. Plumbing, electrical, heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems must be in safe working order. You have to supply running water, a reasonable amount of hot water, and adequate heat, unless the unit’s design puts those systems entirely under the tenant’s control through a direct utility connection.¹

Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors fall under those same safety codes. If your local fire or building code requires them, installing and maintaining them is on you.

Check the city, too. Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, and other Ohio municipalities impose rental registration or licensing schemes with their own inspection schedules. Operating without a required local license can bring fines or an order to stop renting, so confirm the rules with the municipality before you list the unit.

Follow Fair Housing Rules in Ads and Showings

The federal Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to refuse to rent, set different lease terms, or steer applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.² Ohio adds ancestry and military status to that list, so turning away an applicant over a military discharge or ethnic heritage creates liability under state law too.

Language in your listings can be the problem on its own. Phrases like “perfect for young professionals” or “no children” read as discriminatory even when you did not mean them that way. Keep ads focused on the property: size, rent, location, amenities.

Assistance Animals Aren’t Pets

A no-pets lease does not override a disability accommodation. Tenants with disabilities can request to keep a service animal or emotional support animal, and you cannot charge a pet deposit or pet fee for one. You may ask for documentation connecting the animal to the person’s disability when the need isn’t obvious, but you cannot ask about the disability itself. Denial is permitted only in narrow cases, such as a specific animal posing a direct safety threat no other accommodation can resolve.³

Screening Applicants Without Breaking the FCRA

Pulling a credit or background report on an applicant triggers the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Evaluating someone for a residential lease is a permissible purpose, so you can run the report.⁴ The catch comes after. If you deny the application, require a co-signer, or charge a higher deposit based even partly on what’s in the report, you must send an adverse-action notice. The notice has to identify the consumer reporting agency, state that the agency did not make the decision, and tell the applicant they can dispute inaccurate information and get a free copy of the report within 60 days.⁵

Skip the notice and you’ve handed the applicant an FCRA claim. They do not need to prove harm, and statutory damages add up fast across a batch of applicants.

Write a Lease That Holds Up

Oral rental agreements are legal in Ohio, but only a written lease reliably proves what both sides agreed to. At minimum, include the parties’ names, the property address, the term, the rent amount and due date, and the rules you want to enforce around pets, subletting, and alterations. Every written lease must also list the owner’s name and address along with any management agent authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.

Clauses Ohio Won’t Enforce

You cannot waive or weaken your duty to keep the property habitable, and you cannot require the tenant to pay your attorney fees in a dispute. Ohio voids those terms outright. A court can also strike any lease clause it finds unconscionable at the time of signing, even if the clause doesn’t fall into a specifically prohibited category; both sides get to present evidence about the clause before the court decides.⁶

Lead Paint Disclosure for Pre-1978 Buildings

If the property was built before 1978, federal law requires you to disclose everything you know about lead-based paint, hand over any inspection reports in your possession, and give the tenant the EPA pamphlet “Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home.” The lease itself has to carry a lead warning statement about the health risks of unmanaged lead paint.⁷ Noncompliance can bring federal penalties and civil liability if a tenant or child is harmed.

Military Tenants Can Break the Lease

The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act lets active-duty service members end a residential lease early without penalty. A tenant who signed before entering active duty can terminate after showing they will serve at least 90 days. A tenant already on active duty can terminate after receiving orders for a permanent change of station or a deployment of 90 days or more.⁸ Ohio’s landlord statute requires SCRA compliance, so it applies whether or not the lease addresses it.¹ The tenant provides written notice with a copy of their orders, and the lease ends 30 days after the next monthly rent payment is due. You cannot charge an early-termination fee or hold the deposit as a penalty.

Hold and Return the Security Deposit by the Rules

Ohio does not cap the deposit amount, but the holding and return rules are specific. Any deposit above $50 or one month’s rent, whichever is greater, has to earn 5% annual interest on the excess. The interest obligation kicks in once the tenant has lived in the unit for at least six months, and you pay it out annually.⁹

At move-out, you have 30 days to return the deposit after the tenant gives you a forwarding address in writing. If you withhold any portion for unpaid rent or damage beyond normal wear and tear, you must deliver a written, itemized list of deductions with whatever balance remains. Miss these steps and the tenant can recover the amount wrongfully withheld, an equal amount in damages, and reasonable attorney fees.⁹ A tenant who never provides a forwarding address loses the right to those extra damages and attorney fees, but you still owe the deposit itself.

One more wrinkle: if you pay a tenant $10 or more in deposit interest in a year, that interest has to be reported to the IRS on Form 1099-INT.¹⁰

Rent, Late Fees, and Changing Terms

Ohio has no statewide rent control and does not regulate how much you can charge. The amount is whatever you and the tenant agreed to in the lease, and it holds for the term unless the lease says otherwise.

There is no residential statute capping late fees either. Courts look at whether the fee is a reasonable estimate of the cost a late payment causes you or whether it functions as a penalty. Spell out the fee amount and the trigger in the lease; an unwritten late charge is hard to enforce.

On a month-to-month tenancy, either side can end the arrangement or change the terms with at least 30 days’ written notice before the next rent due date. That is also how you raise the rent on a month-to-month tenant. What you cannot do is raise rent, cut services, or move to evict in retaliation for a tenant reporting a code violation or asking for a repair.¹¹

Keep Up Maintenance and Give Notice Before Entering

Habitability is an ongoing duty, not a move-in checklist. Through the whole tenancy, you must keep the property fit and habitable, keep common areas safe and sanitary, and keep landlord-supplied fixtures and appliances working.¹ Buildings with four or more units also need trash receptacles and arranged waste removal.

When a tenant notifies you in writing about a needed repair, act within a reasonable time. Ohio courts generally treat 30 days as the benchmark for non-emergency problems. Blow past that and the tenant has legal options, including depositing rent with the court or, in some cases, arranging the repair and deducting the cost from rent.

You can enter the unit for inspections, repairs, or showings, but you have to give reasonable notice first and enter at reasonable times. Ohio presumes 24 hours is reasonable unless the circumstances say otherwise.¹ Burst pipes and fires are the exception; you can enter immediately. Abusing your right of entry gives the tenant grounds to sue for damages.

Use the Courts to Evict

Ohio requires a court order to remove a tenant. The proceeding is called a forcible entry and detainer action, and there is no legal shortcut. Changing the locks, shutting off utilities, or hauling out a tenant’s belongings without a court order makes you liable for all damages the tenant suffers plus attorney fees.¹²

The process starts with a written notice to vacate, delivered at least three days before you file. You can hand it to the tenant, leave it at the usual residence or the rental unit, or send it by certified mail with return receipt requested. The notice has to include specific language telling the tenant they are being asked to leave, that an eviction may be filed, and that they should seek legal help if unsure of their rights.¹³

If the tenant doesn’t leave, you file an eviction complaint with the local court. The court issues a summons that has to be served at least seven days before trial, and the summons itself must tell the tenant a complaint has been filed, that no one can be evicted in retaliation for exercising lawful rights, and that they have a right to a jury trial.¹⁴ Both sides present at the hearing. If you win, the court issues a judgment for possession, and you then request a writ of restitution, which authorizes the county sheriff to remove the tenant physically if they still haven’t left. The whole thing typically takes several weeks after filing, and filing fees vary by county.

One federal overlay to know: if your rental carries a federally backed mortgage (FHA, VA, USDA, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac), the CARES Act may require 30 days’ notice to vacate on top of Ohio’s three-day notice.¹⁵ The original eviction-filing moratorium expired in 2020, but the 30-day notice provision was written without a sunset date, and an Ohio appellate court held in 2023 that the notice requirement remains in effect. If the property qualifies, give the 30-day notice.

Report Rental Income and Deduct What You’re Allowed

Rental income from a residential property goes on Schedule E of your federal return. You report all rent actually received during the year, plus any advance rent or lease-cancellation payments in the year you receive them, no matter what period they cover. If a tenant pays one of your expenses directly, that counts as rental income too.¹⁶

Security deposits are treated differently from rent. You don’t include a deposit in income as long as you may have to return it; if you keep part or all of it for unpaid rent or damage, you report the amount kept as income in the year you keep it.¹⁶

Ordinary and necessary expenses to manage and maintain the rental are deductible, including mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance, repairs, management fees, and professional services like accounting or legal advice.¹⁷ Improvements that add value or extend the property’s life are not current-year deductions; they get capitalized and depreciated. Residential rental buildings are depreciated over 27.5 years under MACRS, applied to the building’s cost basis only (not the land), starting when the property is placed in service as a rental.¹⁸

Depending on your situation, you may qualify for the 20% qualified business income deduction on net rental income under certain safe-harbor rules, and rental profits can trigger the net investment income tax; passive activity loss rules may also limit how much of a rental loss you can use against other income in a given year.¹⁶ One credit to rule out: the federal energy-efficient home improvement credit is only available for your primary residence, so energy upgrades at a rental don’t qualify.¹⁹

1
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 5321.04 – Obligations of Landlord
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing
3
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Assistance Animals
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports
5
Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know
6
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 5321.14 – Unconscionable Terms
7
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Lead-Based Paint Disclosure Rule (Section 1018 of Title X)
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3955 – Termination of Residential or Motor Vehicle Leases
9
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 5321.16 – Security Deposits
10
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1099-INT, Interest Income
11
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 5321.02 – Retaliatory Action by Landlord Prohibited
12
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 5321.15 – Prohibition Against Landlord Recovery of Possession Without Court Order
13
Justia Law. Ohio Code 1923.04 – Notice and Service
14
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 1923.06 – Summons and Service of Process
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 9058 – Temporary Moratorium on Eviction Filings
16
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 414, Rental Income and Expenses
17
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule E (Form 1040)
18
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 168 – Accelerated Cost Recovery System
19
Internal Revenue Service. Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit