Oregon law gives landlords and tenants four ways to deliver the written notices required under the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: hand it over in person, send it by first-class mail, mail it and attach a copy to a designated spot, or send it by email under a signed addendum. ORS 90.155 sets the rules for each, and the method you choose changes both what you have to do and how the notice period is counted. Using the wrong method, or getting the timing wrong, can void the notice entirely.
Personal Delivery
Handing the notice directly to the landlord or tenant is the cleanest option. Under ORS 90.155(1)(a), personal delivery satisfies the service requirement by itself, and the notice period starts that day with no extra time added.
The statute means what it says: personal delivery to the landlord or tenant. Leaving the notice with a roommate, a spouse, a child, or whoever happens to open the door is not personal delivery. If you cannot physically put the paper in the recipient’s hands, pick a different method.
First-Class Mail
First-class mail through the U.S. Postal Service is the second standard option under ORS 90.155(1)(b). Address it, drop it in a mailbox, and you have served it. The statute does not require certified or registered mail.
The cost is time. ORS 90.155(2) automatically adds three days to any notice period when the notice is mailed. A 30-day notice becomes 33 days. A 10-day notice becomes 13. The notice itself has to state the extended deadline on its face, so the recipient can see the actual date they need to act by. Writing “30 days” on a mailed notice and expecting the recipient to add three days is the kind of defect that can kill an eviction case.
Mail and Attachment
ORS 90.155(1)(c) allows a combined method: mail one copy by first-class mail and attach a second copy to a physical location. This method is not available unless the written rental agreement specifically authorizes it, and the authorization has to run both ways. If the lease lets the landlord serve this way, it must also let the tenant serve this way.
The attachment location depends on direction. When the landlord serves the tenant, the mailed copy goes to the rental address and the attached copy goes on the main entrance of the portion of the premises the tenant occupies. When the tenant serves the landlord, the mailed copy goes to the address listed in the rental agreement, and the attached copy goes to a location the lease describes clearly enough that there is no doubt where it is. That location has to be reasonably accessible to the tenant at all hours.
Both steps are required. Taping a notice to the door without mailing a copy does not count. Mailing without attaching does not count either. If either step is missing, the service is defective. The three-day mailing extension still applies because a copy was mailed.
Email is the fourth method, under ORS 90.155(1)(d), and it has the strictest preconditions. The statute authorizes email only. Text messages, phone calls, voicemails, and app messages do not qualify, no matter what the parties have agreed to informally.
To use email, both parties must sign a separate written addendum that:
- Lists the exact email addresses each party will send from and receive at.
- Is executed after the tenancy begins and the tenant has moved in. It cannot be bundled into the original lease signing.
- Lets either party cancel email service or change their designated address on at least three days’ written notice.
- Contains the disclosure language substantially in the form the statute prescribes, warning the tenant that legal notices, including rent increases and termination notices, will arrive by email and that failing to check email could cost them their housing.
The disclosure language is the step landlords miss most often. An addendum that says “both parties agree to email notices” without the prescribed warning may not hold up.
Termination Notices Need Both Email and Mail
Even with a valid email addendum in place, a notice that actually terminates the tenancy cannot go by email alone. ORS 90.155(5) requires termination notices to be sent by both first-class mail and email. Routine communications covered by the addendum do not need the extra mailing step, but anything that ends the tenancy does. Because a copy is being mailed, the three-day extension under ORS 90.155(2) applies to the deadline.
Counting the Notice Period
Personally delivered notices start running the day of delivery, with no added time. Mailed notices, including the mailed copy in a mail-and-attachment service and the mailed copy of an emailed termination notice, get three extra days added under ORS 90.155(2), and the notice must reflect the extended deadline in writing.
Oregon’s Rules of Civil Procedure also affect the count. Under ORCP 10, you exclude the day of service and start counting the next day. If the last day of the period lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline rolls to the end of the next business day. For notice periods shorter than seven days, weekends and legal holidays are excluded from the count entirely. That rule can meaningfully stretch short-fuse notices like a 72-hour or 144-hour cure period.
Notices This Statute Does Not Cover
ORS 90.155 is not the delivery rule for every notice in Oregon’s landlord-tenant code. Four categories follow their own procedures and should be checked against their own statutes:
- Security deposit accounting under ORS 90.300.
- Utility or service payment notices under ORS 90.315.
- Abandoned personal property under ORS 90.425.
- Disposition of a manufactured dwelling or floating home left in a facility under ORS 90.675.
If your notice falls into one of these categories, do not rely on the methods in ORS 90.155.
When Service Goes Wrong
Defective service is not a formality courts overlook. If an eviction (a Forcible Entry and Detainer, or FED) is based on an invalid notice, the case has to be dismissed, even when the landlord’s underlying claim is strong. The Oregon Supreme Court confirmed this result in Hickey v. Scott, 370 Or. 97 (2022).
The practical consequences line up against the landlord. The tenant stays in the property. The landlord has to issue a corrected notice, wait out the notice period again, and refile. Under ORS 90.255, the prevailing party can be awarded attorney fees, so a tenant who wins a dismissal on service grounds may walk away with a fee award on top. Lost filing fees and weeks or months of lost time compound the damage.
The errors that most often sink cases are the same ones to check for before you serve: using a method the rental agreement does not authorize, skipping the mailing step in the mail-and-attachment method, failing to add the three days to a mailed notice (or failing to put the extended deadline on the face of the notice), and emailing a termination notice without also mailing a copy. Courts will not let a landlord fix any of these at trial.