Landlord Tenant Repair Responsibilities Chart

A kitchen line backs up on a Sunday. A plumber clears it that afternoon and tells you what came out of it: tree roots, and a dishcloth.

Roots are the landlord's. A dishcloth is not. The invoice is one number.

That is the shape of the who-pays question, and it is why the tidy repair responsibility charts circulating on landlord forums answer the wrong thing. Those charts answer "what is the item." The statutes answer something else — what is the item, who caused it, and what did the two of you put in writing, in that order. Four of the five chapters I read do publish something like a list of items. Texas publishes none, and Texas is the one that splits the invoice above by cause, in a subsection, with the words roots and foreign objects printed in it.

I read Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington and California at the legislatures' own sites on 20 August 2026. Two rented houses in the Midwest, no licence, no law degree.

Four questions, not one column

Run any repair through these in sequence and the bill lands on somebody before you reach the end.

Is it on the list your statute names? If yes it is yours, and it stays yours through almost any lease language.

Did the tenant, the tenant's family, or a guest cause it? If yes your duty falls away, and four of the five chapters say that in nearly the same words.

Then comes the question that quietly undoes the second one: was it ordinary use? Texas writes the exception directly into the same sentence, Washington into the duty itself. If the thing failed because it was used, it is back on your side of the line even though the tenant's hands were on it. That boundary is a separate fight with its own evidence, and it is not this page's fight.

The last question is whether your state lets you hand the item over in writing at all. That band is real and it is narrow, and every state that opens it attaches formalities a generic lease clause fails.

Everything else — filters, lawns, lightbulbs — falls outside all four questions and lands wherever the lease says. Which is why those are the items worth negotiating and the ones above are not.

The list no lease of yours moves

Arizona § 33-1324(A) is the readable version of a pattern you will recognise once you have seen it. The landlord complies with building codes materially affecting health and safety; makes all repairs necessary to keep the premises fit and habitable; keeps common areas clean and safe; maintains in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning facilities and appliances supplied or required to be supplied by him; provides receptacles for waste and arranges removal; supplies running water, reasonable hot water at all times, and reasonable heat or cooling where such units are installed and offered.

That phrase "supplied by him" does quiet work. The window air conditioner the tenant carried in is not on your list. The one that was in the unit when they signed is.

Washington RCW 59.18.060 covers the same ground and adds structural components, weathertightness, adequate locks and keys, and — at subsection (5) — the sentence that decides more disputes than any other: the landlord must make repairs to keep the premises in as good condition as they should have been at the commencement of the tenancy, except where the condition is attributable to wear resulting from ordinary use.

Florida § 83.51(1) routes through building, housing and health codes first, and where none apply, names roofs, windows, doors, floors, steps, porches, exterior walls, foundations and structural components in good repair, plus plumbing in reasonable working condition. Screens installed in reasonable condition at commencement, repaired once annually thereafter when necessary. A small, specific, easily-missed duty.

California Civil Code § 1941.1 lists what makes a dwelling untenantable, and California landlords should notice that this list grew this year. Under AB 628 (Stats. 2025, Ch. 342), effective 1 January 2026, a working stove and refrigerator are habitability characteristics for any lease entered into, amended or extended on or after that date. An appliance moved sides of the chart in January. The statute leaves one door open: the tenant may bring their own refrigerator if the lease carries the acknowledgement language the section prescribes, the tenant can end that arrangement on 30 days' written notice after which you install one, and you cannot condition the tenancy on the tenant supplying it. Subdivision (c) adds a duty with a deadline attached — a stove or refrigerator subject to a manufacturer or public-entity recall must be repaired or replaced within 30 days of your notice of the recall — and subdivision (b) exempts single-room occupancy units, residential hotels, permanent supportive housing and units with shared kitchens from both appliances entirely.

Texas frames the duty by trigger rather than by list. Under Property Code § 92.052, you must make a diligent effort to repair when the tenant gives notice, the tenant is not delinquent in rent at that moment, and the condition either materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant or arises from the landlord's failure to provide and maintain in good operating condition "a device to supply hot water of a minimum temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit." A number, in a statute, about a thermostat setting. Go check yours.

The tenant-caused half, in the statutes' own words

Four of the five chapters put this switch in the landlord's own duty section, and the phrasing is worth copying into your notes, because it tells you what you would actually have to prove.

Florida § 83.51(4): the landlord is not responsible "for conditions created or caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of the tenant, a member of the tenant's family, or other person on the premises with the tenant's consent."

Washington closes RCW 59.18.060 with a flush paragraph doing double duty — no repair duty where the defective condition was caused by the conduct of the tenant, family, invitee or a person under the tenant's control, or where a tenant unreasonably fails to allow the landlord access to the property for purposes of repair. That second half is the one landlords forget. A tenant who will not let you in has stopped the clock on your obligation, and that is exactly why you want your access requests in writing.

Texas § 92.052(b) says it most compactly, and includes the limit: no duty for a condition caused by the tenant, a lawful occupant, a family member, or a guest or invitee — unless the condition was caused by normal wear and tear.

California carries a mirror rule from 1872 at Civil Code § 1929: "The hirer of a thing must repair all deteriorations or injuries thereto occasioned by his want of ordinary care." Its modern partner, § 1941.2, is stricter with the landlord than the others are: your repair duty falls away only if the tenant is in substantial violation of a listed obligation and that violation contributes substantially to the dilapidation. Two findings, not one. Subsection (b) closes the loop neatly — if you agreed in writing to handle the cleaning and rubbish removal yourself, you cannot then blame the tenant for not doing it.

Arizona is the one that does not hand it to you in a sentence. Its landlord-duty section carries no tenant-caused clause at all, and the point has to be assembled from two other places: the tenant's own duties at § 33-1341 — use the appliances reasonably, do not deliberately or negligently damage anything, notify the landlord in writing promptly of anything needing repair — and § 33-1364(A), which opens the tenant's utility remedies only where the landlord "deliberately or negligently" failed to supply. Same destination, two sections instead of one, and worth knowing before you quote a clause at somebody that your chapter does not contain.

Where exactly that boundary runs item by item — which scuff is chargeable and which is not — is its own long argument, and the test is identical whether the money comes off a deposit or off a mid-tenancy invoice. This page stops at who gets billed.

Cause is a fact, and you are the one asserting it

Every no-duty clause above is a defence, not a default. Raising it means showing what caused the condition, and a month later the only version that still exists is whatever somebody wrote down on the day.

Texas attaches a clock to the same instinct, running the other way. Section 92.053(a) puts the burden of proof on the tenant in a repair action. Subsection (b) then takes it back: if you do not give a written explanation for a delay within five days of the tenant's written demand for one, you carry the burden of proving you made a diligent effort and that a reasonable time had not elapsed. Five days of saying nothing and you have volunteered for the hardest job in the room.

So keep four things per incident in the repair file: the tenant's original message with its timestamp, a photo taken before the work, the invoice with the contractor's own words about the cause, and a dated note of what you told the tenant about who was being billed. The third is the one that gets skipped. An invoice line reading "cleared blockage" bills nobody.

What you can shift in writing, and the paperwork it costs

This band is real, it is narrow, and every state attaches formalities that a generic lease clause fails.

Arizona § 33-1324(C) lets the landlord and tenant of a single family residence agree in writing, supported by adequate consideration, that the tenant will perform the landlord's waste-removal and water/heat/cooling duties plus specified repairs, maintenance, alterations and remodeling — but only if entered into in good faith, not for the purpose of evading the landlord's obligations, and only where the work is not needed to cure a code or habitability failure. Subsection (D) allows a version for other dwelling units, requiring a separate signed writing and no effect on other tenants' rights.

Florida § 83.51(1) ends with one short sentence that matters enormously to a one-to-four-unit owner: the landlord's obligations under that subsection "may be altered or modified in writing with respect to a single-family home or duplex." And § 83.51(2)(a) opens with "unless otherwise agreed in writing," then applies its list — extermination of rats, mice, roaches, ants, wood-destroying organisms and bedbugs; locks and keys; clean common areas; garbage removal; functioning heat, running water and hot water — only to units other than a single-family home or duplex. Own a duplex and that entire list is negotiable ground. Own a fourplex and it is not. Same statute, same street, different answer. The pest provision was amended in 2025 and now carries seven days' written notice before a tenant must temporarily vacate for extermination, a four-day maximum, and abated rent for that period.

Texas § 92.006(e) contains the single most audience-specific provision I found anywhere. A landlord who, at the beginning of the lease term, owns only one rental dwelling may agree with the tenant that the tenant repairs health-and-safety conditions at the tenant's own expense — if the unit is free of such conditions at the start, the landlord has no reason to believe any is likely to occur or recur, the lease is in writing, and the repair agreement is underlined or in boldface in the lease or in a separate addendum, specific and clear, and made knowingly, voluntarily and for consideration.

Subsection (f) then does something no other statute I read attempts. It names specific fact patterns any Texas landlord and tenant may assign to the tenant, subject to the same formalities and excepting conditions caused by the landlord's negligence.

Read those first two rows against the Sunday sink. Roots are named in row two and reserved to the landlord; a dishcloth is a foreign object in row one. The Texas legislature has already litigated the plumber's sentence, word for word, and cut a single ticket down the middle.

The price of getting this wrong is set out too. Under § 92.0563(b), knowingly contracting to waive the repair duty outside those exceptions costs actual damages, a civil penalty of one month's rent plus $2,000, and reasonable attorney's fees. Same reasoning that kills several clauses landlords routinely keep in their leases: a paragraph that tries to delete a statutory duty does not shrink your exposure, it manufactures a new one.

The small items, where the split is least obvious

One nine-volt battery draws three different answers. Washington assigns replacement to the tenant at RCW 59.18.130(7). Florida § 83.51(2)(b) makes you install working devices at commencement of a single-family or duplex tenancy unless otherwise agreed in writing. Texas § 92.006(a) refuses to let the installation duty be waived at all and allows the inspection-and-repair duty to be waived only by written agreement — so the identical lease sentence is enforceable in one state and void in another.

Pest control splits on who brought the problem. Washington requires a reasonable program at the initiation of the tenancy and, except in a single-family residence, control during the tenancy except where the infestation is caused by the tenant — while RCW 59.18.130(2) puts extermination costs for a tenant-caused infestation squarely on the tenant. Florida's list, again, reaches only units other than a single-family home or duplex.

On utilities, Florida § 83.51(2)(e) expressly permits the rental agreement to obligate the tenant to pay for garbage removal, water, fuel or utilities. Washington added something new here. As amended by 2026 c 234, RCW 59.18.060(11)(a) bars a landlord from involuntarily terminating a tenant's electric or water service for nonpayment on any day the National Weather Service has issued or announced it intends to issue a heat-related alert for that area. Subsection (b) then requires the disconnection notice itself to tell tenants how to ask for reconnection, and (c) caps any repayment plan you demand in exchange at six percent of the tenant's monthly income, aimed at clearing the arrears by the following 15 May. If your last read of that section predates this year, you read a different statute.

Furnace filters, lawn care, snow, lightbulbs — none of them named in any of the five statutes I read. That is precisely why they belong in the lease, and California § 1942.1 describes the shape the bargain should take even outside California: stipulated portions, named, as part of the consideration for the rent. Name the two tasks and say what they are worth. A blanket "tenant maintains the property" sentence buys nothing.

Building your own chart in an afternoon

Open your legislature's site — the .gov one, not a summary — and find your residential landlord-tenant chapter. Search it for a heading close to landlord to maintain fit premises, landlord's obligation to maintain premises, or landlord's duty to repair or remedy. Then find the partner section for the tenant, usually tenant to maintain dwelling unit. Print both, back to back, on one sheet.

Now write three columns for your actual unit: statute says mine, statute says theirs if they caused it, unassigned. Every line item you own — water heater, disposal, screens, garage opener, sump pump, dryer vent — goes in exactly one. Only the third column belongs in your lease. Put the date you read the statute at the bottom of the sheet, because three of the five sections above moved in the last two legislative sessions — Florida in 2025, California and Washington since — and an undated chart quietly becomes wrong.

One more thing worth doing on the same afternoon: check how your state's repair chapter interacts with its deposit rules. A charge you can justify mid-tenancy is not automatically a charge you can take out of the deposit at the end, and the caps and account rules are a separate statute carrying separate penalties.

Back to the sink. A Texas landlord and tenant who signed the addendum § 92.006(f) describes could put the dishcloth half of that line on the tenant and still could not touch the roots half; the statute cuts one invoice in two by cause and prints both halves. Everywhere else you make the same cut by argument rather than by citation, against somebody who was not standing in the kitchen when the plumber explained it.

Which is the entire case for asking for the cause in writing, on the ticket, before the van leaves. That one sentence is the difference between a charge that gets paid and a charge that becomes an argument at move-out.

Warren Ashby is not an attorney. This describes how these statutes are written and where to find yours; it is not legal advice about your unit or your lease.