Maintenance & Repairs Clause
in Your Lease
How this page is sourced
Statutes verified against primary state sources
Every statute cited here was read in its published text before this page went live: on the state's own site where that site can be reached, otherwise on a republished copy of the code. Court decisions are quoted from the published opinion and linked to it, so you can read the original yourself.
Primary sourcesNot legal advice
Content verified against primary state statutes before publicationLast updated: October 2026
What it actually means, what Oklahoma law says, what's specific to Oklahoma City - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- Your written notice starts the clock: the landlord then has 14 days to remedy a health or safety breach.
- If it is not remedied, the lease can end at least 30 days after the landlord gets your notice.
- Repair and deduct covers a health defect costing no more than one month's rent, with an itemized statement.
- Lost heat, water, electric or gas has its own remedies, with no 14-day wait.
- No Oklahoma City section we read sets a repair day count; a city correction order allows a reasonable time.
Try your numbers
Is your repair bill over the limit?
Applies to an Oklahoma City tenant with a defect that materially affects health, after written notice of the intention to correct it at the landlord's expense and 14 days without the landlord complying, or as promptly as conditions require in an emergency. One month's rent is a condition of the route, not a partial refund: a repair whose reasonable cost is more than one month's rent does not qualify under § 121(B) at all. The work must be done in a workmanlike manner, and the actual and reasonable cost is deducted from rent after an itemized statement (Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(B)). Arithmetic only, not legal advice.
Count it for your dates
14 days: when does it end?
What it means: The landlord's 14 days to remedy the breach end on this date. If it is not remedied, the lease ends on the date your notice names, which must be at least 30 days after the landlord received the notice. Applies to an Oklahoma City landlord after a tenant's written notice; rights do not arise where the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act of the tenant, a family member, a pet or someone there with the tenant's consent, and a failure to supply heat, water or another essential service under § 121(C) has no 14-day wait (Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(A)). Calendar arithmetic only; check how the section counts days before you rely on a date.
Copy and send: As soon as you find a problem that affects your health or safety
Written repair notice
Fill in the brackets and keep a copy of what you send.
How Oklahoma compares
Deadline to make repairs, state by state
7 days10 days14 days30 daysNo figureGuide coming soonYou are here
See all 26 cities as a chart
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Understanding the Maintenance & Repairs Clause
This page is for Oklahoma City renters waiting on a repair. Oklahoma gives the landlord a deadline and gives you three routes: ending the lease if the deadline is missed, repair and deduct for a smaller health repair, and faster remedies when heat or water is not supplied.
Each route starts with a written notice to the landlord. Put the problem in writing, keep a copy, and keep the receipts for any repair you pay for yourself.
What renters assume
The 14 days in Oklahoma law start as soon as you mention the problem to the landlord, by phone or in passing.
What is actually true
Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(E) says the tenant's rights under the section "do not arise until he or she has given written notice to the landlord". A call or a word in the hallway does not start the 14 days.
Oklahoma City's bar in the comparison on this page reads 14 days. It is one of eight of the 26 rows at that figure, alongside Chicago, Nashville, Boston, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Louisville.
Eight more rows carry a different figure. Los Angeles, Portland, Columbus and Baltimore sit at 30 days, with Columbus labelled an outer limit and Baltimore a presumed limit.
Seattle and Phoenix show 10 days, and Austin and Miami 7 days. The remaining 10 rows carry no bar: New York City, Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Newark, Detroit, Charlotte, Milwaukee and Indianapolis.
The 30 days in Oklahoma's own section is not its bar. In Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(A) it marks the earliest date the lease can end after an unremedied breach, while the 14 days is the landlord's time to remedy it.
Repairs Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Oklahoma City, OK
The sample clause below is real lease language - a court quoted it word for word, and then ruled on it. What the judge decided is at the bottom of this block.
Find the equivalent paragraph in your own lease and read the two side by side. The wording will differ; the moving parts rarely do.
Tenants agree to pay for all damages to the apartment windows, screens, and doors, including exterior unit doors (including random acts of vandalism).
Quoted from the published opinion in De Stefano v. Apts. Downtown, Inc., 879 N.W.2d 155 (Iowa 2016). Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright; the lease language is reproduced in limited part for commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
What the 4 highlighted phrases mean
“Tenants agree to pay”
A promise to pay printed in the lease is where Oklahoma's Act asks a reader to look twice. Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 118(B) lets a landlord and tenant agree that the tenant performs specified repairs, and the agreement it describes is made “by a conspicuous writing independent of the rental agreement”. This sentence sits inside the rental agreement itself. The Iowa court, reading its own statute, held that a tenant-repair agreement did not let the landlord make the repair and bill the cost back; our Oklahoma record does not reach how an Oklahoma court would read § 118(B).
See the example
“all damages to the apartment”
All damages draws no line by cause, and Oklahoma's repair section draws one. Under Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(E), the tenant's repair rights do not arise where the condition was caused by the tenant, a family member, a pet or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent. The Act sorts damage by who caused it. This phrase charges the household for all of it, the damage it caused and the damage it did not.
See the example
“screens, and doors”
Doors and screens are where a repair can turn into a deadline. Under Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(A), a breach of the landlord's duties that materially affects health or safety, once named in a written notice, has 14 days to be remedied. If it is not, the rental agreement ends on the date the notice gives, not less than 30 days after the landlord receives it. Whether a broken door or a torn screen reaches that threshold is the question the section turns on.
See the example
“(including random acts of vandalism)”
A stranger's crime is the case the Iowa court decided, and the tenants won the door. The people Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(E) names are the tenant, a family member, a pet and someone on the premises with the tenant's consent; a burglar who forces the door is not among them on those words. That holding is Iowa law, and our Oklahoma record does not reach how a court here would treat a vandalism term like this one.
See the example
The tenants won the door. The Iowa Supreme Court held the landlord could not use this clause to bill them $598.46 for an exterior door wrecked by a burglar, and reversed the district court's decision against the tenant on liability for the door repair. Two reasons, and the second is the wider one. Iowa Code § 562A.15(2) lets a landlord and tenant agree only that the tenant will perform specified repairs; it does not let the landlord perform the repair and shift the cost. And the landlord's statutory duty to “make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition” is not satisfied “by merely making repairs and shifting the costs to the tenant pursuant to categorical provisions in the original lease agreement.” Note the word categorical: what failed was a blanket allocation written into a form lease before anyone knew who would break what. Why a renter should care: the damage here came from a stranger's crime, and the clause charged it to the household anyway. This is Iowa law, from the opinion as amended July 26, 2016, and a differently worded statute can produce the opposite answer - Texas's did in 2001.
How this state's law treats this clause
One court, one lease, one state. That answer is not automatically yours, and your lease may be worded to land differently. Use this to know what to look for and what to ask - your state's tenant hotline or a local tenant attorney can answer it for your document.
Oklahoma Law on Maintenance & Repairs Clause
- Fourteen days to fix it or lose the lease.
Read the law's words
Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121(A) lets a tenant facing a material noncompliance with the rental agreement, or a noncompliance with § 118 that "materially affects health or safety", deliver "a written notice specifying the acts and omissions constituting the breach and that the rental agreement will terminate upon a date not less than thirty (30) days after receipt of the notice if the breach is not remedied within fourteen (14) days". The agreement then ends as the notice says "unless the landlord adequately remedies the breach within the time specified." - Repair and deduct is capped at one month's rent.
Read the law's words
Section 121(B) applies where the noncompliance "materially affects health and the breach is remediable by repairs, the reasonable cost of which is equal to or less than one month's rent". The tenant notifies the landlord in writing of an intention to correct the condition at the landlord's expense, and "If the landlord fails to comply within said fourteen (14) days, or as promptly as conditions require in the case of an emergency", the tenant may have the work done in a workmanlike manner and, after giving the landlord an itemized statement, deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent. - No fourteen day wait for essential services or an uninhabitable unit.
Read the law's words
Section 121(C) covers a landlord who "willfully or negligently fails to supply heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas or other essential service": after written notice the tenant may terminate immediately, buy the service and deduct its reasonable cost, recover damages for the lost rental value, or procure substitute housing and owe no rent for that period. Section 121(D) lets a tenant terminate immediately on written notice where the noncompliance "renders the dwelling unit uninhabitable or poses an imminent threat to the health and safety of any occupant" and is "not remedied as promptly as conditions require". - Writing starts everything, and the duty behind it cannot be signed away.
Read the law's words
Section 121(E) says the tenant's rights under the section "do not arise until he or she has given written notice to the landlord", and they do not arise where the condition was caused by the tenant, a family member, a pet or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent. The duty itself is in § 118(A)(2), to "Make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the tenant's dwelling unit and premises in a fit and habitable condition"; § 118(B) lets the parties shift specified repairs to the tenant only "by a conspicuous writing independent of the rental agreement", and § 113(A)(1) bars a rental agreement term by which either party agrees "to waive or forego rights or remedies" under the Act.
Sources include Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 118; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 125; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 113; Okla. Stat. tit. 11, § 14-101.1; Okla. Stat. tit. 11, § 22-110.1; Oklahoma City Municipal Code § 24-11; Oklahoma City Municipal Code § 24-26 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
Oklahoma's repair rules sit in Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121. § 118(A)(2) requires the landlord to "Make all repairs" needed to keep your unit "in a fit and habitable condition".
- (A) End the lease. Your written notice of a breach that materially affects health or safety names a termination date at least 30 days after the landlord receives it. It ends then unless remedied within 14 days.
- (B) Repair and deduct. For a defect that materially affects health and costs no more than one month's rent to repair, give written notice of your intent to repair it at the landlord's expense. If the landlord does not comply within 14 days, or as promptly as an emergency requires, you may have it done in a workmanlike manner and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent after an itemized statement.
- (C), (D) No 14-day wait. A landlord who willfully or negligently fails to supply heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas or another essential service faces your remedies after written notice. An uninhabitable unit not remedied as promptly as conditions require allows immediate termination on written notice.
- (E) Limits. These rights do not arise if you, a family member, a pet or someone there with your consent caused it.
Check the current § 121 on oscn.net first.
What's Specific to Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City adds a city process, not a tenant deadline. No Oklahoma City section we read gives a landlord a set number of days to finish a repair for a tenant, so the 14 days on this page are the state figure.
Oklahoma City Municipal Code § 24-11 adopts the 1978 BOCA Basic Property Maintenance Code. Under § PM-106.2, as amended by § 24-26, a code official's notice of a violation must "include a correction order allowing a reasonable time for the repairs and improvements required".
Useful. Your rights under § 121 do not arise until you give the landlord written notice.
Good. § 121(B) requires an itemized statement before you deduct a qualifying repair's cost from rent.
Question it. § 118(B) allows a tenant repair agreement "by a conspicuous writing independent of the rental agreement".
Read it against § 113(A)(1), which bars a rental agreement term agreeing "to waive or forego rights or remedies" under the Act.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 121; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 118; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 125; Okla. Stat. tit. 41, § 113; Okla. Stat. tit. 11, § 14-101.1; Okla. Stat. tit. 11, § 22-110.1; Oklahoma City Municipal Code § 24-11; Oklahoma City Municipal Code § 24-26, read on web.archive.org. The Oklahoma State Courts Network page for this section, in an Internet Archive copy saved 5 August 2025, cites it as 41 O.S. § 121 (OSCN 2025) with a history note ending in an amendment effective November 1, 2022; confirm the current text with the Oklahoma State Courts Network before relying on it.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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Thirty days quoted as the landlord's repair time
The 30 days in § 121(A) is the earliest the lease can end after an unremedied breach. The landlord's time to remedy it is 14 days.
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Lost heat or water put in the ordinary repair queue
After written notice, § 121(C) gives remedies for a willful or negligent failure to supply heat, running water, hot water, electric or gas with no 14-day wait.
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No written channel for repair requests
A lease that takes repair requests only by phone leaves you without the paper § 121 asks for. Put your request in writing anyway, and keep a copy.
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Every defect blamed on the tenant
Your rights do not arise where you, a family member, a pet or someone there with your consent caused it (§ 121(E)). Question blanket blame clauses.
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A city correction order read as your deadline
A code official's correction order allows "a reasonable time" and is the city's order to the owner. Your 14 days run from your own written notice.
Your Rights as a Oklahoma City Tenant
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Fourteen days to remedy
A health or safety breach left unremedied 14 days after written notice lets the lease end on the date your notice names (§ 121(A)).
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Repair and deduct up to one month's rent
You may have a qualifying health repair done and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent (§ 121(B)).
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Faster remedies for heat and water, after written notice
End the lease at once, deduct the reasonable cost of buying the service, recover damages, or find substitute housing and owe no rent meanwhile (§ 121(C)).
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An immediate exit from an uninhabitable unit
Written notice can end the lease at once where the unit is uninhabitable or an imminent threat to health and safety (§ 121(D)).
What To Do - Step by Step
Check that the problem touches health or safety
§ 121(A) reaches a breach that materially affects health or safety, and repair and deduct under § 121(B) one that materially affects health.
Photograph the problem and date it
Dated photos, a short video and a note of what stopped working show the problem and when it started.
Send written notice and keep a copy
Name the acts and omissions that make up the breach. A termination date in it must be at least 30 days after the landlord receives it.
Price the repair against one month's rent
Repair and deduct covers repairs whose reasonable cost is no more than one month's rent. Keep the receipts for the itemized statement.
Ask whether the city has issued a correction order
If a code official served a notice of violation under § 24-26, its correction order shows what the city required of the owner.
Get advice before ending the lease or deducting rent
Both change your tenancy. Talk to Oklahoma legal aid or a tenant advice service before you act.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Maintenance & Repairs rules near Oklahoma
The same clause in the nearest states we cover.
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