Maintenance & Repairs Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what Oregon law says, what's specific to Portland - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- ORS 90.360(1) lets a tenant who gave written notice terminate the tenancy if the breach is not fixed in 30 days, or 7 days for an essential service.
- In a week-to-week tenancy, ORS 90.360 shortens the termination date to not less than 7 days after the notice is delivered.
- If a substantially similar breach comes back within six months, you may terminate on at least 14 days' notice, or 7 days week-to-week.
- ORS 90.365 drops the window to 48 hours where an essential-service failure is an imminent and serious threat to health, safety or property.
- ORS 90.368 allows tenant repair-and-deduct for minor habitability defects, capped at $300, after written notice naming a repair date at least 7 days out.
Understanding the Maintenance & Repairs Clause
Your maintenance and repairs clause decides who fixes the dead furnace and how long they get. Oregon answers the second half with real numbers: after your written notice, 30 days for an ordinary habitability breach, 7 days if what failed is an essential service.
Those counts are not repair orders. Under ORS 90.360 they are the point at which you may terminate the rental agreement, which is a different and blunter remedy than a court telling your landlord to hurry up.
Not high. The statutory wording we read came from a reproduction of ORS chapter 90 rather than the State of Oregon's own publication, so read the current text of ORS 90.360, 90.365 and 90.368 before you rely on a number in a dispute.
What renters assume
That Oregon's repair clock is a deadline a landlord can be forced to meet, so a defect still unfixed on day 31 automatically means damages or free rent.
What is actually true
The 30 days in ORS 90.360 is the moment your right to terminate opens, not a court-enforced repair date. The faster levers are the 48-hour essential-service rule in ORS 90.365 and the $300 repair-and-deduct in ORS 90.368.
Oregon's 30-day repair deadline is the longest figure on this chart, matching California. Austin and Miami renters work with 7 days, Seattle and Phoenix with 10, Chicago and Nashville with 14. New York City, Denver and Atlanta have no fixed deadline in the record.
Plain English Version
Oregon puts your landlord on a clock, but the clock only starts when you put the problem in writing. Ordinary defect, 30 days. Something essential, 7 days. Something dangerous right now, 48 hours.
Maintenance & Repairs Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Portland, OR
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.
“Tenants agree”
The sentence opens by recording your consent, because consent is the first thing a landlord points at when the bill arrives. Oregon's repair duty does not begin there. Under ORS 90.360 your written notice starts a clock the lease did not write: 30 days to remedy an ordinary breach, 7 days if an essential service is what failed, after which you may terminate the tenancy on a date not less than 30 days out. A week-to-week tenancy runs on 7 days instead. Check the current text of the section before relying on either number.
“all damages to the apartment”
A whole category of damage allocated in advance, before anyone knew what would break. In Portland the same paragraph sits beside condition standards the City writes rather than the lease: Title 29 requires under PCC 29.30.180(B) a permanent heating facility able to hold 68 degrees Fahrenheit three feet above the floor in every habitable room, and bars a portable or open-flame heater from satisfying it. Those are written as duties on the owner.
“including exterior unit doors”
An exterior door is the boundary between the unit and everyone outside it, and Oregon sorts a failure at that line by severity rather than by category. ORS 90.365 lets a tenant terminate in not less than 48 hours where an essential service is cut off in a way posing an imminent and serious threat to health, safety or property, and the same section allows you to procure the service yourself and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent. Read the exclusions with it: that threat definition expressly leaves out radon, asbestos, lead-based paint, and future flood or seismic risk.
“random acts of vandalism”
A stranger's crime moved into the tenant's column by a parenthesis. Vandalism is also the damage that comes back, and Oregon has a rule for the second time: where a substantially similar breach recurs within six months, ORS 90.360 lets the tenant terminate on at least 14 days' notice, or 7 days week-to-week. Set against the other records on this clause - 7 days in Florida, 14 days in Tennessee - Oregon's ordinary 30 days is a long wait for a fix, but it is a date rather than an argument.
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.
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.
Oregon Law on Maintenance & Repairs Clause
- ORS 90.360(1) lets a tenant who gives written notice of a landlord's failure to maintain terminate the tenancy on a date not less than 30 days out if the breach is not remedied in 7 days for an essential service or 30 days in all other cases.
- For a week-to-week tenancy, ORS 90.360 shortens the termination date to not less than 7 days after the notice is delivered.
- If a substantially similar breach recurs within six months, the tenant may terminate on at least 14 days' notice (7 days for week-to-week) under ORS 90.360.
- ORS 90.365 lets a tenant whose essential service is cut off in a way posing an imminent and serious threat to health, safety or property terminate in not less than 48 hours unless the breach is remedied; the section expressly excludes radon, asbestos, lead-based paint, and future flood or seismic risk from that threat definition.
- ORS 90.365(1)(a) also allows the tenant to procure the essential service and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent; ORS 90.368 allows tenant repair-and-deduct for minor habitability defects capped at $300, after written notice specifying a repair date at least 7 days out.
ORS 90.360; ORS 90.365; ORS 90.368 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
Oregon is one of the states that writes the number down. ORS 90.360(1) says a tenant who has given written notice of the landlord's failure to maintain may terminate the tenancy on a date not less than 30 days out if the breach is not remedied - 7 days where the breach is an essential service.
The length of your tenancy changes the count. For a week-to-week tenancy the same section shortens the termination date to not less than 7 days after the notice is delivered.
Repeat failures are treated more harshly than first ones. If a substantially similar breach recurs within six months, ORS 90.360 lets you terminate on at least 14 days' notice, or 7 days in a week-to-week tenancy.
ORS 90.365 handles the emergencies. Where an essential service is cut off in a way that poses an imminent and serious threat to health, safety or property, the tenant may terminate in not less than 48 hours unless the breach is remedied first. The section expressly excludes radon, asbestos, lead-based paint and future flood or seismic risk from that threat definition, so those conditions run on a different track.
Two self-help remedies sit alongside termination. ORS 90.365(1)(a) lets you procure the essential service yourself and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent, and ORS 90.368 allows repair-and-deduct for minor habitability defects capped at $300, after written notice specifying a repair date at least 7 days out.
Treat all of these as figures to verify rather than quote cold. Read ORS 90.360, 90.365 and 90.368 in the state's own current publication before you send a termination notice.
Oregon Tenant Protections
Oregon gives you dated remedies rather than a vague reasonable-time standard. Written notice of a failure to maintain starts a 30-day clock under ORS 90.360, cut to 7 days for an essential service and to 7 days for a week-to-week tenancy, and cut to at least 14 days' notice (7 week-to-week) where a substantially similar breach recurs within six months.
An essential-service failure that is an imminent and serious threat to health, safety or property compresses that to 48 hours under ORS 90.365, which also lets you buy the service yourself and deduct the actual and reasonable cost from rent. For smaller problems, ORS 90.368 gives you repair-and-deduct up to $300 after written notice naming a repair date at least 7 days out.
What's Specific to Portland
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.
Portland does not speed up the state's repair clock, on the record we checked. What the city adds instead is the standard the repair has to meet. Title 29 of the Portland City Code sets substantive habitability requirements enforced through the City's administrative rules rather than a fixed statutory deadline, so the deadline stays ORS 90.360's 30 days while the definition of "fixed" gets stricter.
The heat rule is the one Portland renters use most. PCC 29.30.180(B) requires a permanent heating facility able to hold 68 degrees Fahrenheit three feet above the floor in every habitable room, and bars portable or open-flame heaters from satisfying that duty. A landlord who drops off a space heater in a cold Northeast Portland bungalow has not met that standard, whatever the lease says about supplemental heat.
Portland's Mandatory Renter Relocation Assistance under PCC 30.01.085 creates no repair deadline either, but it makes repair-driven displacement expensive for the landlord. A landlord terminating for a qualifying landlord reason, including repairs or renovation that make the unit unfit for occupancy, owes a relocation payment scaled to unit size, payable in advance of the termination date. Our record carries the dollar range and the advance-notice period as unverified secondary detail, so confirm the current figures with the City before you count on them.
Practically, that combination is what a Portland renter should be arguing. The city tells you what the unit must do, the statute tells you how long your landlord has after your written notice, and the relocation rule prices the option of emptying the building instead of fixing it.
Good - that is how you start the statutory clock anyway. ORS 90.360 measures its 30 days from your written notice of the failure to maintain.
PCC 29.30.180(B) requires a permanent heating facility able to hold 68 degrees Fahrenheit three feet above the floor in every habitable room.
Red flag. Portland bars portable or open-flame heaters from satisfying the landlord's permanent heat duty under PCC 29.30.180(B).
Question it. ORS 90.368 gives tenants repair-and-deduct up to $300 for minor habitability defects, and a lease clause is not the statute.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- ORS 90.360; ORS 90.365; ORS 90.368, read on oregon.public.law. Oregon publishes the official text at www.oregonlegislature.gov.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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Repairs on landlord's own timetable
Open-ended wording invites indefinite waiting. ORS 90.360 gives you a termination right after 30 days, or 7 days for an essential service.
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Notice by phone call only
ORS 90.360 runs from written notice. A clause steering you to a call leaves you with no dated start point to prove.
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Space heaters called adequate heat
PCC 29.30.180(B) requires a permanent heating facility and bars portable or open-flame heaters from meeting it. The lease cannot rewrite the code.
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All repair costs pushed onto you
Read it against ORS 90.368, which caps tenant repair-and-deduct for minor defects at $300 - a ceiling on you, not a budget for your landlord.
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Waiver of termination rights
A clause promising you will never terminate over repairs is aimed straight at ORS 90.360 and ORS 90.365. Raise it before you sign, not after the boiler dies.
Your Rights as a Portland Tenant
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A 30-day statutory clock
After written notice, ORS 90.360(1) lets you terminate on a date not less than 30 days out if the breach is not remedied.
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7 days for essential services
Where the breach is an essential service, the same section cuts the window to 7 days, as it does for a week-to-week tenancy.
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48 hours in a serious threat
ORS 90.365 allows termination in not less than 48 hours where an essential-service failure is an imminent and serious threat.
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Repair-and-deduct up to $300
ORS 90.368 lets you fix a minor habitability defect and deduct up to $300, after notice naming a repair date at least 7 days out.
What To Do - Step by Step
Photograph it the same day
Date-stamped photos and a short video fix when the defect started. Every Oregon count on this page runs from your notice, so the timeline is the case.
Put the notice in writing
ORS 90.360 measures from written notice. Email the person named in the lease, describe the unit and the exact defect, and keep the sent copy.
Say whether it is an essential service
That word is what moves the window from 30 days to 7, and an imminent and serious threat moves it to 48 hours under ORS 90.365.
Verify the statute text
Read ORS 90.360, 90.365 and 90.368 in the state's own current publication before you act on a number.
Check the Portland heat standard
For a cold unit, cite PCC 29.30.180(B): a permanent heating facility holding 68 degrees Fahrenheit three feet above the floor in every habitable room.
Get advice before you terminate
Terminating under ORS 90.360 ends your tenancy. Have Oregon legal aid or a tenant help line read your notice and dates first.