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Ohio required lease disclosures: one statute, and a penalty that lands on your own repair notices

DoorKeeping team

3 min read

Ohio's Landlords and Tenants chapter has a single disclosure rule in the sections read for this post: R.C. 5321.18. Every written residential lease must carry the name and address of the owner and of the owner's agent, if any. An oral lease needs a written notice with the same information. If you skip it, you give up the notices a tenant would otherwise owe you before using certain remedies.

What does R.C. 5321.18 require?

Division (A): "Every written rental agreement for residential premises shall contain the name and address of the owner and the name and address of the owner's agent, if any." If the owner or agent is a corporation, partnership, limited partnership, association, trust or other entity, the address "shall be the principal place of business in the county in which the residential property is situated," or, with no place of business in that county, its principal place of business in Ohio, and it must include the name of the person in charge.

Division (B): for an oral rental agreement, the landlord must deliver a written notice with the same information at the commencement of the term of occupancy.

Example a made-up Dayton owner holds a four-unit building through an LLC whose office is in Columbus. If the LLC has no place of business in Montgomery County, the lease lists its principal place of business in Ohio, the Columbus office, and the name of the person in charge.

What is the penalty?

Division (C) says that if you fail to provide the notice of the owner's and agent's names and addresses, "the notices to the landlord required under division (A) of section 5321.07 and division (A) of section 5321.08 of the Revised Code shall be waived by the landlord and his agent." Those are the written notices a tenant sends before using the remedies in 5321.07, such as depositing rent with the clerk of court, applying for a court order, or terminating. Without your disclosure, the tenant need not give you the notice at all, so a disclosure gap is a gap in your own defense.

What other disclosures does Chapter 5321 contain?

Searching the chapter text, I did not find a statutory mold, radon, flood, smoking or deposit-bank disclosure, and I found no required statement-of-rights form. Related duties exist elsewhere, such as the federal lead paint rule for older housing: 42 U.S.C. 4852d requires the lessor, before the lessee is obligated, to give the EPA pamphlet and disclose known lead-based paint or hazards. A few practical additions make sense in an Ohio lease even though no statute dictates them:

  • The property address and unit number, and every named tenant.
  • How and where rent is paid, and a statement of any fee and its purpose.
  • Who pays which utility.
  • Your smoking and pet policies in plain words.

Section 5321.13 lists terms a lease may not contain, so read it before drafting a waiver clause. Local ordinances, particularly in cities with rental registration, can add their own disclosures.

A short Ohio checklist before signing

  1. Put the owner's name and address in the lease, using the principal place of business rule for entities.
  2. Put the agent's name and address in the lease, if you use one.
  3. For an oral tenancy, hand over the written notice on the first day.
  4. Keep a signed copy with the lease file.

How DoorKeeping helps in Ohio

DoorKeeping keeps the lease, the move-in report and the deposit details together for each unit, so you can ask Claude or ChatGPT which disclosures a lease is missing before you send it. Anything that goes to a tenant waits for your one-tap approval. DoorKeeping never holds your money and sends a payment only when you approve it. This is general information, not legal advice: check the current statute and your own lease.

Sources

  1. Ohio Revised Code 5321.18, Disclosure of owner and agent (Ohio Laws), read Oct 30, 2026
  2. Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5321, Landlords and Tenants (Ohio Laws), read Oct 30, 2026
  3. 42 U.S. Code 4852d, Disclosure of information concerning lead upon transfer of residential property (Cornell Legal Information Institute), read Oct 30, 2026

Questions

What must an Ohio lease disclose?
The name and address of the owner and of the owner's agent, if any. For an entity, the address is its principal place of business in the property's county (R.C. 5321.18).
What if the Ohio lease is oral?
The landlord must deliver a written notice with the owner and agent information at the start of the occupancy.
What happens if an Ohio landlord skips the disclosure?
The landlord waives the tenant's written-notice requirements under R.C. 5321.07(A) and 5321.08(A).

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