Quick Reference: Hawaii Disclosure, Entry and Termination at a Glance

A management company takes over a 20-unit building on Oʻahu. The owner lives in California. Leases are signed, rent is collected, and the transition looks clean.

Six months later a tenant demands the owner's name and address. Nobody can produce a disclosure, because the previous manager never made one and the new company assumed the obligation ran with the old management.

It does not. Under § 521-43(a), the information "shall be kept current and shall be enforceable against any successor landlord, owner, or manager." The obligation followed the building.

And the consequence is larger than the penalty most guides mention. Under § 521-67, failure to comply within ten days after proper demand costs $100 plus reasonable attorney's fees. But under § 521-43(b), a person who fails to comply with subsection (a) becomes an agent of each person who is a landlord for service of process, for receiving and receipting for rents, notices and demands, and for performing the obligations of the landlord under Chapter 521 and the rental agreement.

A management company that skips a one-page disclosure can find itself statutorily on the hook for the landlord's obligations. That is the provision this article exists to flag.

Step 1: What You Must Disclose, and How

Section 521-43(a) requires a landlord, or any person authorised to enter into a rental agreement on the landlord's behalf, to disclose to the tenant in writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy the name and address of:

1. Each person authorised to manage the premises; and

2. Each person who is an owner of the premises, or who is authorised to act for or on behalf of the owner for the purpose of service of process and receiving and receipting for rents, notices, and demands.

There is also a statutory posting alternative for multi-unit properties. Section 521-43(g) provides that, notwithstanding subsections (a) and (b), the information may instead be disclosed as follows:

• In each multi-unit single-owner dwelling structure containing an elevator, a printed or typewritten notice containing the information shall be placed and continuously maintained in every elevator and in one other conspicuous place;

• In each multi-unit single-owner dwelling structure not containing an elevator, such a notice shall be placed and continuously maintained in at least two conspicuous places; and

• In each multi-unit dwelling structure, such a notice shall be posted within the unit in a conspicuous place.

Note the phrase "placed and continuously maintained." This is not a one-time posting. A notice that falls down, fades, or goes stale after a change of manager has stopped satisfying the subsection. Confirm which of the three categories applies to each structure before relying on the alternative, since they turn on whether the structure is single-owner and whether it contains an elevator.

Four further points on subsection (a).

The duty can apply to the person signing, too. It reaches any person authorised to enter into a rental agreement on the landlord's behalf, which can include a property management company or its authorised representative.

Paragraph (2) is defined by function, not title. The person disclosed is whoever is authorised to receive service of process, rents, notices and demands, which may not be the day-to-day manager. That is why paragraphs (1) and (2) are separate.

It must be kept current. A change of manager, agent or owner is a trigger to re-disclose or update the posting.

And it binds successors. The information is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner, or manager.

Several further requirements sit in the same section.

Copy of the agreement, § 521-43(d). In the case of a written rental agreement, the landlord shall furnish a copy of the lease or rental agreement to the tenant.

Rent receipts, § 521-43(e). The landlord shall furnish to the tenant a written receipt for rents paid at the time of payment. Cancelled cheques shall also constitute and fulfil the requirement of a written receipt. If rent is paid by cheque, the landlord shall furnish a receipt provided a receipt is requested by the tenant.

That subsection has a practical implication for payment systems: a landlord accepting electronic payments cannot rely on the cancelled-cheque carve-out, because there is no cheque. A receipt at the time of payment is the default rule, which is a reason to have receipting run automatically off the ledger through collecting rent and payments rather than on request.

Off-island owners, § 521-43(f). Any owner or landlord who resides outside the State or on another island from where the rental unit is located shall designate on the written rental agreement an agent residing on the same island as the unit to act on the owner's behalf. In the case of an oral rental agreement, the information shall be supplied to the tenant, on demand, in a written statement.

Note that this is a lease-drafting requirement, not a separate letter. The designation goes on the written rental agreement itself.

Excise tax number, § 521-43(h). Landlords shall provide their general excise tax number to all tenants for the purpose of filing for a low-income tax credit.

Because the disclosure attaches at commencement, must survive a change of manager, and in one case must appear on the face of the lease, it belongs with the executed agreement rather than in a management file. Holding the disclosure, the on-island agent designation and the excise tax number alongside the lease through contracts and renewals is what makes it producible on demand years later.

Step 2: Two Consequences, and the Second One Is the Serious One

The ten-day demand, § 521-67. Section 521-67's remedy is triggered when the tenant makes a proper demand and the landlord still fails to comply within ten days, at which point the landlord is liable for $100 plus reasonable attorney's fees.

Ten days is short, and a demand sitting unread in a leasing inbox has already run the period. The $100 is not the only potential exposure: the statute also provides for reasonable attorney's fees, and separate tenant claims may create separate exposure.

The agency consequence, § 521-43(b). This is the provision worth building process around.

A person who fails to comply with subsection (a) becomes an agent of each person who is a landlord for:

1. Service of process and receiving and receipting for rents, notices, and demands; and

2. Performing the obligations of the landlord under this chapter and under the rental agreement, and expending or making available for the purpose all rent collected from the premises.

Read paragraph (2) carefully. Non-compliance does not merely create a $100 claim. It makes the non-complying person statutorily responsible for performing the landlord's obligations under Chapter 521 and the lease, and for applying collected rent to that purpose.

And § 521-43(c) runs the liability up the chain. Any owner or landlord not dealing directly with the tenant is responsible for compliance with this section by the owner or landlord who does deal directly with the tenant, and is estopped from any objection to a failure to serve process on them in a proceeding under the chapter where that failure is due to non-compliance. The owner or landlord who deals directly with the tenant and fails to comply is deemed an agent of every other landlord under the rental agreement for performing the landlord's obligations.

For a management company, that cuts both ways. Your non-compliance can make you the landlord's agent for performing its obligations. And an owner cannot insulate itself from your non-compliance, because subsection (c) makes the non-dealing owner responsible for it.

Step 3: Entry, and the Two-Day Rule

Section 521-53 is short and structured in three parts, and part (c) is the one most managers have never read.

(a) The purposes, and the tenant's obligation. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold the tenant's consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit in order to:

• Inspect the premises;

• Make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements;

• Supply services as agreed; or

• Exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective purchasers, mortgagees, or tenants.

Those are the purposes specifically covered by § 521-53(a). The statute separately addresses entry by court order, apparent abandonment, and the circumstances covered by § 521-70(b).

(b) The notice and the limits. The landlord shall not abuse this right of access nor use it to harass the tenant. Except in case of emergency or where impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least two days notice of the landlord's intent to enter and shall enter only during reasonable hours.

The two exceptions are narrow: emergency, or where impracticable. Neither is "the contractor was available."

(c) And there is no residual entry right. The landlord shall have no other right of entry, except by court order, unless the tenant appears to have abandoned the premises, or as permitted by § 521-70(b).

How this interacts with repairs. Hawaii's repair timelines under § 521-64 vary by the type of condition, including a three-business-day commencement requirement for certain repairs to electrical, plumbing and other facilities necessary for sanitary and habitable living conditions. A two-day entry notice consumes most of the shortest of those windows.

In practice, teams should consider issuing the entry notice as soon as the repair is classified and access is known to be necessary, rather than waiting until a contractor is booked. That connection between intake, classification and access scheduling is what service request and task management exists to hold, and the repair clocks themselves are covered in our guide to Hawaii landlord repair obligations.

Step 4: Ending a Tenancy, and the Periods Most Guides Miss

Section 521-71 governs termination of periodic tenancies and landlord remedies for holdover tenants. Six rules matter operationally.

Month-to-month, landlord terminating: at least 45 days' written notice. Where the landlord gives notice, the tenant may vacate at any time within the last forty-five days of the period between notification and the termination date, but must notify the landlord of the vacating date and pay prorated rent for that period.

Month-to-month, tenant terminating: at least 28 days' written notice, and the tenant is responsible for payment of rent through the twenty-eighth day.

Less-than-month-to-month tenancies use a shorter rule. Under § 521-71(d), where the tenancy is less than month-to-month, either the landlord or the tenant may terminate the rental agreement by notifying the other at least ten days before the anticipated termination.

A 120-day period applies to three specific situations. Before terminating a month-to-month tenancy where the landlord contemplates voluntary demolition of the dwelling units, conversion to a condominium property regime under chapter 514B, or changing the use of the building to transient vacation rentals, the landlord shall provide notice at least one hundred twenty days in advance of the anticipated demolition or termination.

Two details inside that provision matter for anyone repositioning a building. If the notice is revoked, or amended and reissued, the notice period begins again from the date it was reissued or amended, and any notice provided, revoked, or amended and reissued shall be in writing. A change of plan mid-process does not preserve elapsed time. The tenant may vacate at any time within the 120-day period on notice, paying prorated rent.

Holdover carries both a financial consequence and a 60-day deadline, § 521-71(e). The subsection is broader than most summaries suggest: it applies whenever the term of the rental agreement expires, whether by passage of time, by mutual agreement, by the giving of notice under subsections (a) to (d), or by the landlord exercising a right to terminate under the chapter.

Where the tenant then continues in possession after the date of termination without the landlord's consent:

• The tenant may be liable to the landlord for a sum not to exceed twice the monthly rent under the previous rental agreement, computed and prorated on a daily basis, for each day the tenant remains in possession;

• The landlord may bring a summary proceeding for recovery of possession at any time during the first sixty days of holdover; and

• Should the landlord fail to commence summary possession proceedings within the first sixty days of the holdover, in the absence of a rental agreement, a month-to-month tenancy at the monthly rent stipulated in the previous rental agreement shall prevail beginning at the end of the first sixty days of holdover.

Read the sixty days as a deadline rather than a grace period. A landlord who lets a holdover drift past it may find a fresh month-to-month tenancy has arisen at the old rent, which then requires its own 45-day termination notice, and the double-rent exposure ends with it.

And there is an anti-evasion rule. Under § 521-71(f), any notice of termination initiated for the purposes of evading the obligations of the landlord under § 521-21(d) or (e) shall be void. That matters when a termination and a rent increase are being considered together: termination is not a substitute for the separate rent-increase notice requirements.

Note that a rent increase on a month-to-month tenancy carries its own notice requirement under § 521-21 rather than being governed by § 521-71.

Step 5: What the Lease Cannot Do

Section 521-31 generally prevents landlords and tenants from waiving or agreeing to forego rights or remedies under Chapter 521, except where the chapter allows otherwise. The section also addresses settlement of disputed claims, provides that claims may be settled for less than the amount claimed, and provides that certain unconscionable settlements waiving Chapter 521 rights or benefits are invalid.

The practical consequence is that a lease clause purporting to shorten the § 521-53 entry notice or waive the § 521-43 disclosure obligations is unlikely to do what it says. Read § 521-31 directly against any template clause that reduces a statutory protection.

Step 6: Requesting Repairs Is Protected Conduct

Section 521-74 makes a good faith request for repairs protected activity, and expressly lists a request under § 521-63 or § 521-64 among the protected acts.

A good faith repair request followed by an attempted possession action, service reduction, or rent increase can therefore require careful retaliation analysis, subject to the specific protections and exceptions in § 521-74. The section should be read in full rather than treated as a blanket bar on acting after a complaint.

That is why the disclosure file, the entry log, the repair history and the notice history need to sit on one record rather than in four systems. Connecting them through a Tenant 360 View approach is what makes the sequence visible to you before it becomes visible to someone else.

Step 7: What This Article Does Not Cover

• Security deposits, § 521-44. The one-month cap, the 14-day return, the permitted categories of use and the treble damages exposure for wrongful and wilful retention. See our guide to Hawaii security deposit laws.

• Repair obligations, §§ 521-42 and 521-64. The move-in inventory and its rebuttable presumption, the varying repair clocks, the deduction limits and the six-month estoppel rule. See the repair guide linked above.

• Nonpayment and possession, § 521-68 and Chapter 666. The ten-calendar-day notice, the mediation centre copy and the twenty-day filing wait introduced by Act 278 effective 5 February 2026. See our guide to the Hawaii eviction process.

Note that § 521-68 changed recently, while § 521-43 has not been amended since 1988 and § 521-71 since 2017. Chapter 521 is amended section by section, so a guide that is current on one part is not necessarily current on another.

Common Hawaii Disclosure, Entry and Termination Mistakes

1. Making the disclosure after commencement
Section 521-43(a) requires it at or before the commencement of the tenancy.

2. Assuming a management change resets the obligation
The information is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner, or manager.

3. Treating non-disclosure as a $100 problem
Under § 521-43(b), a person who fails to comply becomes an agent of each landlord for service, receipts and performing the landlord's obligations.

4. Assuming an owner is insulated from a manager's non-compliance
Under § 521-43(c), an owner not dealing directly with the tenant is responsible for compliance by the one who does.

5. Posting once and forgetting it
Section 521-43(g) requires the notice to be placed and continuously maintained.

6. Using the wrong posting method
The three categories in § 521-43(g) turn on whether the structure is single-owner and whether it contains an elevator.

7. Skipping rent receipts on electronic payments
Section 521-43(e) requires a written receipt at the time of payment; the cancelled-cheque carve-out does not apply where there is no cheque.

8. Naming the on-island agent in a side letter
Section 521-43(f) requires the designation on the written rental agreement.

9. Omitting the general excise tax number
Section 521-43(h) requires it for the tenant's low-income tax credit filing.

10. Letting a demand sit
Section 521-67 gives ten days from proper demand.

11. Entering on less than two days' notice
Except in an emergency or where impracticable, § 521-53(b) requires at least two days.

12. Assuming a residual right to enter
Section 521-53(c) provides no other right of entry except by court order, apparent abandonment, or as permitted by § 521-70(b).

13. Serving 45 days for a demolition or conversion
Section 521-71(c) requires 120 days.

14. Amending a 120-day notice without restarting the clock
Where the notice is revoked, or amended and reissued, the period begins again from reissue.

15. Using 45 days for a weekly tenancy
Section 521-71(d) sets ten days for a tenancy less than month-to-month.

16. Overlooking the holdover double-rent provision
Section 521-71(e) allows up to twice the previous monthly rent, prorated daily, for each day of possession without consent.

17. Letting a holdover drift past 60 days
If summary possession is not commenced within the first 60 days, a month-to-month tenancy at the previous rent may arise.

18. Using termination to sidestep a rent increase notice
Section 521-71(f) makes a notice initiated to evade § 521-21(d) or (e) obligations void.

Conclusion

The parts of Hawaii's Residential Landlord-Tenant Code that do not involve deposits, repairs or evictions are the parts most likely to be handled by habit, and several carry consequences well beyond a fine.

• Disclosure is an ongoing obligation that survives a change of manager, and § 521-43(g) permits it by continuously maintained posting in qualifying multi-unit structures rather than by individual written notice.

• Non-compliance does more than trigger a penalty. Section 521-67 gives $100 plus reasonable attorney's fees after a ten-day demand. But § 521-43(b) makes a non-complying person an agent of each landlord for performing the landlord's obligations, and § 521-43(c) makes a non-dealing owner responsible for compliance by whoever deals directly with the tenant.

• Entry is a defined set of purposes with a two-day notice, with no residual right of entry outside a court order, apparent abandonment or § 521-70(b).

• And termination is not one period but five. Forty-five days from the landlord, 28 from the tenant, ten days for a tenancy less than month-to-month, 120 days for demolition, condominium conversion or a switch to transient vacation rentals with the clock restarting on amendment, and a 60-day holdover filing window during which up to twice the previous rent accrues daily, after which a fresh month-to-month tenancy at the old rent may arise.

For teams managing portfolios in Honolulu, on Maui, Kauaʻi or Hawaiʻi Island, none of this requires judgment in the moment. It requires the disclosure to be made or posted and maintained, receipts issued at payment, the on-island agent designated on the lease itself, an entry notice issued when a repair is classified, and 120 days built into any repositioning plan.

This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Hawaii's Residential Landlord-Tenant Code is at HRS chapter 521. This article addresses disclosure at § 521-43, the tenant's remedy for non-disclosure at § 521-67, access at § 521-53, termination of periodic tenancies and holdover remedies at § 521-71, waiver of rights at § 521-31, and retaliatory evictions at § 521-74. Section 521-43 was last amended by L 1988, c 307, § 3, and § 521-71 by L 2017, c 181, § 39. It does not address security deposits at § 521-44, landlord maintenance obligations and repair remedies at §§ 521-42 and 521-64, or the landlord's remedies for nonpayment at § 521-68, which was amended by Act 278, Session Laws of Hawaii 2025, effective 5 February 2026. Sections 521-31, 521-53 and 521-74 contain further provisions not set out here, including the exceptions in § 521-74; read them in full before serving a notice. Rent increases carry their own notice requirements under § 521-21. Verify the current statutory text with the Hawaii State Legislature and the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and consult a licensed Hawaii attorney for guidance specific to your portfolio.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What must a Hawaii landlord disclose, and when?
In writing at or before the commencement of the tenancy, the name and address of each person authorised to manage the premises and each owner or person authorised to act for the owner for service of process and receiving rents, notices and demands, under § 521-43(a).

Q2. Can the disclosure be posted instead of given to each tenant?
For qualifying multi-unit properties, yes. Section 521-43(g) permits posting in every elevator and one other conspicuous place in a multi-unit single-owner structure with an elevator, in at least two conspicuous places where there is no elevator, or within the unit in a conspicuous place in a multi-unit dwelling structure. The notice must be placed and continuously maintained.

Q3. Does the disclosure obligation survive a change of manager?
Yes. Section 521-43(a) states the information shall be kept current and is enforceable against any successor landlord, owner, or manager.

Q4. What happens if a landlord or manager does not disclose?
Under § 521-67, failure to comply within ten days after proper demand creates liability for $100 plus reasonable attorney's fees. Under § 521-43(b), the non-complying person becomes an agent of each landlord for service of process, receiving rents, notices and demands, and performing the landlord's obligations under the chapter and the rental agreement.

Q5. Must a Hawaii landlord give rent receipts?
Yes. Under § 521-43(e), the landlord shall furnish a written receipt for rents paid at the time of payment. Cancelled cheques also fulfil the requirement, and where rent is paid by cheque a receipt must be furnished if the tenant requests one.

Q6. How much notice is required before entering a unit?
At least two days, except in case of emergency or where impracticable, and entry must be during reasonable hours, under § 521-53(b).

Q7. What are the Hawaii termination notice periods?
Forty-five days from the landlord and 28 days from the tenant for a month-to-month tenancy, ten days from either party for a tenancy less than month-to-month, and 120 days where the landlord contemplates voluntary demolition, condominium conversion or a change to transient vacation rentals.

Q8. What happens if a tenant holds over?
Under § 521-71(e), the tenant may be liable for up to twice the previous monthly rent, prorated daily, for each day in possession without the landlord's consent. The landlord may bring summary possession proceedings during the first 60 days; if not, a month-to-month tenancy at the previous rent may arise from the end of that period.