Quick Reference: The Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at a Glance

A property manager moving a portfolio into Mississippi opens the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act expecting the usual furniture: a deposit cap, an interest rule, a retaliation provision, a list of forbidden lease clauses running to eight or ten items.

Chapter 8 supplies very little of that. The prohibited-provisions section names exactly two clauses. There is no general retaliation section. And the deposit provision sets no cap, requires no interest and mandates no separate account.

That absence is not an oversight to be worked around. It is the design, and Section 89-8-3(1) says so directly: "Any rights, obligations, or remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by this chapter remain available to residential landlords and tenants."

Chapter 8 addresses several core landlord-tenant subjects and leaves a number of others unaddressed. For a manager, that inverts the usual exercise. In a heavily regulated state the job is to make sure the lease does not overreach. In Mississippi, many subjects are left to the lease and general law because the chapter does not supply a detailed default rule.

That principle applies to ordinary landlord-tenant matters. It does not displace the chapter's specific statutory rules on possession, eviction, unauthorised occupants and the other subjects it does regulate.

This guide covers what Chapter 8 does require, the six arrangements it does not reach, the two clauses it forbids, the good-faith obligation running through all of it, and the significant provisions it simply does not contain.

Step One: Confirm the Chapter Applies At All

Two threshold questions sit in Section 89-8-3, and an additional scope rule was added in 2025. Apply the current Mississippi Code when working through them, because published code editions may not yet reflect the most recent amendments.

The date. The chapter applies to rights, obligations and remedies under any rental agreement entered into after 1 July 1991, wherever made, for a dwelling unit located within the state. Agreements predating that are outside it.

The six exclusions. Under subsection (2), the following arrangements are not governed by the chapter:

• (a) Residence at a public or private institution, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counseling, religious or similar service;

• (b) Occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which it is a part, where the occupant is the purchaser or a successor to the purchaser's interest;

• (c) Occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organisation in the portion of a structure operated for the benefit of the organisation;

• (d) Transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or lodgings;

• (e) Occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit or a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; or

• (f) Occupancy under a rental agreement covering premises used primarily for agricultural purposes, or where the occupant is performing agricultural labour for the owner and the premises are rented for less than fair rental value.

An additional scope rule was added in 2025. The Real Property Owners Protection Act, House Bill 1200 of the 2025 Regular Session, was signed on 10 April 2025 and took effect 1 July 2025. It amended Sections 89-8-3 and 89-8-7, adding this sentence to Section 89-8-3(1):

"The provisions of this chapter shall not be construed to give rights to any person who trespasses or otherwise enters and/or remains on the property of another for any length of time without the landlord's knowledge or permission."

The same Act defines a squatter to include a trespasser who remains for an indefinite period, and a person invited by a tenant who remains after the tenant's rental agreement has ended, and provides that a squatter does not have the same rights or eviction process as a tenant. It also creates a separate removal procedure for squatters.

Why that matters to a manager. The second limb of the squatter definition is the one that arises in practice: an occupant who entered lawfully as a tenant's guest and stayed on after the tenancy ended. This article addresses actual tenants under rental agreements. A disputed unauthorised-occupant situation needs separate analysis under the 2025 Act and Mississippi's possession procedures, and should not be run through the Chapter 8 framework by default.

Note the amendment history. Section 89-8-3 was amended by Laws 2022, chapter 501 (Senate Bill 2461), the Act that added the eviction provisions at Sections 89-8-31 through 89-8-45, and again in 2025 by House Bill 1200. A manager relying on a summary or a code edition that predates 1 July 2025 may miss the current scope language.

And note what subsection (1) preserves. Because rights and remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by the chapter remain available, the absence of a provision in Chapter 8 does not mean no law applies. It means the source is elsewhere: the lease, general contract principles, applicable local codes, or other statutes.

That distinction runs through the rest of this article, and it is worth holding onto when reading Mississippi's landlord-tenant statute.

Step Two: Understand How Short the Prohibited-Terms List Is

Section 89-8-5 does two things, and the second is much narrower than managers expect.

The waiver bar runs both ways. "In any agreement, oral or written, for the rental of real property as a dwelling place, a landlord or tenant may not agree to waive or otherwise forego any of the rights, duties or remedies under this chapter, except as otherwise provided by this chapter."

Two features are worth noting. It covers oral as well as written agreements. And it binds both parties - a tenant cannot waive the chapter's protections, and a landlord cannot contract out of its duties either.

Then the prohibited provisions, and there are only two. No rental agreement may provide that the tenant or the landlord:

• (a) Authorises any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement; or

• (b) Agrees to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising as a result of the landlord's willful misconduct or the costs connected therewith.

Read paragraph (b) closely. The bar reaches exculpation for the landlord's willful misconduct. It is not a general prohibition on limitation-of-liability clauses. A limitation clause that does not purport to cover willful misconduct is not caught by the express words of the paragraph.

And note what is absent from the list. Section 89-8-5 contains no prohibition on a clause requiring the tenant to pay the landlord's attorney's fees or costs of collection. Several states bar exactly that term. Mississippi's section does not mention it.

There is also no stated penalty in the section. Section 89-8-5 says a rental agreement "may not provide" the two listed terms. It does not go on to specify damages, a multiplier or a fee award for including one.

That is not the end of the analysis. Under Section 89-8-3(1), rights and remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by the chapter remain available, so the consequence of including a prohibited term is a question for general law rather than one the section answers.

For a manager, the practical consequence is that a Mississippi lease audit is a short exercise on this section and a long one on everything the section leaves open. Our guidance on lease management covers building an agreement that carries the weight Chapter 8 declines to carry.

Step Three: The Good-Faith Obligation Runs Through Everything

Section 89-8-9 is short, and its reach is wider than a skim suggests. Every duty under this chapter and every act which must be performed as a condition precedent to the exercise of a right or remedy under this chapter, including the landlord's termination of a tenancy or the nonrenewal of a rental agreement or the removal of a tenant from the premises, imposes an obligation of good faith in its performance or enforcement.

Note what the section names expressly: termination, nonrenewal and removal. Those are three actions a manager may treat as purely procedural, and the statute attaches good faith to each of them.

And "good faith" is a defined term. Under Section 89-8-7(1)(d) it means "honesty in fact in the conduct of the transaction concerned and observation of reasonable community standards of fair dealing." That second limb is an objective standard, not merely an absence of bad intent.

That matters more in a thin statute than in a thick one. Where the chapter is silent on a mechanism, and the lease supplies it, the good-faith obligation still attaches to how the parties perform and enforce whatever the chapter does require.

It also appears expressly in two other places.

• Under Section 89-8-23(3), subject to Section 89-8-5, the landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant performs some or all of the landlord's duties under that section, but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith. A transfer of maintenance obligations that looks like an attempt to evade the statutory duty is exposed on that wording.

• Under Section 89-8-23(2), no duty arises in connection with a defect caused by the deliberate or negligent act of the tenant or persons on the premises with the tenant's permission. Under Section 89-8-23(4), no duty arises in connection with a defect caused by the tenant's affirmative act or failure to comply with the tenant's obligations under Section 89-8-25.

Two separate subsections, both turning on causation, and the first reaches persons on the premises with the tenant's permission rather than the tenant alone. That makes the record of who caused a condition directly relevant to whether a duty existed at all.

Because that causation question decides whether a duty existed at all, the repair trail is not merely supporting evidence in Mississippi. Keeping the report, the response and the finding against the unit through service request and task management is what makes a Section 89-8-23(4) position evidenced rather than asserted. Our guide to Mississippi landlord repair obligations works through the duties themselves.

Step Four: House Rules Have a Five-Part Enforceability Test

Section 89-8-11 is markedly more prescriptive than the rest of the chapter, which otherwise says very little.

The rules must be written. A landlord may, from time to time, adopt written rules or regulations, however described, concerning the tenant's use and occupancy of the premises.

And they are enforceable only if five conditions are met. Under subsection (1), rules are enforceable against the tenant only if:

• (a) Their purpose is to promote the convenience, safety or welfare of the tenants in the premises, preserve the landlord's property from abuse, or make a fair distribution of services and facilities provided for the tenants generally;

• (b) They are reasonably related to the purpose for which they are adopted;

• (c) They apply to all tenants in the premises in a fair manner;

• (d) They are sufficiently explicit in their prohibition, direction or limitation of the tenant's conduct to fairly inform the tenant what must or must not be done to comply; and

• (e) They are not for the purpose of evading the obligations of the landlord.

That is a five-part enforceability test. Paragraph (c) is worth noting in particular: selective enforcement can undermine the requirement that rules apply to all tenants in the premises in a fair manner.

Rules added mid-tenancy face a further test. Under subsection (2), a rule adopted or amended after the tenant enters into the rental agreement is enforceable only if reasonable notice of its adoption or amendment is given to the tenant and it does not work a substantial modification of the rental agreement.

Two further provisions sit in the section. Under subsection (3), where the unit is an apartment in a horizontal property regime or a cooperative housing corporation, the tenant must comply with the association's or the corporation's bylaws. And under subsection (4), unless otherwise agreed, the tenant shall occupy the dwelling unit only as a dwelling unit.

Keeping the rules attached to the tenancy record alongside the lease, rather than circulating them separately, is what makes them enforceable in practice. RIOO's contracts and renewals holds the agreement and its attachments together, and the tenant portal gives a route to issue and acknowledge them with a record of the date.

Step Five: Know the Derrick Beard Act

Section 89-8-29, the Derrick Beard Act, is a Mississippi-specific provision that managers arriving from other states are unlikely to have encountered.

Termination is the default, not the election. Under subsection (2), any cosigner of a lease of residential premises may terminate, and is presumed to have terminated, the lease before its expiration date upon the death of the lessee or, where there is more than one lessee, upon the death of all lessees.

Read the next sentence carefully, because it runs the opposite way to how these provisions usually work: "The cosigner must provide notice to the lessor within thirty (30) days of the death of the lessee, or upon the death of all the lessees, if he or she chooses NOT to terminate the lease."

The thirty-day notice is the opt-out, not the opt-in. Silence from a cosigner does not preserve the lease; on the face of the subsection it confirms the presumed termination.

But three liabilities survive. Under subsection (3), termination does not relieve the lessee's estate or the cosigner from liability for:

• (a) rent or other sums owed before the lessee's death or the death of all lessees;

• (b) rent or other sums owed for the remainder of the month or other thirty-day period during which the death occurred; and

• (c) amounts necessary to restore the premises to its condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted.

So the cosigner is not released from the tenancy's accrued obligations or from restoration costs. What ends is forward liability for the balance of the term.

And the right cannot be contracted away. Under subsection (4), any attempted waiver by a lessor and lessee or lessee's cosigner, by contract or otherwise, of the right of termination provided by this section shall be void and unenforceable. A guarantee drafted to survive the tenant's death does not defeat the section.

Check the lease date. Under subsection (5), the section applies to leases entered into or renewed from and after 1 July 2011.

What Chapter 8 Notably Does Not Contain

This is the half of the picture where a manager's lease has to do the work.

No security deposit cap. Section 89-8-21 sets no maximum on the amount that may be taken.

No interest requirement and no escrow or non-commingling rule. Section 89-8-21 is not silent about the deposit: subsection (2) provides that the payment is held by the landlord for the tenant and that the tenant's claim is prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord. What it does not do is require interest, prescribe a separate account or bar commingling. Our guide to Mississippi security deposit rules covers the return mechanics and the itemisation requirement.

No general retaliation section, but retaliation is not absent from the chapter. Some state landlord-tenant acts contain a standalone retaliation provision with a rebuttable presumption where an eviction follows protected tenant activity within a stated period. Chapter 8 has no such section.

It does, however, address retaliation in one specific place. Under Section 89-8-17(2), after a rental agreement expires the landlord may give holdover notice and may also demand an increase in rent - but only "if such actions by the landlord did not have the dominant purpose of retaliation against the tenant for his actions authorized under this chapter and the landlord received written notice of each condition which was the subject of such actions of the tenant."

That is a dominant purpose test attached to post-expiration conduct, not a general presumption covering every eviction. A manager raising rent or issuing holdover notice shortly after a tenant has exercised a right under the chapter is operating inside that qualification.

No prohibition on attorney-fee shifting clauses. As above, Section 89-8-5's list does not reach them.

No stated penalty for including a prohibited term. Section 89-8-5 prohibits two clauses without specifying a consequence.

No statutory late fee limit and no required pre-tenancy disclosures. The chapter contains no section capping late charges, and none requiring a landlord to disclose ownership, management identity or property conditions before a tenancy begins.

And no statutory move-in condition report. Nothing in the chapter requires one, even though the deposit and duty provisions both turn on the condition of the unit and on who caused a defect.

The unifying point. Under Section 89-8-3(1), rights and remedies not prohibited by the chapter remain available. So these absences are not gaps in the law; they are places where the source of obligation shifts to the lease, to general contract and tort principles, to applicable local codes, and to federal requirements such as fair housing and lead-based paint disclosure that operate independently of Chapter 8.

Common Mississippi Compliance Mistakes Property Managers Make

1. Assuming the chapter applies to every residential arrangement.
Section 89-8-3(2) excludes six categories, including transient lodging, contract-of-sale occupancy, condominium and cooperative arrangements, and premises used primarily for agricultural purposes.

2. Working from a pre-2022 summary of the chapter's scope.
Section 89-8-3 was amended by Laws 2022, chapter 501, the same Act that added Sections 89-8-31 through 89-8-45.

3. Reading Section 89-8-5(b) as a general limitation-of-liability bar.
The paragraph reaches exculpation for the landlord's willful misconduct.

4. Assuming an oral tenancy sits outside the waiver rule.
Section 89-8-5 applies to "any agreement, oral or written."

5. Treating the waiver bar as protecting only the tenant.
It provides that a landlord or tenant may not waive rights, duties or remedies under the chapter.

6. Transferring maintenance duties without regard to good faith.
Section 89-8-23(3) permits the transfer in writing only if the transaction is entered into in good faith.

7. Not recording who caused a defect.
Under Section 89-8-23(4), no landlord duty arises in connection with a defect caused by the tenant's affirmative act or failure to comply with Section 89-8-25.

8. Enforcing house rules selectively, or adopting them orally.
Section 89-8-11(1) requires rules to be written and enforceable only if they meet five conditions, including that they apply to all tenants in the premises in a fair manner and are not for the purpose of evading the landlord's obligations.

9. Adding a house rule mid-tenancy without notice.
Under Section 89-8-11(2) a rule adopted or amended after the agreement is enforceable only on reasonable notice and only if it does not work a substantial modification of the rental agreement.

10. Waiting for a cosigner to elect termination after a tenant's death.
Under Section 89-8-29(2) the cosigner is presumed to have terminated. The 30-day notice runs the other way - it is required only if the cosigner chooses not to terminate.

11. Relying on a guarantee clause to survive the tenant's death.
Section 89-8-29(4) makes any attempted waiver of the right of termination void and unenforceable, though subsection (3) preserves liability for pre-death sums, the month of death and restoration costs.

12. Raising rent immediately after a tenant exercises a right under the chapter.
Section 89-8-17(2) conditions post-expiration holdover notice and rent increases on the landlord's actions not having the dominant purpose of retaliation.

13. Running an unauthorised-occupant situation through the Chapter 8 framework.
Since 1 July 2025, Section 89-8-3(1) provides that the chapter gives no rights to a person who trespasses or remains without the landlord's knowledge or permission, and the Real Property Owners Protection Act creates a separate squatter removal procedure.

14. Treating a statutory silence as meaning nothing applies.
Section 89-8-3(1) preserves rights, obligations and remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by the chapter.

Building a Defensible Mississippi Compliance Workflow

Because Chapter 8 leaves a number of subjects unaddressed, the documents a manager creates carry more of the load in Mississippi than in a heavily prescriptive state. Four records carry the weight.

• The applicability record. Whether the arrangement falls inside Section 89-8-3 determines which framework governs everything else. For portfolios containing short-term lets, agricultural tenancies, condominium units or institutional housing, that attribute belongs on the property record. RIOO's unit and property management keeps it with the unit rather than in a manager's head.

• The lease and its attachments. Because the statute declines to supply a deposit cap, an interest rule, a late fee limit or a disclosure regime, the agreement is the operative document on all of them. Holding the lease, the house rules under Section 89-8-11 and any Section 89-8-23(3) maintenance agreement together in contracts and renewals is what makes an audit possible.

• The condition and causation trail. Section 89-8-23(4) links the landlord's duty to the tenant's conduct, and the deposit provision turns on damage exclusive of ordinary wear and tear. A complete tenant and property record tied to the unit is what turns both questions into comparisons.

• The move-in and move-out baseline. No statute requires it, which is precisely why it matters. RIOO's move-in and move-out management timestamps the record that Sections 89-8-21 and 89-8-23(4) both implicitly depend on.

Conclusion

Mississippi's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is a comparatively concise residential code, and its brevity is deliberate.

It tells you which arrangements it governs and names six it does not. It bars waiver by either party. It forbids exactly two lease clauses. It imposes good faith on performance and enforcement, expressly including termination, nonrenewal and removal. It sets a five-part enforceability test for house rules. And it presumes a cosigner has terminated on the death of a lessee, with waiver of that right void.

Since 1 July 2025 it also states that it gives no rights to trespassers or unauthorised occupants.

What it does not do is supply a deposit cap, an interest rule, an escrow requirement, a general retaliation provision, a late fee limit, a disclosure regime or a move-in condition report.

Section 89-8-3 is the provision that makes sense of the framework. It preserves rights and remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by the chapter, and since 1 July 2025 it also clarifies that the chapter gives no rights to a person who trespasses or remains without the landlord's knowledge or permission.

Chapter 8 does not itself regulate the subjects listed above in the provisions discussed here. Other applicable law, the rental agreement, local requirements or federal requirements may still govern them.

For teams managing Mississippi portfolios in Jackson, Gulfport, Southaven, Hattiesburg, Biloxi or anywhere in the state, that produces a clear operating priority. Confirm the arrangement is inside Section 89-8-3 before applying anything else. Audit the lease against Section 89-8-5's two prohibited clauses, which takes minutes, and audit the house rules against Section 89-8-11's five conditions, which takes longer. Then spend the real effort on the terms the statute leaves to you, because in Mississippi a silent lease is not backed up by a detailed code.

This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Chapter 8 was substantially amended in 2022 by Laws chapter 501, with further amendments affecting Sections 89-8-3 and 89-8-7 taking effect 1 July 2025 under House Bill 1200; other sections of the chapter were not amended in 2025, federal requirements including fair housing and lead-based paint disclosure apply independently of the chapter, local ordinances may impose additional requirements, and individual circumstances differ. Confirm the current Mississippi Code and the 2025 amendments affecting unauthorised occupants through the Mississippi Legislature, and consult a licensed Mississippi attorney on a specific matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Which rentals does the Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act cover?
Under Section 89-8-3(1), rental agreements entered into after 1 July 1991 for a dwelling unit located in the state. Subsection (2) excludes six arrangements, including transient hotel or motel occupancy, contract-of-sale occupancy, condominium and cooperative arrangements, and premises used primarily for agricultural purposes. Since 1 July 2025 the section also states that the chapter gives no rights to trespassers or persons remaining without the landlord's knowledge or permission.

Q2. Can a Mississippi lease waive rights under the chapter?
No. Section 89-8-5 provides that in any agreement, oral or written, a landlord or tenant may not agree to waive or otherwise forego any of the rights, duties or remedies under the chapter, except as otherwise provided by the chapter.

Q3. What lease terms are prohibited in Mississippi?
Section 89-8-5 names two: a provision authorising any person to confess judgment on a claim arising out of the rental agreement, and a provision agreeing to the exculpation or limitation of any liability of the landlord arising as a result of the landlord's willful misconduct.

Q4. Does Mississippi cap security deposits?
No. Section 89-8-21 sets no statutory maximum, and the chapter contains no interest requirement and no escrow or non-commingling rule.

Q5. Does Mississippi have a retaliation statute for evictions?
Chapter 8 has no standalone retaliation section with a general presumption. But Section 89-8-17(2) conditions post-expiration holdover notice and rent increases on the landlord's actions not having the dominant purpose of retaliation against the tenant for actions authorised under the chapter. Rights and remedies not prohibited by the chapter also remain available under Section 89-8-3(1).

Q6. Can a Mississippi landlord shift maintenance duties to the tenant?
Under Section 89-8-23(3), subject to Section 89-8-5, the landlord and tenant may agree in writing that the tenant performs some or all of the landlord's duties under that section, but only if the transaction is entered into in good faith.

Q7. What happens if a tenant causes the defect?
Under Section 89-8-23(4), no duty arises on the landlord's part in connection with a defect caused by the tenant's affirmative act or failure to comply with the tenant's obligations under Section 89-8-25.

Q8. Can a Mississippi landlord impose house rules?
Yes, but Section 89-8-11(1) requires them to be written and makes them enforceable only if five conditions are met: a qualifying purpose, reasonable relation to that purpose, fair application to all tenants, sufficient explicitness, and not being for the purpose of evading the landlord's obligations. A rule added after the agreement is enforceable only on reasonable notice and if it does not substantially modify the agreement.

Q9. What is the Derrick Beard Act?
Section 89-8-29. A cosigner of a residential lease is presumed to have terminated the lease on the death of the lessee, or of all lessees, and must give notice within 30 days only if choosing not to terminate. Liability survives for sums owed before the death, sums for the month or 30-day period in which the death occurred, and restoration to the condition at commencement excepting ordinary wear and tear.

Q10. Can a lease override the Derrick Beard Act?
No. Section 89-8-29(4) provides that any attempted waiver by a lessor and lessee or cosigner, by contract or otherwise, of the right of termination is void and unenforceable. The section applies to leases entered into or renewed from and after 1 July 2011.

Q11. Does Chapter 8 apply to squatters or unauthorised occupants?
No. Since 1 July 2025, Section 89-8-3(1) provides that the chapter is not to be construed to give rights to any person who trespasses or otherwise enters or remains on another's property without the landlord's knowledge or permission. The Real Property Owners Protection Act creates a separate removal procedure and defines a squatter to include a person invited by a tenant who remains after the rental agreement has ended.

Q12. If Chapter 8 is silent on something, does that mean no rule applies?
No. Section 89-8-3(1) provides that any rights, obligations or remedies at law or in equity not prohibited by the chapter remain available. The source of the obligation shifts to the lease, general legal principles, local codes or federal requirements.