Two chapters split by a 2010 population count, each expressly excluding the other. They give comparable eviction notice — and only one of them mentions your deposit.
Post 729 established that Tennessee’s tenant statute stops at a line drawn against the 2010 census, and that two ordinary Memphis commuter counties sit outside it. It left the obvious question unanswered: if the Act does not reach Tipton or Fayette, what does?
The answer is not “nothing”. It is a different chapter — and the two chapters are not versions of each other.
Two chapters, drawn from opposite sides of the same line
The uniform residential landlord and tenant act applies at § 66-28-102(a) “only in counties having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000), according to the 2010 federal census” (Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-102). The other chapter draws the same line from the opposite side: § 66-7-109(g) states that “nothing in this section shall apply to rental property located in any county governed by the uniform residential landlord and tenant act” (Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-7-109).
Read those two together and the structure is unusual. This is not a statute with a gap in it. It is two statutes that each step aside for the other, so every residential tenancy in Tennessee falls under one or the other, and which one depends on a population count taken in 2010 and never updated.
By the frozen 2010 benchmark shelby county (927,644) is inside the act, while tipton (61,081) and fayette (32,289) — both ordinary memphis commuter counties — are outside it (2010 federal census, via U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts).
What each chapter actually gives you
On eviction they are closer than you would expect. In the counties urlta does not reach, § 66-7-109(a)(1) sets fourteen days as sufficient notice of termination where the statute’s enumerated grounds apply — rent arrears, damage beyond normal wear and tear, or violent or dangerous conduct — and § 66-7-109(b) sets thirty days for other lease defaults (Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-7-109). In covered counties urlta reaches the same fourteen days by a different route: § 66-28-505 lets a landlord notify a tenant that the tenancy ends unless the breach is remedied within fourteen days of receipt (Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-505).
So a household thirty minutes outside Shelby County still has a statutory notice period. That is worth saying plainly, because the natural assumption on reading post 729 is that the counties outside the Act have no statute at all, and on notice periods they clearly do.
The difference is the deposit
Only the covered-county chapter says anything about the money: § 66-28-301 requires the deposit to be held in an account used only for that purpose, gives the tenant a right to be present at the inspection, and gives the tenant sixty days to answer the refund notice before the landlord may keep it (Tennessee Code Annotated § 66-28-301).
Chapter 7 contains no equivalent. It is a chapter about ending tenancies, not about holding money. Search it for the word deposit and you will not find the protections above, because they are not there to find.
That is the whole finding, and it inverts the usual advice. Outside a URLTA county the statutory notice position is broadly comparable — and the deposit is governed by the lease and by common law rather than by a chapter of the code. The lease stops being paperwork and becomes the instrument.
What to do about it, by which side of the line you are on
- Establish the county before you negotiate anything. A Memphis mailing address is not proof of Shelby County, and the county decides which chapter you are under.
- Outside a URLTA county, negotiate the deposit terms into the lease itself. Where the deposit is held, what triggers a deduction, how long the landlord has to return it, and what happens if they do not — none of that is supplied by statute there, so silence in the lease is silence everywhere.
- Ask for a written move-in condition record either way. Inside a URLTA county you have a statutory right to be present at the inspection; outside one you have whatever you agreed, which is why agreeing it matters more.
- Do not assume the notice periods differ. Both chapters land on fourteen days for the most common grounds; the difference is elsewhere.
This page states what the statutes say and links where to read them. It is not legal advice, statutes are amended, and a lease can be more generous than the code but not less than it requires. Check the current text at the links above, or ask a lawyer licensed in Tennessee, before relying on any of it in a dispute.