What landlords cannot do in Mississippi

Your tenant misses the rent due date. Calls and messages go unanswered, but the unit is still occupied. The next court date feels far away, and changing the locks may look like the fastest way to regain control. It is not.

A Mississippi landlord who takes that shortcut can walk away from justice court with a wrongful-eviction judgment and punitive damages. A landlord who sits on a security deposit past the statutory deadline can owe damages on top of the refund.

Mississippi regulates landlords more lightly than almost any other state, but the rules it enforces can produce wrongful-eviction judgments, actual and punitive damages, and federal civil penalties. Federal agencies and courts can impose penalties that reach five figures per violation. Here is what Mississippi law prohibits landlords from doing, with the statute behind each prohibition.

What the Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act covers

Nearly every state-law prohibition in this article comes from one chapter: the Mississippi Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, Mississippi landlord-tenant statutes. The Act applies to rental agreements for dwelling units in Mississippi entered into after July 1, 1991. It sets the notice periods for termination, the security deposit rules, the landlord's maintenance duties, and the entire residential eviction procedure. Section 89-8-9 adds an overlay that touches everything else: every duty and every act required under the chapter must be performed in good faith.

The Mississippi Legislature most recently amended the Act through 2025 Senate Bill 2328, effective April 10, 2025, which the Mississippi Bar's Real Property Section described as making pro-landlord changes to the eviction provisions. For landlords in Mississippi, the practical takeaway is that the Act's court-process requirements are mandatory even where the statute is otherwise thin. If you operate an Airbnb or VRBO, Mississippi's rental law for short-term rentals adds another layer on top of the Act.

Illegal eviction methods: no lockouts or utility shutoffs

You cannot remove a tenant yourself. A landlord may not change the locks, cut utilities, remove doors or belongings, or block access before a court-ordered move-out date, because §§ 89-8-31 through 89-8-39 make a court judgment and a law-enforcement-executed warrant of removal the only lawful path to possession. A utility shutoff also violates your own maintenance duty under § 89-8-23(1)(b), which requires you to keep the unit in substantially the same condition as at lease inception, including its plumbing and heating and cooling systems.

Mississippi has no dedicated lockout statute or list of protected "essential services," nor does it impose the three-months'-rent penalty found in most states. That gap does not make self-help safe. A locked-out tenant can sue for restoration of possession under the unlawful entry and detainer statutes, §§ 11-25-1 et seq., within one year. The tenant can also pursue actual damages for hotel bills and losses from spoiled food or missing property under trespass and conversion claims or quiet-enjoyment theories. Punitive damages are on the table too. In Johnson v. Brooks, a Mississippi trial court awarded $1,875.27 in actual damages and $2,000 in punitive damages after a landlord refused a rent tender and locked the tenant out.

The case law runs consistently against self-help. In the Bender decision, 636 So. 2d 385 (Miss. 1994), the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the landlord-lien statute does not authorize seizing tenant property without the statutory attachment process. And in Crowell v. Butts (Miss. Ct. App. 2013), the court held a landlord acted without authority in reentering and locking out a tenant where the lease contained no reentry provision; absent such a clause, the landlord must give notice and an opportunity for a hearing.

Required eviction notice timelines and court process

Most evictions start with written notice, and the period depends on the ground. Section 89-8-19 permits termination without notice for a substantial violation that materially affects health or safety. You may deliver notice by email or text only if the tenant agreed in writing to those methods. The Act sets these periods:

• Ground for termination | Required written notice | Statute
• Nonpayment of rent | 3 days | § 89-8-13(5)(a)
• Remediable lease violation | 14 days, with a 14-day cure period | § 89-8-13(3)
• Month-to-month termination (no cause) | 30 days | § 89-8-19
• Week-to-week termination | 7 days | § 89-8-19
• Substantial health/safety violation | None required | § 89-8-19

A 2025 bill (HB 1352) would have stretched the nonpayment notice to five days; the Legislature did not enact it, so three days remains the law. There is no statutory grace period for rent unless you and the tenant agree to one, per the Mississippi Bar. If the tenant cures a lease violation before the termination date in the notice, the tenancy does not terminate. A repeat of the same breach within six months lets you terminate on 14 days' notice without a cure opportunity.

Once the notice period runs out, you must file in justice court in the county where the property sits:

1. File a sworn complaint stating the relevant facts and requested relief, including the property address and amounts owed, and declaring that you gave the required notice. The filing fee is $25.
2. The clerk issues a summons for service, by the constable ($55 per process) or sheriff ($45). The constable must file an affidavit of service or attempted service within 10 days.
3. At the hearing, if you win possession, the judge orders the tenant to vacate within 7 days of judgment unless emergency or compelling circumstances justify a shorter or longer period.
4. If the judgment rests solely on nonpayment and the tenant pays everything awarded by the move-out date, the judge will not issue a warrant for removal.
5. If the tenant stays past the move-out date, request a warrant for removal. Under 2025 SB 2328, posting the warrant on the door does not execute it; law enforcement must physically remove all occupants and place you in possession.
6. Either party may appeal to circuit court within 10 days, posting a bond of double the judgment (minimum $100).

How long must a landlord hold a tenant's personal property after eviction?

Under § 89-8-39, you must give the tenant 72 hours of reasonable access to remove personal property, including any manufactured home, after law enforcement executes the warrant for removal. The 2025 amendment matters here: the clock starts when law enforcement physically puts you in possession, not when the warrant gets posted.

What happens to property left behind depends on when the tenant left:

• Scenario | What the landlord may do
• Tenant vacated by the court-ordered date but left property | Dispose of it without further notice
• Tenant vacated within the 72-hour window but left property | Dispose of it without further notice
• Property remains after the 72 hours expire | Move it to the curb. Alternatively, move it to a garbage-designated area or a location the tenant and landlord agree on

Mississippi imposes no auction or storage requirement and does not require proceeds accounting for abandoned tenant property. The eviction summons must disclose these rules to the tenant before the hearing, so the clerk includes that warning for you.

Habitability and maintenance a landlord cannot ignore

Section 89-8-23 requires you to comply with building and housing codes that materially affect health and safety, and to maintain the dwelling in substantially the same condition as when the lease began, including its plumbing and heating and cooling systems, reasonable wear and tear excluded. You have no duty to repair defects the tenant caused deliberately or negligently. On top of the statute, the Mississippi Supreme Court recognized an implied warranty of habitability in O'Cain v. Harvey Freeman & Sons, Inc., 603 So. 2d 824 (Miss. 1991): a landlord must provide reasonably safe premises at lease inception and exercise reasonable care to repair dangerous defects once the tenant gives notice.

Ignore a repair request long enough and the tenant can fix the problem and bill you through the repair-and-deduct remedy in § 89-8-15. The tenant must deliver written notice of a specific, material defect, give you 30 days to cure, be current on rent and in compliance with their own § 89-8-25 duties, and not have used the remedy in the preceding six months. Section 89-8-15 limits the spend to the lesser of one month's rent or the usual and customary charge for the work. Once the tenant submits receipted bills, you owe reimbursement within 45 days, or the tenant can offset the cost against future rent. Bills to remove the one-month cap failed in both 2025 (HB 840) and 2026 (HB 442), so those limits still stand. For the tenant's side of these obligations, see our guide to tenant rights in Mississippi.

Landlord entry rules and notice requirements

The Act contains no entry-notice provision. None of its sections, which run from waiver prohibitions through holdover penalties, tells you how much notice to give before entering an occupied unit or defines emergency exceptions. That silence cuts both ways. It means Mississippi statute won't fine you for a short-notice visit, but it also means the lease and the § 89-8-9 good-faith obligation are the only guardrails, and tenants facing intrusive entry have common-law theories like breach of quiet enjoyment available.

Write an entry clause into your lease and follow it every time. A 24-hour written-notice window is the standard most leases use, with an exception for genuine emergencies such as a burst pipe. A documented entry practice also protects you if a tenant later claims harassment during a dispute.

Security deposit restrictions, deductions, and return deadlines

Section 89-8-21 requires you to return the remaining deposit no later than 45 days after the tenancy terminates and the tenant both delivers possession and demands the deposit. If you keep any portion, you must deliver written notice that itemizes the amounts claimed. Section 89-8-21 limits deductions to what is reasonably necessary for unpaid rent, repair of tenant-caused damage, end-of-tenancy cleaning, and other reasonable expenses caused by tenant default.

You may never deduct ordinary wear and tear. That means the gradual decline that comes from normal use, including carpet worn thin in walkways and surfaces with faded paint or small nail holes, as opposed to damage like broken fixtures or stained flooring. Retaining a deposit in violation of the section and with an absence of good faith exposes you to damages not to exceed $200 plus the tenant's actual damages. The statute awards no attorney's fees or court costs, and the Legislature has not amended it since its 1991 enactment. The penalty is small by national standards, but an itemized notice inside 45 days costs you nothing and closes the issue.

Prohibited landlord retaliation

Mississippi's retaliation protection is narrower than most landlords assume, and it does not live where most articles say it does. Section 89-8-23 is titled "Duties of landlord" and contains no retaliation language at all. The only express retaliation limit in the Act is § 89-8-17(2), which allows a rent increase after a rental agreement expires only if the increase "did not have the dominant purpose of retaliation" against the tenant for actions authorized under the chapter, and only if you received written notice of each condition behind the tenant's actions.

Mississippi law does not provide:

• A general anti-retaliation statute covering harassment and other conduct such as mid-tenancy evictions or service reductions
• A statutory list of protected tenant activities
• A retaliation presumption period
• Statutory damages or a remedy specific to retaliation

An October 2025 analysis at Commoner Law puts it plainly: Mississippi's Act "does not include a clear anti-retaliation provision," leaving tenants to raise retaliation under common-law principles. Mississippi Legal Services notes that a tenant still has a defense to eviction if the primary reason for the action is retaliation for exercising rights under the Act, and the good-faith duty applies to every termination and nonrenewal. Document the legitimate business reason behind any termination or rent increase that follows a repair request or code complaint; the paper trail is what wins the good-faith argument.

Fair housing and anti-discrimination rules

The federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604, prohibits discrimination in rentals based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, and disability. Those seven classes govern your advertising, screening, lease terms, and reasonable-accommodation decisions.

Mississippi is the only state without a statewide fair housing law covering private rentals, so complaints go directly to HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Region IV in Atlanta, at (800) 440-8091. Two narrower rules add coverage. Miss. Code Ann. § 43-33-723 applies to Mississippi Home Corporation-sponsored housing. Jackson's local ordinance (§ 86-302) adds gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, and veteran status for properties inside city limits.

Federal officials actively enforce fair housing law in Mississippi. In United States v. SSM Properties (S.D. Miss.), the government accused owners of three Pearl apartment complexes of steering Black testers to one complex and falsely claiming no vacancies at the others. The owners agreed to a November 2022 consent decree requiring $110,000 in damages and attorneys' fees plus $13,000 in civil penalties. In July 2023, a federal court in Oxford entered a consent order in United States v. Ruredy808, LLC after the owners refused to let a tenant with disabilities keep his service dog and moved to evict him. The Mississippi Center for Justice reported in March 2026 that disability-related discrimination is the most common type of housing discrimination it sees in the state, which tracks the national pattern: disability claims made up 54.59% of all fair housing complaints in 2024 per the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Rent increases and lease modifications: what is and is not allowed

No Mississippi statute caps how much you can raise rent. The limits are timing and process. On a fixed-term lease, § 89-8-17(2) permits you to demand an increase only after the rental agreement expires, so a mid-lease increase is off the table unless the lease itself provides for one. On a month-to-month tenancy, the Act sets no separate rent-increase notice. You must use the 30-day written termination notice under § 89-8-19 and pair it with an offer of a new agreement at the higher rent.

Courts enforce late fees, but you must put them in the lease. Section 89-8-7(k) defines "rent" to include "any late fees that are required to be paid under the rental agreement by a defaulting tenant," and the Act imposes no dollar or percentage cap and no mandatory grace period. Mississippi also has no statute requiring you to itemize or disclose fees in a residential lease; the only content restrictions on lease terms are the prohibited clauses covered in the next section. A fee that isn't written into the signed agreement, though, has no statutory hook at all, so put every charge in the lease.

Other prohibited actions: lead paint, servicemember protections, and unenforceable lease clauses

Three more bodies of law prohibit specific landlord conduct in Mississippi, two of them federal.

For any rental built before 1978, the federal Lead-Based Paint Disclosure Rule requires four things before a renter signs the lease: provide the EPA pamphlet "Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home," disclose all known information about lead-based paint and its hazards, hand over any available records and reports, and include the federally prescribed Lead Warning Statement in the lease. You must keep the completed disclosure attachment for at least 3 years from lease commencement. The rule does not require testing or removal. Exemptions cover zero-bedroom units and leases of 100 days or less with no renewal option. Housing that a certified inspector has found lead-free is also exempt. The penalties dwarf anything in Mississippi state law:

• Agency | Authority | Maximum per violation (2025)
• EPA | TSCA § 16 | $49,772
• EPA | Lead Hazard Reduction Act § 1018(b)(5) | $22,263
• HUD | 24 CFR 30.65 | $23,727

Active-duty servicemembers get separate federal protection:

• Under 50 U.S.C. § 3951, you may not evict a servicemember or their dependents from a primary residence during military service except by court order, for leases at or below an annually adjusted rent threshold: $10,542.60 per month for 2026. Courts must grant a 90-day stay when military service materially affects a qualifying servicemember's ability to pay. A court can punish anyone who knowingly attempts a prohibited eviction with up to one year in prison.
• Under 50 U.S.C. § 3955, a servicemember who enters service after signing or later receives qualifying orders may terminate the lease with written notice and a copy of orders. Qualifying orders include PCS orders or deployment for 90 or more days. You may not charge an early termination fee and must refund prepaid rent within 30 days.

You cannot enforce certain lease clauses under state law. Under § 89-8-5, neither party may waive any right, duty, or remedy under the Act, and a lease may not authorize confession of judgment or exculpate the landlord for willful misconduct. Courts go further on exculpation: in Cappaert v. Junker, 413 So. 2d 378 (Miss. 1982), the Mississippi Supreme Court voided a clause immunizing a landlord against his own negligence in maintaining a common-area stairway as against public policy. Section 89-8-23(3) allows one allocation: a written, good-faith agreement for the tenant to perform some or all of the landlord's maintenance duties. In Tina Lee v. Keller Williams Realty, 247 So. 3d 293 (Miss. Ct. App. 2017), the parties voluntarily entered such an agreement with full understanding, and the Court of Appeals upheld it.

How Steadily protects Mississippi landlords

Following every rule above does not stop a tenant or applicant from filing a claim. A covered liability claim generates legal costs even when you did everything right, and an eviction gone wrong can leave a unit damaged and empty for months. Steadily offers liability limits from $100K to $1M+ and loss of rental income for up to 12 months of fair rental value, subject to the policy's terms and sublimits.

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FAQ

These answers summarize the deadlines, eviction limits, maintenance duties, and fair-housing rules Mississippi landlords ask about most.

Can a Mississippi landlord change the locks or shut off utilities on a tenant?

Possession requires a justice court judgment and a warrant of removal executed by law enforcement. A locked-out tenant has one year to sue under the unlawful entry and detainer statutes, and courts have added punitive damages on top of actual losses in lockout cases.

How much notice does a landlord have to give before filing an eviction?

Three days' written notice for nonpayment of rent, 14 days for a fixable lease violation, and 30 days to end a month-to-month tenancy without cause. Email or text notice counts only if the tenant agreed to it in writing. No notice is required for a substantial violation that materially affects health or safety.

How long does a Mississippi landlord have to return a security deposit?

45 days after the tenancy ends and the tenant both hands back possession and demands the deposit. Any amount withheld requires an itemized written notice, and bad-faith retention adds up to $200 in damages beyond the tenant's actual losses.

Does Mississippi law require notice before a landlord enters a rental?

No statute addresses entry. The lease governs, subject to the Act's good-faith requirement, so a written entry clause with a notice window is the practical safeguard.

Can a tenant claim retaliation against a Mississippi landlord?

Only narrowly. The statute limits retaliation review to post-expiration rent increases with a "dominant purpose of retaliation," though tenants can raise retaliation as a common-law defense in an eviction case.

Can a landlord raise rent in the middle of a lease?

Not on a fixed-term lease; you may demand an increase only after the agreement expires. On a month-to-month tenancy, the increase runs through a 30-day written notice.

What maintenance can a landlord not skip?

Compliance with health-and-safety housing codes and upkeep of the dwelling in substantially its move-in condition, including its plumbing and HVAC. A tenant who gives written notice and waits 30 days can make the repair and deduct up to one month's rent.

What questions or screening practices violate fair housing law?

Anything that treats applicants differently based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability, including steering and refusing reasonable accommodations like service animals. In Jackson, the city also protects gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, and veteran status.