Does Hawaii have an implied warranty of habitability?

Statute and a court-recognized implied warranty, each doing independent work. The repair duty is statutory: section 521-42 of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, chapter 521, enacted in 1972. Court-made law still operates alongside it, because section 521-3(a) says that the principles of law and equity supplement the chapter unless displaced by its particular provisions.

How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Hawaii?

12 days. Twelve business days is the general track, and it is a clock to START the work, not to finish it: on written notice from the tenant of a defective condition that materially fails the section 521-42(a) duty or the rental agreement, the landlord must commence repairs within twelve business days, with a good-faith requirement that they be completed as soon as possible. Two other clocks run alongside it, and both are also commence clocks.

Can a tenant repair and deduct in Hawaii?

Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The tenant may deduct no more than $1,000 or one month's rent, whichever is greater, for actual expenditures on the work. That figure has applied since November 1, 2024; the older limit was $500.

Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Hawaii?

Only on conditions that commonly defeat it — see this page — How: rent paid into court or a registry as the price of the defense; a court or agency escrow program — Hawaii has no self-help withholding right. Withholding is recognized but adjudicated: in any court proceeding where payment or nonpayment of rent is in dispute, either the tenant or the landlord may ask the court to order the disputed rent deposited into a rent trust fund as it comes due, and the court must so order, using the pre-increase rent where a rent increase is at issue and excusing rent the tenant can show was already paid.

Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Hawaii?

Protected by a general retaliation statute — Section 521-74 is a flat bar rather than a presumption, and the tenant need not show that the landlord actually acted out of retaliation. So long as the tenant keeps tendering the usual rent, or tenders receipts for rent lawfully withheld, the landlord may not maintain an action to recover possession, cause the tenant to quit involuntarily, demand a rent increase, or cut the services the tenant is entitled to.

Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Hawaii?

A delegation provision reaches beyond the usual single-family limits. The starting point is section 521-31(a): except as the chapter itself otherwise provides, neither tenant nor landlord may waive or agree to forego rights or remedies under the chapter. Three qualifications follow.

What does Hawaii law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 All Hawaii topics →

Hawaii law requires a landlord to make all repairs necessary to put and keep a rented home in habitable condition and to comply with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety.

Cited to HRS § 521-3 (supplementary principles of law and equity) (a) and 12 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

The duty is statutory, but court-made law still operates beside it: Hawaii was the first state to recognize a common-law implied warranty of habitability, and its courts continue to recognize a retaliatory-eviction defense that sits in equity rather than in the Code. Notice starts one of three clocks, and each says when work must begin rather than when it must be finished: seven calendar days after an agency health-and-safety notice, twelve business days after the tenant's written notice, and three business days for electrical, plumbing and major-appliance failures, where oral notice is enough. If the landlord misses the deadline the tenant may have the work done and deduct the greater of $1,000 or one month's rent, subject to a ceiling of three months' rent in any six-month period and to a rule that a condition left off the first notice is blocked for six months. A tenant deprived of a substantial part of the bargain may instead end the tenancy one week after written notice, with no notice needed at all if the home is uninhabitable or dangerous. Rent may not simply be withheld: either side can have disputed rent paid into a court trust fund, and a tenant who cannot fund the deposit loses possession. Retaliation protection is a flat bar rather than a time-limited presumption, and it lasts as long as the tenant keeps tendering rent.

Hawaii habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from	Statute and a court-recognized implied warranty, each doing independent work
Duty source details	The repair duty is statutory: section 521-42 of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, chapter 521, enacted in 1972. Court-made law still operates alongside it, because section 521-3(a) says that the principles of law and equity supplement the chapter unless displaced by its particular provisions. Hawaii was the first state in the country to recognize a common-law implied warranty of habitability, in Lemle v. Breeden (1969), and that decision has never been overruled. The court-made contribution today is clearest on retaliation: Windward Partners v. Delos Santos (1978) recognized an affirmative defense of retaliatory eviction outside the enumerated grounds of section 521-74, and Cedillos v. Masumoto (2015) confirmed that this defense sits in equity rather than under the statute. The honest counter belongs on the record: no decision since the 1972 Code has applied Lemle as an independent source of the residential repair duty, which sections 521-42, 521-63 and 521-64 supply in full.
Who is covered	Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live	More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair	Two sources do real work. The statute itself lists a short set of obligations: comply with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety; keep the common areas of a multi-dwelling premises clean and safe; make all repairs and arrangements necessary to put and keep the premises in a habitable condition; maintain all electrical, plumbing and other facilities and appliances the landlord supplies in good working order, subject to reasonable wear and tear; and, except for a single-family residence, provide rubbish and garbage receptacles with frequent removal and supply running water as reasonably required. Everything the list leaves out runs through the code-compliance duty or through the general habitable-condition duty. The enumeration is unusually short: there is no heat clause, no hot-water clause, no cooling clause, no smoke or carbon-monoxide detector clause, no locks-and-keys clause, no vermin or extermination clause, and no weatherproofing clause. The section has not been amended since 1989.
Heat standard type	No heat-specific standard beyond the general duty
Heat standard details	No heat-specific figures or season stated
Headline repair day count	12 days
Notice and repair-window rules	Twelve business days is the general track, and it is a clock to START the work, not to finish it: on written notice from the tenant of a defective condition that materially fails the section 521-42(a) duty or the rental agreement, the landlord must commence repairs within twelve business days, with a good-faith requirement that they be completed as soon as possible. Two other clocks run alongside it, and both are also commence clocks. Where a state or county agency, including the health department, gives the landlord written notice of a condition that is a health or safety violation, repairs must commence within seven calendar days. Where the repairs are to electrical, plumbing or other facilities, including major appliances the landlord supplied, and are necessary for sanitary and habitable living conditions, repairs must commence within three business days, and oral notice from the tenant is enough to start that clock. Every one of the three carries the same excuse: a landlord who cannot commence within the period for reasons beyond the landlord's control must tell the tenant why and set a reasonable tentative date for work to begin. A separate one-week clock belongs to termination rather than repair, and none of these clocks applies to a condition caused by want of due care by the tenant, the tenant's family, or someone on the premises with the tenant's consent.
Repair and deduct	Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The tenant may deduct no more than $1,000 or one month's rent, whichever is greater, for actual expenditures on the work. That figure has applied since November 1, 2024; the older limit was $500. A second ceiling sits on top of it: total correction and repair costs chargeable to the landlord under this section may not exceed an amount equal to three months' rent during any six-month period. — There are two procedures. After an agency health-and-safety notice, or after the landlord misses the tenant-notice deadline, the tenant may immediately do or have done the necessary work in a competent manner and deduct the cost on submitting receipts amounting to at least the sum deducted. Alternatively the tenant may submit two written signed estimates from qualified workers at least seven calendar days before the work is done and use the lower bidder, and the landlord may require in writing a reasonable substitute worker or substitute materials. Two conditions cut the remedy down. When the tenant first gives notice, the tenant must list every condition the tenant knows or should know of; failing to list one estops the tenant for six months from making the landlord correct it or having it corrected at the landlord's expense. And the tenant may never repair at the landlord's expense where the condition was caused by want of due care by the tenant, a member of the tenant's family, or another person on the premises with the tenant's consent. Before correcting a condition affecting facilities shared with other units, the tenant must tell the other tenants of the plan and arrange the work to cause them the least practicable inconvenience.
Rent withholding or escrow	Only on conditions that commonly defeat it — see this page — How: rent paid into court or a registry as the price of the defense; a court or agency escrow program — Hawaii has no self-help withholding right. Withholding is recognized but adjudicated: in any court proceeding where payment or nonpayment of rent is in dispute, either the tenant or the landlord may ask the court to order the disputed rent deposited into a rent trust fund as it comes due, and the court must so order, using the pre-increase rent where a rent increase is at issue and excusing rent the tenant can show was already paid. The tenant's rights are preserved by the deposit: it does not affect an argument that rent was paid or that a ground for nonpayment exists under the chapter. At the end the court pays the money to the landlord if the rent was due and unpaid and the tenant had no basis to withhold, deduct or set off, and to the tenant if the rent was not due or was paid or the tenant did have such a basis. Two features matter to a tenant deciding what to do. A tenant who cannot pay the ordered amount into court loses possession automatically, with a writ issuing to remove everyone from the premises. And the deposit requirement drops away entirely where the parties signed a written instrument agreeing that rent could be withheld or deducted. A party who raised the payment question in bad faith can be ordered to pay the other reasonable interest on the deposited rent. The identical machinery appears in section 666-21 for a tenant proceeding under the summary possession chapter, and the fund runs one way: the court may order a tenant, not a landlord, to deposit.
Termination over habitability failures	Yes — a statute states the right — Where a condition within the premises deprives the tenant of a substantial part of the benefit and enjoyment of the tenant's bargain, the tenant may notify the landlord in writing and, if the landlord does not remedy the situation within one week, terminate the rental agreement. The notice is not required at all where the condition makes the unit uninhabitable or poses an imminent threat to the health or safety of any occupant. A tenant may not terminate for a condition caused by want of due care by the tenant, the tenant's family, or a person on the premises with the tenant's consent. If the landlord caused the condition wilfully or negligently, the tenant may also recover damages. Sections 521-65 and 521-66 handle what follows a fire or casualty and the refund of rent and return of the deposit when a tenancy ends this way.
Essential-service remedies	Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Failures of electrical, plumbing or other facilities, including major appliances the landlord supplied, ride a much faster clock than the general repair track when they are necessary for sanitary and habitable living conditions: the landlord must commence repairs within three business days, and the tenant's notice may be oral rather than written. Missing that deadline opens the repair-and-deduct remedy. Deliberate interruption of running water, hot water, electricity, gas or another essential service by a landlord trying to recover possession is a different subject, covered with the eviction rules.
Retaliation protection	Protected by a general retaliation statute — Section 521-74 is a flat bar rather than a presumption, and the tenant need not show that the landlord actually acted out of retaliation. So long as the tenant keeps tendering the usual rent, or tenders receipts for rent lawfully withheld, the landlord may not maintain an action to recover possession, cause the tenant to quit involuntarily, demand a rent increase, or cut the services the tenant is entitled to. A notice to vacate issued after a protected complaint simply has no effect. A tenant dispossessed in violation of the section recovers the damages sustained plus the cost of suit including reasonable attorney's fees. Seven grounds let the landlord proceed anyway: waste, nuisance, illegal use or non-dwelling use in violation of the rental agreement; a good-faith wish to occupy the unit as the landlord's own or the immediate family's home; good-faith substantial alteration, remodeling or demolition; a complaint relating only to conditions caused by the tenant's side's lack of ordinary care; a health-department certification that the unit complied with the health laws on the date the complaint or request was filed; a good-faith contract to sell where the purchaser has made a corresponding representation; and a notice terminating a periodic tenancy that was given before the tenant's complaint or request, which is a strict race the landlord loses if the notice comes even a day later. A separate list of five grounds governs rent increases, covering health-department certification, a substantial tax or operating-cost increase incurred at least four months earlier, a completed capital improvement measured by straight-line depreciation, tenant-caused conditions, and rent no higher than that charged for similar units in the building or, for a single-family residence, market rental value. Running in parallel is a second track: an affirmative defense of retaliatory eviction that sits in equity rather than in the Code, recognized in Windward Partners v. Delos Santos and reaching tenants chapter 521 does not cover. Its preponderance burden belongs to that track alone and must not be carried into a section 521-74 case. — Complaining in good faith to the health department, to the landlord, to the building department, to the office of consumer protection, or to any other governmental agency concerned with landlord-tenant disputes, about conditions in or affecting the unit that violate a health law or regulation or any provision of the chapter; a notice or complaint of such a violation filed by the health department or another governmental agency; and requesting repairs in good faith under the termination or repair-and-deduct sections. A complaint filed in court and served on the landlord counts, and so does a letter to the landlord.
Damages, penalties, and defenses	Damages for an unrepaired condition come through the repair-and-deduct sums the tenant may take off the rent, and through the termination section, which allows recovery of any damages sustained where the landlord caused the condition wilfully or negligently. Attorney's fees are the striking feature: they are agreement-dependent, not automatic. A rental agreement may provide that the tenant pays the cost of suit and reasonable attorney's fees for unpaid rent, capped at 25 percent of the unpaid rent after default and referral to an attorney who is not a salaried employee, and may provide for fees to the prevailing party in all other matters arising under the chapter; a term violating those limits is unenforceable. Where the lease says nothing, there is no fee award for a repair dispute. Fees are statutory only in the unlawful removal and retaliation provisions. The landlord's stated defenses across the topic are conditions caused by want of due care by the tenant, the tenant's family or a person on the premises with the tenant's consent; delay in commencing repairs for reasons beyond the landlord's control, provided the tenant is told the reason and given a reasonable tentative start date; and the tenant's failure to list a known condition in the first notice, which blocks that condition for six months. Where the landlord failed to inventory the premises in writing before occupancy began, the condition of the unit at the end of the tenancy is rebuttably presumed to be the same as at move-in, and without rebutting evidence a damages award to the landlord cannot stand.
Can the duty be waived or shifted	A delegation provision reaches beyond the usual single-family limits
Waiver and delegation rules	The starting point is section 521-31(a): except as the chapter itself otherwise provides, neither tenant nor landlord may waive or agree to forego rights or remedies under the chapter. Three qualifications follow. A claim disputed in good faith may be settled by agreement, and a claim may be settled for less than the amount claimed, but a settlement in which a party gives up chapter rights is invalid if the court finds as a matter of law that it was unconscionable when made, weighing competence, deception or coercion, the legal advice received, and the nature and value of what was given. Section 521-42(b) allows the landlord and tenant to agree that the tenant will perform specified repairs, maintenance tasks and minor remodeling, on three conditions only: the agreement is entered in good faith and not to evade the landlord's obligations, the work is not necessary to cure a violation of the building and housing laws duty, and the agreement does not reduce what the landlord owes other tenants. That carve-out is unusually wide, because Hawaii attaches no building-type limit to it and requires no separate written document and no separate consideration. Separately, section 521-33 makes void any lease term exempting the landlord from, or requiring the tenant to indemnify the landlord for, liability for damage to persons or property caused by the landlord's own acts or omissions, and section 521-75 lets a court refuse to enforce an unconscionable agreement or term, while providing that an act or practice the chapter expressly permits is not in itself unconscionable.
Leading court decisions	Lemle v. Breeden, 51 Haw. 426, 462 P.2d 470 (1969) — Held that in the lease of a dwelling house there is an implied warranty of habitability and fitness for the use intended, the first such holding in the country. The court treated constructive eviction as a judicial fiction that no longer serves its purpose once the more flexible warranty is available. • Windward Partners v. Delos Santos, 59 Haw. 104, 577 P.2d 326 (1978) — Held that the grounds listed in section 521-74(a) are not the exclusive basis for a retaliatory-eviction defense. Where a tenant asserts a statutory right in protection of the tenant's property interest and the landlord responds by seeking possession, the tenant may raise an affirmative defense of retaliatory eviction, and the defense reaches tenants whose conduct falls outside the Code's enumerated subsections. • Cedillos v. Masumoto, 136 Haw. 430, 363 P.3d 278 (2015) — Held that a tenant need not demonstrate actual retaliation under section 521-74: once the tenant has complained in good faith and continues to submit rent, the landlord is expressly prohibited from seeking possession, causing the tenant to quit, raising the rent or cutting services, and a notice to vacate issued afterwards is ineffective. The court also held that the affirmative defense recognized in Windward Partners concerned retaliatory eviction in equity rather than under section 521-74, so that decision's burden of proof does not govern a statutory claim, and that a trial court may not exclude repair evidence relevant to both the possession claim and the tenant's own claims.
Local rules	County building and housing laws do real work here, because the first duty in section 521-42 is to comply with all applicable building and housing laws materially affecting health and safety, and conditions the short statutory list does not name reach the landlord through that clause. Chapter 521 itself contains no provision setting a floor or a ceiling for county regulation of rental housing; its only inter-authority provisions preserve supplementing principles of law and equity, give way to the summary possession chapter on matters the Code does not cover, and yield to inconsistent conditions of a federal housing subsidy.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Hawaii Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/hawaii/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

The deduction limit and the agency clock both changed in 2024 — Act 32 of 2024 raised the repair-and-deduct limit from $500 to the greater of $1,000 or one month's rent, and in the same breath changed the clock for starting repairs after an agency health-and-safety notice from five business days to seven calendar days, along with the lead time for the two-estimate route. Both changes took effect on November 1, 2024. Older sources still show $500, and sources that caught the money often missed the clock.
Every repair clock is a start clock — None of the three periods is a deadline to finish the work. Each requires the landlord to commence repairs, paired with a good-faith requirement that they be completed as soon as possible, and each carries an express excuse where the landlord cannot begin for reasons beyond the landlord's control, so long as the tenant is told why and given a reasonable tentative start date. The separate one-week period in the termination section is a runway for ending the tenancy, not a repair deadline, and it disappears where the unit is uninhabitable or dangerous.
List every problem in the first notice — When the tenant first gives written notice, the tenant must list every condition the tenant knows or should know about, on top of the one the tenant intends to have fixed. A condition left off that list is blocked for six months: the tenant cannot require the landlord to correct it and cannot have it corrected at the landlord's expense during that period. Separately, everything charged to the landlord under the repair-and-deduct section in any six-month period is capped at three months' rent.
Two separate answers to a retaliatory eviction — The statute is a flat prohibition, not a presumption with a look-back window, and it needs no showing that the landlord actually acted out of spite; it protects the tenant for as long as the tenant keeps tendering the usual rent or receipts for rent lawfully withheld. Alongside it sits an older affirmative defense in equity, which reaches tenants the Code does not cover but carries its own burden of proof. The two must be kept apart: the burden from the equitable defense does not apply to a claim under the statute.
Rentals the Code does not reach — Chapter 521 excludes thirteen arrangements unless created solely to avoid it, and several are large. Three separate categories of Hawaii Public Housing Authority property are outside the chapter entirely, so neither the repair duty nor the repair-and-deduct remedy nor the retaliation protection reaches them. So are leases of improved residential land for fifteen years or more, transient day-to-day hotel and motel occupancy, university and college housing along with private dormitory managers offering at least fifty beds, occupancy under a bona fide contract of sale, and employee or pensioner occupancy conditioned on employment.
Attorney's fees depend on what the lease says — There is no general fee award for a repair dispute. A rental agreement may provide for fees to the prevailing party in matters arising under the chapter, and may charge a tenant fees for unpaid rent up to 25 percent of the amount unpaid after default and referral to an outside attorney; a term that goes further is unenforceable. Where the lease is silent, the Hawaii Supreme Court has confirmed that no fees are available. Fees are automatic only where a tenant is unlawfully removed and where a landlord retaliates.
No heat, mold or vermin clause in the statute — The statutory list is the shortest of any state's, and it names no temperature, no hot-water standard, no cooling duty, no smoke or carbon-monoxide detectors, no locks and keys, and no extermination duty. Mold, termites and storm damage are not distinct statutory categories either; those conditions reach the landlord through the duty to comply with applicable building and housing laws, through the general habitable-condition duty, or through the fire-and-casualty section.

Common questions: Hawaii habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Hawaii have an implied warranty of habitability?: Statute and a court-recognized implied warranty, each doing independent work. The repair duty is statutory: section 521-42 of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, chapter 521, enacted in 1972. Court-made law still operates alongside it, because section 521-3(a) says that the principles of law and equity supplement the chapter unless displaced by its particular provisions.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Hawaii?: 12 days. Twelve business days is the general track, and it is a clock to START the work, not to finish it: on written notice from the tenant of a defective condition that materially fails the section 521-42(a) duty or the rental agreement, the landlord must commence repairs within twelve business days, with a good-faith requirement that they be completed as soon as possible. Two other clocks run alongside it, and both are also commence clocks.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Hawaii?: Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The tenant may deduct no more than $1,000 or one month's rent, whichever is greater, for actual expenditures on the work. That figure has applied since November 1, 2024; the older limit was $500.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Hawaii?: Only on conditions that commonly defeat it — see this page — How: rent paid into court or a registry as the price of the defense; a court or agency escrow program — Hawaii has no self-help withholding right. Withholding is recognized but adjudicated: in any court proceeding where payment or nonpayment of rent is in dispute, either the tenant or the landlord may ask the court to order the disputed rent deposited into a rent trust fund as it comes due, and the court must so order, using the pre-increase rent where a rent increase is at issue and excusing rent the tenant can show was already paid.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Hawaii?: Protected by a general retaliation statute — Section 521-74 is a flat bar rather than a presumption, and the tenant need not show that the landlord actually acted out of retaliation. So long as the tenant keeps tendering the usual rent, or tenders receipts for rent lawfully withheld, the landlord may not maintain an action to recover possession, cause the tenant to quit involuntarily, demand a rent increase, or cut the services the tenant is entitled to.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Hawaii?: A delegation provision reaches beyond the usual single-family limits. The starting point is section 521-31(a): except as the chapter itself otherwise provides, neither tenant nor landlord may waive or agree to forego rights or remedies under the chapter. Three qualifications follow.

Citations

HRS § 521-3 (supplementary principles of law and equity) · (a) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-7 (exclusions from application of chapter) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-31 (waiver; agreement to forego rights; settlement of claims) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-33 (landlord's waiver of liability prohibited) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-35 (attorney's fees) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-42 (landlord to supply and maintain fit premises) · (a), (b) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-63 (tenant's remedy of termination at any time) · (a), (b) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-64 (tenant's remedy of repair and deduct for minor defects) · (a) through (h) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-74 (retaliatory evictions and rent increases prohibited) · (a) through (d) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-74.5 (recovery of possession limited) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-75 (unconscionability) (verified 2026) Official source
HRS § 521-78 (rent trust fund) · (a) through (d) (verified 2026) Official source
Act 32, Session Laws of Hawaii 2024 (S.B. 2132, approved May 28, 2024, effective November 1, 2024) · § 1 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, Hawaii Revised Statutes chapter 521, on the Legislature's official statutes site, section by section for sections 521-3, 521-7, 521-31, 521-33, 521-35, 521-42, 521-63, 521-64, 521-74, 521-74.5, 521-75 and 521-78, including each section's history line; the enrolled text of Act 32, Session Laws of Hawaii 2024, read in full on the Legislature's session-law archive to confirm the exact scope and effective date of the 2024 amendment; the Legislature's own tables showing the effect of the 2025 acts and its list of the 2026 acts; and the official reporter texts of Lemle v. Breeden, Windward Partners v. Delos Santos and Cedillos v. Masumoto, each read in full.