How does a Hawaii landlord lawfully end a tenancy, and when may a tenant leave early?

The Code reaches residential tenancies generally but excludes thirteen situations, unless the arrangement was created solely to avoid it: residence at an institution where it is incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational or religious services; housing controlled by a university or college for its own students or faculty, or by a private dorm management company offering at least fifty beds; occupancy under a genuine contract of sale; residence by a member of a fraternal organization; day-to-day transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; occupancy by an employee whose right to be there depends on the job, or by a pensioner, including up to four years afterwards under a transfer plan; a lease of improved residential land for fifteen years or more; occupancy by a buyer after an accepted offer; occupancy by a seller after transfer; a homeless facility or program; federal low-rent public housing; a transitional facility for abused family or household members; and anything the Hawaii Public Housing Authority controls, owns or manages. Public housing is therefore outside the Code entirely, and none of the notice periods on this page reaches it.

Coverage turns on what kind of housing it is and who runs it, which a reader settles by matching the tenancy against the thirteen exclusions rather than by any date or locality test. One further switch is temporary rather than structural: where a governor's emergency proclamation relating to wildfires suspends the Code's nonpayment and termination sections and the summary-possession chapter, the ordinary notice periods on this page do not run, and a separate regime requiring a fifteen-day written demand with prescribed contents governs instead until the proclamation lapses.

The switch changes: every answer on this page.

Landlord: 45 days (counted forward from the day the notice is delivered). Tenant: 28 days.

Every period in the Code is counted backwards from the termination date the notice names: the notice must be given at least so many days in advance of the anticipated termination. Nothing ties that date to the end of a rental period or to a rent-due date, and the Code says nothing about whether the tenancy may end mid-month, so the days run as plain calendar days from delivery to the date named. Two features change the arithmetic in practice. A tenant who receives a 45-day or 120-day notice may leave at any time inside that period, so long as the tenant tells the landlord the date of leaving and pays rent prorated to it. And where a 120-day notice is revoked, or amended and reissued, the whole period begins again from the date of the reissue or amendment.

The termination date may fall on any day.

Tiers: Three tracks. On a month-to-month tenancy the landlord gives 45 days and the tenant gives 28. The landlord's period rises to 120 days where the landlord is contemplating voluntary demolition of the dwelling units, conversion to a condominium property regime, or changing the use of the building to transient vacation rentals; that limb is written around the building, so a change of use of one unit inside a building does not on the face of the statute trigger it, and a separate section imposes the same 120 days before a condominium conversion. Where the tenancy is less than month to month, either side gives 10 days.

A lease may not change the period. Neither side may shorten or give up these periods. The Code says that except as it otherwise provides, a tenant or landlord may not waive or agree to forego rights or remedies under the chapter, and the bar is chapter-wide, so it binds a lease clause in either direction. A settlement that waives a right under the chapter can also be set aside where the court finds as a matter of law that it was unconscionable when it was made.

Source of the period: a termination-notice statute states it.

A landlord ends a month-to-month tenancy by notifying the tenant in writing at least 45 days before the anticipated termination; a tenant ends it by notifying the landlord in writing at least 28 days ahead, and is responsible for rent through the twenty-eighth day. The periods are deliberately different, which is unusual, and neither may be varied by the lease. Where the landlord is contemplating voluntary demolition, a condominium conversion, or changing the use of the building to transient vacation rentals, the period is 120 days, and a notice that is revoked, or amended and reissued, starts the 120 days over from the reissue date. Where the tenancy is less than month to month, either side gives 10 days. A tenant who receives a 45-day or 120-day notice has a right built into it: the tenant may leave at any time within the period, must tell the landlord the date of leaving, and pays rent prorated for the days occupied. No reason has to be given and the notice needs no particular form beyond writing, but a notice given to evade the landlord's duty to give advance written notice of a rent increase is void. Where a governor's wildfire emergency proclamation suspends these sections, they do not run at all.

No: no statewide rule requires a reason, and no statute expressly authorizes local ordinances.

Local ordinances: no statute or decision addresses them. Hawaii law says nothing about county just-cause or eviction-control ordinances in either direction: the Landlord-Tenant Code neither authorizes them nor preempts them, and the counties' own powers chapter gives them housing development, construction, financing and lending powers only, not a power to regulate why or how a tenancy ends. The absence is a considered one rather than an oversight; a 2025 bill that would have authorized certain counties to adopt a rental price ceiling did not pass, which is the clearest indication that the power does not exist today. How far a county may regulate the amount of rent is answered on the rent-increase page.

No reason is required to end a periodic tenancy in Hawaii or to let a fixed term expire. The landlord gives the statutory notice and the tenancy ends. Nothing in the Landlord-Tenant Code conditions a termination or a non-renewal on a ground, and the phrase just cause appears nowhere in it. Three narrow restraints apply instead. A termination notice given to evade the landlord's duty to give written notice of a rent increase is void. A landlord may not retaliate, which is covered on the habitability page. And a landlord may not take possession by cutting off utilities or by other self-help, with minimum damages of three times the monthly rent or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater. Statewide just-cause bills were introduced in the 2025 and 2026 sessions and did not pass.

The term ends on its date; no statute requires notice from either side.

After the term, a statute supplies what a holdover becomes. The conversion is a holdover consequence with a clock on it. Where a tenant stays past the end of the tenancy without the landlord's consent, the landlord may bring summary possession at any time during the first sixty days of the holdover. If the landlord does not, then in the absence of a rental agreement a month-to-month tenancy at the monthly rent stated in the previous agreement takes effect by operation of law from the end of those sixty days. Waiting therefore costs the landlord the holdover claim and fixes the rent at the old figure.

A fixed term ends on its own date. The Code lists expiry by passage of time as one of the ways a rental agreement comes to an end and requires no notice of non-renewal from either side, and there is no duty to remind a tenant before an automatic-renewal clause takes effect. The parties may agree in writing to any period as the term; where they agree none, the tenancy is month to month, or week to week for boarders, and successor occupants left in place without a written agreement fall under that same default. One separate notice duty sits alongside the expiry rule: where a landlord is contemplating conversion to a condominium property regime, the tenant is owed 120 days' notice before the rental agreement ends.

Hawaii does not label a holdover a tenancy at sufferance. What it does is put a clock on the landlord: where the tenant stays past the termination date without the landlord's consent, the landlord may bring summary possession at any time during the first sixty days, and if that window closes without a filing a month-to-month tenancy at the previous monthly rent takes effect by operation of law.

Damages: Double rent for the holdover period. Qualifiers: the multiple is a maximum, not the award; and prorated by the day.

A tenant who stays on without the landlord's consent may be liable for a sum not to exceed twice the monthly rent under the previous agreement, computed and prorated on a daily basis for each day of possession. Three things about that measure are usually reported wrongly. It is a ceiling, not an automatic doubling; the words are permissive, so a court need not award it at all; and it is prorated by the day, so a short holdover costs a fraction of a month. Nothing gates it on bad faith or wilfulness. The Code's usual default of fair rental value where the parties have agreed no rent expressly yields to this rule in the case of holdover tenants, and once the sixty-day window has passed the rent is fixed at the previous agreement's monthly figure rather than at fair rental value. An appellate court has applied the measure to post-termination occupancy under an oral agreement.

What a consented holdover becomes: A holdover the landlord does not act on within sixty days becomes a month-to-month tenancy at the rent stated in the previous rental agreement, running from the end of those sixty days.

Yes: a statute imposes the duty.

When it attaches: The ceiling applies from the moment the tenant wrongfully quits the unit and unequivocally indicates by words or deeds an intention not to resume the tenancy. A parallel ceiling applies even earlier, to a tenant who repudiates before ever moving in.

Burden of proof: no authority allocates it.

The standard: Hawaii writes the rule as a cap on what the departing tenant owes rather than as a duty the landlord must discharge. The tenant is liable for the lesser of two amounts: the entire rent due for the remainder of the term, or the rent accruing during the period reasonably necessary to re-rent the unit at fair rental, plus the difference between that fair rent and the rent agreed in the old agreement, plus a reasonable commission for renting the unit. The second measure applies whenever it is the smaller of the two, and the statute says so whether or not the landlord actually re-rents. A landlord who leaves the unit empty therefore still cannot recover more than the re-renting measure when that measure is lower.

No authority addresses a clause accelerating the remaining rent.

The lease may not waive the duty.

The rule sits in the Code's general section on a tenant who breaks the tenancy, and it reaches every wrongful quitting rather than only a formally declared abandonment. Because it is written as a ceiling on the tenant's liability that applies whether or not the landlord re-rents, the practical effect is the same as a duty to re-rent: a landlord who does nothing recovers only the re-renting measure once that is the smaller figure. A tenant who backs out before taking occupancy owes the least of the money already deposited, one month's rent, or the same re-renting measure. Neither section says who must prove the period reasonably necessary to re-rent or the fair rental, and no Hawaii appellate decision allocates that burden or construes the measure. Nothing in the Code addresses a clause accelerating the remaining rent on a default, and the chapter-wide bar on waiver means the lease cannot contract out of the ceiling.

No statute addresses a fee a landlord may charge for ending a lease early; the general damages rules govern.

Cap on damages after an early departure: Two caps do exist on what a landlord may recover after an early departure, and they are the closest thing Hawaii has to a fee rule. A tenant who wrongfully quits owes the lesser of the whole remaining rent or the re-renting measure described under the duty to reduce losses. A tenant who repudiates before ever taking occupancy owes the least of the money already deposited, one month's rent, or that same re-renting measure.

No Hawaii statute authorizes, caps, or bars a general fee for ending a residential lease early, so such a charge is unregulated except by the two damages caps described above and by the chapter-wide bar on waiving rights under the Code. Where the Legislature has addressed fees, it has done so by banning them outright on the statutory termination grounds: a survivor of domestic violence and a servicemember tenant each terminate without penalty or fees for early termination or liability for future rent, and the landlord may assess no fee or penalty for the exercise of either right; where the remaining tenants cannot show they can pay the rent and the landlord ends their agreement too, that termination is also fee-free; and no additional rent, fee, or security deposit may be required after a lock change or a court-ordered exclusion of an abuser. The Code's only other fee cap is on the application screening fee, which must reflect actual cost, comes with a receipt and a breakdown on request, and must be refunded to the extent unused within thirty days. Hawaii's administrative rules were checked: the only agency the Code gives a role to is the Office of Consumer Protection, whose rules cover procedures, deceptive advertising and witness compensation, and none of them regulates residential lease fees or terminations.

Early-exit rights by ground: domestic violence and related grounds, a statutory right to end the lease; military service beyond the federal act, state orders or National Guard duty are covered and a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right; death of the tenant, a statutory route; and other statutory grounds.

Domestic violence and related grounds: a victim may end the lease on notice.

Who qualifies: The right belongs to a tenant where the tenant, or an immediate family member of the tenant residing in the unit, has been the victim of domestic violence, which the Code defines by reference to domestic abuse under the state's protective-order chapter. Two limits are easy to miss and both are real. Sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking are not independent grounds in Hawaii: they qualify only where the conduct also amounts to domestic abuse, so an assault by a stranger or stalking outside a domestic relationship gives no right to end the lease. And the right reaches only a rental agreement of a term of one year or less, so a tenant on a two-year lease has no right under this section at all.

Documentation: Two things must travel with the notice, and the second is a condition on the right rather than a formality. First, one of three kinds of documentation: certified or exemplified restraining orders, injunctions against harassment and documents from criminal cases; documentation from a victim services organization or a domestic violence program, agency or facility, including a shelter or safe house; or documentation from a medical professional, mental health care provider, attorney, advocate, social worker or member of the clergy from whom the victim sought assistance about the violence. Second, a separate written statement describing that the tenant reasonably believes the person who committed the violence knows the address or location where the tenant or the family member lives, which is required unless that person lives in the same unit. The landlord may not pass any of it on. The notice and the documentation go to the landlord together.

Window: 90 days; the incident or documentation must fall within that window before the notice. Hawaii sets two windows and both are hard. Looking backwards, the violence must have happened during the 90 days before the notice of early termination is given to the landlord. Looking forwards, the early termination date named in the notice may be no more than 104 days from the date of the most recent act of violence. A notice that satisfies one and not the other does not work, and no one may extend either.

Notice: 14 days; the tenant names an effective date within a window and may stay until it. The tenant names the early termination date in the written notice and stays until it. The notice must be given at least 14 days before that date, and the date itself may be no more than 104 days from the most recent act of violence, so the tenant chooses the day within a window rather than waiting out a fixed period. The notice must carry the documentation and the address-knowledge statement described above.

Rent owed: Where the victim is the only tenant, the agreement ends on the early termination date named in the notice and the tenant owes rent through that date plus anything else already outstanding as of it, payable on or before that date. Nothing in the section wipes out delinquent or unpaid rent or other amounts owed to the landlord from before the termination.

Cost to the tenant: The termination is without penalty, without any fee for ending early, and without liability for future rent, and the landlord may assess no fee or penalty for the exercise of the right. After the tenant gives up the unit the landlord must return a prorated share of the deposit and of prepaid rent, keeping back a prorated amount for any damage the tenant is responsible for. Where more than one tenant is entitled to a share, it is split as a court directs or as the parties agree in writing, and failing that the landlord may refund in equal shares.

Other tenants on the lease: the lease continues for the other tenants. The release of one tenant does not end the agreement for the others, but the Code attaches a condition found in few other states: the remaining tenants stay bound provided they demonstrate an ability to pay the rent under the agreement, as determined by the landlord. If they cannot, the landlord may end their agreement by giving them notice of early termination at least 14 days before the date named in it, and may assess no penalty or fee for doing so. The servicemember section works the same way but gives the remaining tenants 30 days rather than 14.

Locks: The victim may require the landlord to change the locks. A victim who does not want to leave may instead require the landlord to change the locks, by submitting a request. The landlord must do it within three days of receiving the request, but at the tenant's expense, which is the opposite of the arrangement in several other states. If the landlord does not act within the three days, the tenant may change the locks without permission and must give the landlord a key to the new ones. Where the person who committed the violence is also a party to the rental agreement, the locks may not be changed unless a court has ordered that person to leave the unit and a copy of the order has been given to the landlord. No additional rent, fee, or security deposit may be required because that person has been excluded, and once a court in a domestic-violence case orders them to leave, their interest in the tenancy ends and neither landlord nor tenant owes them access, except in the company of a law enforcement officer, or keys.

Later screening: no statutory protection.

The landlord must keep the victim's documentation or status confidential.

The landlord's side: The Code gives the landlord four things. The landlord may recover actual damages resulting from the tenant's use of the right from the person who committed the violence. Where that person is on the lease, the landlord may either keep them in possession and hold them liable for all future rents, or end their interest by notifying them in writing at least five days in advance and evict them if they do not go. Where a tenant knowingly submits a false notice or false documentation, the landlord may recover three months' periodic rent or three times actual damages, whichever is greater, plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees. And a landlord who acts in good faith under the section is immune from any claim by the person who committed the violence. Against all of that stands one duty: the landlord may not disclose what the tenant reports unless the tenant consents in a signed statement, the information is required or relevant in a court case, or another law requires it.

A tenant under a rental agreement of one year or less may end it without penalty, without an early-termination fee, and without liability for future rent, where the tenant or an immediate family member living in the unit has been the victim of domestic violence during the 90 days before the notice. The written notice must name the early termination date, be given at least 14 days before it, and set a date no more than 104 days from the most recent act. It must carry one of three kinds of documentation and, separately, a written statement that the tenant reasonably believes the person responsible knows where the tenant lives, unless that person lives in the same unit. The tenant owes rent through the named date plus anything already outstanding, and gets back a prorated share of the deposit and prepaid rent. Other tenants stay bound if they can show the landlord they are able to pay; if not, the landlord may end their agreement too on 14 days' notice with no fee. A victim who prefers to stay may require a lock change within three days, at the tenant's own cost. Hawaii's right is domestic-abuse-only: sexual assault, stalking and trafficking do not qualify on their own, and the state has no bar on using a past termination against a tenant in later screening.

Military service: State orders or National Guard duty are covered and a spouse or dependent may terminate in their own right.

When the state rights attach: Each right has its own coverage condition. The on-post-quarters right in the Landlord-Tenant Code reaches only a rental agreement of a term of one year or less, or a month-to-month tenancy, and it does not apply where the orders are the result of disciplinary action or a court order; a member of the Hawaii National Guard counts only while on ordered federal duty of 90 days or more. The state civil-relief right reaches a lease signed before the person entered military service, where the premises have been occupied by that person or by that person and their dependents, and its definition of military service turns on state active duty ordered by the adjutant general or the governor, or full-time National Guard duty. Dependents get the civil-relief chapter's benefits only by applying to a court.

Hawaii has two separate state rights, on two different clocks, and one statute expressly preserves both alongside the federal act. The first is in the Landlord-Tenant Code: a servicemember tenant who receives military orders requiring them to vacate civilian housing and move into on-post government quarters may end the lease without penalty or fees or liability for future rent, provided that failing to move would forfeit their basic allowance for housing and that their commanding officer denied a request to keep the allowance. Notice is 30 days in writing on a lease of a year or less and 15 days on a month-to-month tenancy, and it must come with either a copy of the orders or the commanding officer's written verification, plus written proof that the allowance request was denied. If the servicemember dies during active duty, an adult member of their family may end the lease on 15 days' notice with the death certificate and the orders or verification. Other tenants stay bound if they can show the landlord they are able to pay the rent; if not, the landlord may end their agreement on 30 days' notice with no fee. The second right is in the civil-relief chapter for the state military forces, and it covers state active duty and full-time National Guard duty that the federal act does not reach. A person who entered military service after signing the lease may end it by written notice, which may be mailed. On a monthly-rent lease the termination does not take effect until 30 days after the next rent payment falls due following delivery or mailing; on any other lease it takes effect on the last day of the month following the month of notice. Unpaid rent for the earlier period is prorated and rent paid in advance for the period afterwards is refunded. The landlord may apply to a court before the termination date to have the relief modified as justice and equity require, and it is a misdemeanor to seize or hold the departing tenant's property to press a claim for rent accruing after the termination.

Death of the tenant: A statute provides for ending the lease on the tenant's death. Hawaii has a death-of-tenant statute, but it works from the landlord's side and gives no survivor a right to end the lease. A tenant may name a representative, in the rental agreement or in a separate written instrument, authorized to collect or dispose of the tenant's belongings in the unit if the tenant dies during the tenancy. On the death of the tenant, or where there is more than one tenant on the death of all of them, the landlord contacts that representative by registered mail; where none was named, the landlord sends notice to the estate at the unit's address, and where no designated representative or estate representative comes forward a family member who does is treated as the representative. The notice has prescribed contents, one of which is a statement that the tenancy will end 15 calendar days from the date the notice is mailed or personally delivered, or the date through which rent has been paid, whichever is later, and that is when the tenancy in fact ends. A representative who responds within those 15 days gets access for the sole purpose of removing the belongings in a reasonable manner, and no landlord-tenant relationship arises between the landlord and the representative. The deposit is accounted for within 14 calendar days of the termination or of the removal of the property, with any balance going to the representative or the estate. A landlord who complies has a safe harbor, and a landlord has no duty to tell a prospective tenant that a tenant died in the unit. Because the trigger is the death of all tenants, a surviving co-tenant's tenancy is untouched. What happens to the belongings themselves is covered separately from this page.

Other grounds: Two further statutory grounds let a Hawaii tenant leave. After a fire or other casualty that makes the unit or the parts of the premises reasonably necessary to enjoying it partly or wholly unusable, and that happened without the wilful fault of the tenant or a member of the tenant's family, the tenant may quit immediately and tell the landlord of the election to quit within one week of leaving, in which case the agreement ends as of the day of leaving; a tenant who does not give that notice stays liable for rent until the landlord actually learns of the departure. Alternatively, where continued occupancy is lawful, the tenant may vacate the unusable part and owe no more than the fair rental value of what is still used. The fault standard is wilful fault, which is more forgiving than carelessness. Separately, where the landlord fails to put the tenant into possession in the agreed condition at the start of the agreed term, the tenant owes no rent for any period of being kept out and may notify the landlord at any time during it that the agreement is terminated. Ending a lease because the home is not habitable, and protection against retaliation, are covered on the habitability page.

The statute keys on facts showing the tenant has surrendered.

Hawaii has no absence-and-arrears presumption and no notice of belief of abandonment. What ends the tenancy is proof of two things together: that the tenant wrongfully quit the unit, and that the tenant unequivocally indicated by words or deeds an intention not to resume the tenancy. There is no waiting period to run and no rebuttal step, because there is no notice to answer; the question is simply whether those two facts are made out, and the consequence is the damages ceiling described under the duty to reduce losses rather than a statutory termination date. Two neighboring rules are often mistaken for abandonment. Where the lease requires the tenant to tell the landlord about an extended absence and the tenant does not make reasonable efforts to do so, the tenant indemnifies the landlord for any resulting damage, and during any extended absence the landlord may enter as reasonably necessary for inspection, maintenance and safekeeping; neither ends the tenancy. And simply not using the unit, or using it for something other than a home, is a breach of the tenant's obligations that is routed to the ordinary notice-and-cure procedure with at least ten days to put it right, not a termination event in itself. What happens to belongings left behind is covered separately from this page.

Hawaii prescribes no delivery method for a termination notice. The Code requires only that the party notify the other in writing, and the general definition of notice supplies the rest: a person gives notice by taking such steps as may be reasonably required to inform the other in the ordinary course, whether or not the other actually comes to know of it, and a person receives a notice when it comes to their attention or is delivered at the place of business through which the rental agreement was made or at any place held out for receiving such communications. There is no personal-service rule, no certified-mail rule, no posting rule and no requirement that a sheriff or process server deliver it. Three narrow exceptions exist outside the ordinary termination notice: the landlord must contact a deceased tenant's representative by registered mail; on the wildfire-proclamation nonpayment track the demand may be posted conspicuously on the unit and is treated as received on the day of posting; and a servicemember's notice under the civil-relief chapter may be delivered to the landlord, a grantee, or an agent, and may be mailed. Service of the court papers that start a possession case is a separate matter covered on the eviction page.

Electronic delivery: the termination statute is silent on it.

What the notice must contain: The ordinary termination notice has to be in writing and nothing more: no form, no statement of grounds, no advisory language. Two additions arise from the tenant's side. A tenant who takes up the option to leave early inside a 45-day or 120-day notice period must tell the landlord the date of leaving. And the survivor and servicemember terminations each carry their own documentation package described in those rules. Whether electronic delivery counts is genuinely unsettled here: the Code's reasonableness standard neither authorizes nor excludes email by name, and the two places the chapter mentions an electronic mail address are the nonpayment and wildfire-mediation notices, neither of which authorizes electronic service of a termination notice.

The Landlord-Tenant Code makes one federal reference bearing on this page: the servicemember termination section says nothing in it is to be construed to infringe upon or affect the rights a servicemember tenant may have under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act or under the state's own civil-relief chapter, so all three sit side by side. Two of the Code's exclusions matter federally as well: federal low-rent public housing and anything the Hawaii Public Housing Authority controls, owns or manages are outside the Code, so the federal good-cause rules for assisted housing govern those tenancies instead of the rules on this page. No Hawaii statute writes the federal CARES Act notice into state law, narrows it, or extends it.

The federal CARES Act 30-day notice to vacate for covered properties, as read in this state's courts: no state appellate decision construes it. No Hawaii appellate decision construes the federal CARES Act's 30-day notice for covered dwellings. The silence is expected rather than surprising, because Hawaii's summary-possession cases are heard in the District Court, whose decisions are not published in any reporter. A landlord of a federally backed or subsidized property should therefore expect the question to be open here. (Appellate picture read as of September 3, 2026.)

City & County of Honolulu v. Toyama, 61 Haw. 156, 598 P.2d 168 (1979) (Supreme Court of Hawaii; residential lease; bears on ending a periodic tenancy): The court construed the phrase voluntary demolition, which still governs the long-notice track today, and took it in its ordinary sense of proceeding from the will or done without any present legal obligation. A demolition the owner chooses is voluntary even where a city building department had issued notices to correct, including notices directing demolition, because the demolishing department and the ordering department were arms of the same entity rather than separate legal entities. The practical consequence is that a landlord who chooses demolition over repair after a code notice remains on the long-notice track. Some of the premises in the case were commercial as well as residential, but the point decided is the meaning of the statutory phrase.

Hawaiian Electric Co. v. DeSantos, 63 Haw. 110, 621 P.2d 971 (1980) (Supreme Court of Hawaii; residential lease; bears on ending a periodic tenancy): Two points. Occupants who succeeded to possession without any written agreement hold under the Landlord-Tenant Code's default, so the tenancy is month to month by statute. And a long-form termination notice that was followed by later letters postponing and renegotiating the termination date failed to give the required period: judged within its four corners, the notice did not do the work, and the landlord was held not to have given the notice the statute required. That is now codified in the rule that a notice revoked, or amended and reissued, starts its period again from the reissue date.

Lau v. Bautista, 61 Haw. 144, 598 P.2d 161 (1979) (Supreme Court of Hawaii; residential lease; bears on ending a periodic tenancy): A termination notice is judged against the statute in force when the notice was given, so an amendment adding a longer notice period did not reach a notice served before it took effect. The court also stated the rule the later cases apply, that the sufficiency of a notice must be judged within its four corners. The decision's principal holding, on the implied warranty of habitability as a defense to a possession action for nonpayment, belongs to the habitability page and is not restated here.

Sasaki v. Morisako, 112 Haw. 302, 145 P.3d 845 (2006) (Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals; residential lease; bears on holding over): The court quoted the holdover measure in full and upheld an award of unpaid rent for the period the occupants stayed after the termination date of an oral rental agreement, rejecting their argument that the award was unlawful. It is the only appellate application of the measure and confirms that it governs the damages for post-termination occupancy even where the tenancy was created orally.