Rights and Duties of Landlord and Tenant

The Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 reframes the landlord-tenant relationship as a balanced, contract-led arrangement policed by a Rent Authority rather than the eviction-heavy regime of the repealed 1972 Act. Its scheme of reciprocal rights and duties — drawn closely from the Model Tenancy Act, 2021 — fixes who repairs what, caps deposits and rent revisions, forbids self-help such as cutting off water or electricity, and channels every dispute into a statutory forum. This article maps those mutual obligations section by section, with the Allahabad High Court rulings that have already begun to interpret them.

The scheme: a contract-led, Authority-supervised tenancy

The 2021 Act abandons the protective-tenancy philosophy of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 in favour of a market-aligned, agreement-driven model. The core architecture is a mandatory written tenancy agreement registered with the Rent Authority under Section 4, from which most rights and duties flow. The parties are free to allocate obligations by contract, but the Act overlays non-derogable duties — repair standards, the bar on withholding essential supply, deposit caps and rent-revision limits — that survive any agreement to the contrary, many of them framed with the opening words "notwithstanding any agreement in writing to the contrary." The legislative balance is deliberate: the tenant gains security against arbitrary eviction, rent-gouging and self-help, while the landlord gains a faster, time-bound route to possession and a market-linked rent freed from the indefinite statutory protection that the 1972 Act conferred.

That shift in philosophy is visible in the case law. In Mahesh Chandra Agarwal v. Rent Tribunal (Neutral Citation 2024:AHC-LKO:2011), the Allahabad High Court held that the omission of "bona fide need" and "comparative hardship" — pillars of the 1972 regime — was a conscious legislative departure, so that a landlord seeking possession for personal use under Section 21(2)(m) need only show the premises are required for his occupation, in their existing form or after demolition. Reading the duties below therefore means reading the contract and the statute together, against the reformist backdrop set out in the hub on this Act. The duties are genuinely reciprocal: almost every right of one party is mirrored by a correlative obligation on the other, and the Rent Authority stands behind both as the default enforcer.

Landlord's duty to deliver and not disturb possession

The landlord's primary obligation is to deliver vacant, habitable possession of the premises in the condition contemplated by the agreement and thereafter to allow the tenant quiet enjoyment for the agreed term. The premises themselves are identified by the statutory definitions of premises, tenant and landlord, and the Act applies only to urban areas notified by the State Government, as discussed under application to notified urban areas. Once let, the landlord cannot resort to self-help eviction; possession can be recovered only through the Rent Court on a ground specified in Section 21. The corollary duty on the tenant is to use the premises for the purpose agreed and to surrender possession on determination of the tenancy. The relationship, once admitted, attracts the Act's machinery even where no formal writing exists: in Akhilesh Kumar v. Sanjay Sahgal (Neutral Citation 2026:AHC:116349) the Allahabad High Court held that oral, month-to-month or unwritten tenancies are not excluded from the Act, Section 4 being regulatory and evidentiary in character rather than a jurisdictional precondition, so the Rent Authority retains jurisdiction wherever the landlord-tenant relationship is established.

Repair and maintenance: the Section 15 division of labour

Section 15 is the heart of the reciprocal-duty scheme. Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, both parties must keep the premises in as good a condition as at the commencement of the tenancy, fair wear and tear excepted. The Act then splits responsibility through Schedule II: under Part A the landlord bears structural repairs (except those caused by tenant default), whitewashing of walls and painting of doors and windows, plumbing and changing of structural pipes, and internal and external electrical wiring; under Part B the tenant bears day-to-day items such as drain cleaning, tap and washer replacement, repair of switches, sockets and kitchen fixtures, replacement of glass panels in windows and doors, and maintenance of gardens and open spaces. The split applies "unless otherwise agreed," preserving freedom of contract over allocation while fixing a sensible default for the common case where the agreement is silent. The rationale is intuitive: structural and capital items that protect the landlord's reversion fall to the owner, while consumable, use-driven items that wear out through occupation fall to the occupier. This obligation pairs with the duty to repay any sum the landlord lawfully draws from the deposit for repairs, discussed under the security deposit cap. Because Section 15 opens with a non-obstante clause, the baseline duty to maintain the premises in their commencement condition — fair wear and tear apart — cannot be wholly contracted out, even if the precise allocation of individual repair items can be.

Self-help repairs and cost recovery

Section 15 also supplies the remedy where one party defaults on its repair duty. If the tenant fails or refuses to carry out a repair that is his responsibility, the landlord may carry it out and deduct the cost from the security deposit, the deducted amount to be made good by the tenant within one month of notice. Conversely, if the landlord refuses to carry out a Part A repair, the tenant may execute it himself and deduct the expenditure from the rent payable for the succeeding months — subject to the important ceiling that the deduction in any single month shall not exceed fifty per cent of the agreed monthly rent. This calibrated self-help, with a statutory cap, prevents either party from weaponising repairs: a tenant cannot withhold the entire rent under the guise of a repair grievance, and a landlord cannot neglect structural upkeep with impunity. Where a dispute arises over whether a repair falls within Part A or Part B, the Rent Authority adjudicates.

No cutting off essential supply or service

One of the Act's strongest tenant protections is the bar on cutting off or withholding essential supply or service, enacted in Section 20. The landlord (or any person acting on his behalf) is prohibited from interrupting the supply of water, electricity, gas, lifts, lighting in passages and on staircases, conservancy and sanitary services, even where rent is in arrears. Where a supply is wrongfully withheld, the tenant may apply to the Rent Authority, which may direct immediate restoration and order compensation. The Act expressly contemplates compensation not exceeding the equivalent of one month's rent for the period of interruption, alongside the duty to restore. This provision codifies what courts long treated as a tort and a criminal trespass against possession, and it removes the classic pressure tactic of starving out a defaulting tenant. The landlord's lawful route to recover arrears or possession runs through the Rent Court, not the meter or the water main. The protection extends to the period after a tenancy is determined but before lawful eviction is obtained, so that a landlord cannot pre-empt the statutory possession process by rendering the premises unusable. In substance Section 20 elevates the tenant's possessory interest to a protected statutory right and treats interference with essential services as a wrong remediable summarily by the Authority, rather than leaving the tenant to the slower remedies of a civil suit.

Payment of rent and the right to a receipt

Under Section 13 the tenant must pay the agreed rent within the period and in the manner stipulated in the agreement, and on each payment the landlord is bound to issue a receipt — a duty that protects the tenant against later allegations of default. Rent and any revision are governed by the agreement, but the Act overlays a statutory ceiling on revision: rent for residential premises may be increased by no more than the agreed percentage with a minimum notice period, and the surrounding rules on revision and market-rent determination are administered by the Rent Authority. The tenant's correlative duty is timely payment; default for two consecutive months is itself a ground that can lead to eviction proceedings under Section 21. The receipt requirement and the revision cap together make the rent obligation transparent and predictable, in keeping with the Act's documentation-first design. The duty to issue a receipt is not a formality: it allocates the evidentiary burden sensibly, because a tenant who has paid can compel proof of payment, and a landlord who has issued receipts has a contemporaneous record on which to found an arrears claim. Where rent is payable but the mode is disputed, the agreement governs; in its absence the Rent Authority may fix the manner and, on a revision dispute, determine rent by reference to the prevailing rent for comparable premises in the locality.

Depositing rent with the Rent Authority on refusal

Section 14 protects the tenant who is willing to pay but cannot. If the landlord refuses to accept rent or other charges for two consecutive months, or where there is a bona fide doubt as to who is entitled to receive the rent (for instance after the death of a landlord or a dispute among co-owners), the tenant may deposit the rent with the Rent Authority within the prescribed time. A valid deposit operates as discharge of the rent obligation and forecloses any allegation that the tenant is in arrears — a critical shield given that two months' default is an eviction ground. The Rent Authority then holds or disburses the money to the person ultimately found entitled. This mechanism, like the receipt duty in Section 13, converts a recurring source of friction into a documented, adjudicated process and removes the tactical advantage a landlord might otherwise gain by simply declining to accept rent so as to manufacture a default.

Structural changes, additions and subletting

The tenant's duty to preserve the premises has two sharp edges. First, under Section 26 the tenant shall not, without the prior written consent of the landlord, carry out any structural change or erect any permanent structure in the premises; permitted alterations and fixtures must ordinarily be restored on vacating, fair wear and tear excepted. Second, the tenant cannot sublet the whole or part of the premises, or assign or transfer his interest, except by a supplementary written agreement with the landlord and intimation to the Rent Authority. These restraints protect the landlord's reversion and prevent the tenant from unilaterally enlarging or fragmenting the tenancy. Breach is actionable: unauthorised structural change or sub-letting is a recognised ground of eviction under Section 21. The duty dovetails with the Section 15 obligation to return the premises in substantially their original condition, so that the deposit is available to answer for any damage or unauthorised alteration on hand-back. The consent requirement is not a blanket veto on improvement: a landlord may agree in writing to alterations, and the parties commonly record permitted fit-outs and their treatment on exit in the tenancy agreement itself. What the Act forbids is the unilateral, permanent alteration of the owner's property without sanction — a duty that protects the structural integrity of the building and the value of the reversion, and one whose breach the landlord may prove before the Rent Court as a self-standing ground for possession.

Force majeure and suspension of the rent obligation

The Act sensibly allocates the risk of natural calamity. "Force majeure" is defined to include war, flood, drought, fire, cyclone, earthquake, pandemic or any other calamity caused by nature. Where, by reason of such an event, the premises become uninhabitable or the tenant is unable to occupy them, Section 15 provides that the landlord shall not charge rent until he restores the premises to a habitable condition; the tenancy itself may also be extended to absorb the disrupted period. This statutory suspension of the rent obligation reflects principles of frustration and impossibility, sparing the tenant from paying for premises he cannot use through no fault of his own, while preserving the tenancy rather than terminating it. The provision proved particularly salient against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic during which the parent Model Tenancy Act was finalised, and it sits alongside the broader reformist aims set out under the Act's introduction and object of modern tenancy reform.

Enforcement: Rent Authority, Rent Court and Rent Tribunal

Rights mean little without a forum, and the Act builds a dedicated three-tier machinery to enforce these reciprocal duties to the exclusion of the ordinary civil courts on tenancy matters. The Rent Authority (an officer of the rank of Deputy Collector) registers tenancies, holds deposited rent, fixes revised rent and orders restoration of withheld supply; the Rent Court hears eviction and possession disputes; and the Rent Tribunal hears appeals. The constitution and reach of these bodies are examined under the Rent Authority — constitution and powers. In Akhilesh Kumar v. Sanjay Sahgal the High Court confirmed that the Authority's jurisdiction attaches wherever a landlord-tenant relationship is established, written agreement or not, while in Mahesh Chandra Agarwal the Court read the eviction grounds in Section 21 strictly against the tenant on personal-use claims. The practical lesson for the parties is that compliance, documentation and resort to the statutory forum — not self-help — are the only safe routes to enforcing the rights and duties the Act confers.