Part of the maintenance coverage, alongside what a landlord is required to fix and the repair vs replace decision for HVAC and appliances. The appliance question splits into two parts people constantly mash together: do you have to provide it, and once you do, who fixes it. This is the reference for both, plus the record that makes a tenant charge hold up.
The fridge quits on a Friday, the tenant texts a photo of warm milk, and the first question out of every landlord’s mouth is the same one: am I even responsible for this? Are landlords responsible for appliances, or is a broken dishwasher the tenant’s problem to solve? The honest answer is that it depends on one thing most owners never nail down in writing, and the dispute that follows is almost always about evidence, not law.
Here is the short version before the detail. There is no general rule forcing you to put a refrigerator, a stove, or a washer in a rental. But the moment you provide an appliance, or your lease says the unit includes one, keeping it working becomes your job for the life of the tenancy, the same as the plumbing or the roof. The one real exception is a failure the tenant caused, which you can charge back if, and only if, you can show the cause.
Are landlords responsible for appliances?
Split the question in two, because the law treats the two halves very differently.
Half one: are you required to provide appliances at all? For most appliances, no. A refrigerator, a stove or range, a dishwasher, a microwave, a washer, and a dryer are not legally mandated the way core habitability items are. A landlord can legally rent a bare kitchen. The reason nearly every unit includes a fridge and a stove is the market, not a statute. Tenants expect them, so leaving them out means a harder lease-up, not a legal violation.
Half two: once you provide one, are you responsible for keeping it working? Almost always, yes. A provided appliance is part of the dwelling you agreed to rent. If your listing showed a stainless fridge and your lease says “refrigerator included,” you have promised a working refrigerator, and the warranty of habitability and your general repair duties carry that promise forward. “It was a bonus” is not a defense. You chose to make it part of the rental, so you own the upkeep.
The confusion comes from landlords applying the half-one answer (“I didn’t have to provide it”) to the half-two question (“so I don’t have to fix it”). Those do not connect. Optional to provide does not mean optional to maintain.
A narrow set of appliances sits in a different bucket entirely, because they tie directly to habitability. A working heat source is required nearly everywhere, and so is hot water. If the appliance that delivers those (a furnace, a water heater) fails, you are on the hook regardless of what the lease says about “appliances,” and the clock to fix it is short.
Does a landlord have to provide a refrigerator, stove, or washer?
The quick reference, with the usual caveat that specifics vary by state and local code:
| Appliance | Legally required to provide? | If you provide it, who maintains it? |
|---|---|---|
| Heat source (furnace, baseboard) | Yes, almost everywhere | Landlord, and quickly |
| Hot water heater | Yes, almost everywhere | Landlord, and quickly |
| Refrigerator | No general requirement | Landlord, if provided or in the lease |
| Stove / range / oven | Usually no (some local codes require a cooking facility) | Landlord, if provided or in the lease |
| Dishwasher | No | Landlord, if provided or in the lease |
| Microwave (built-in) | No | Landlord, if provided or in the lease |
| Garbage disposal | No | Landlord, if provided, unless tenant jams it |
| Washer / dryer | No | Landlord, if provided or in the lease |
| Air conditioning | Varies widely by state | Landlord, if provided or required locally |
The pattern is clear once you see it. Outside the habitability essentials, the law rarely forces you to furnish an appliance. But the second column almost never changes: if it is yours and it is in the unit, you keep it running. The only thing that moves responsibility to the tenant is how the appliance broke.
Who pays when a provided appliance breaks?
This is where real money and real disputes live. A provided appliance that fails has one of two causes, and the cause decides who pays.
Normal wear or age failure is yours. A ten-year-old refrigerator compressor that gives out, a dishwasher pump that wears through, an oven igniter that dies, these are the ordinary end-of-life failures of equipment you provided. They are your cost, no different from a water heater that rusts through. You do not get to bill the tenant because the appliance happened to fail on their watch. The decision of whether to fix it or swap it is a separate, financial one, covered in when to repair vs replace HVAC and appliances.
Tenant-caused damage is theirs. If the tenant cracked the glass cooktop with a dropped pan, burned out the dishwasher by running it dry, jammed the disposal with bones and grease, or killed the washer by chronically overloading it, that is damage beyond normal use, and you can charge the tenant for the repair. The catch is in the next section.
When can a landlord charge the tenant for an appliance?
You can charge for tenant-caused damage. You cannot charge for normal wear or age. Everyone agrees on that sentence. The fight is always over which bucket a specific failure falls into, and that fight is won or lost on documentation, not argument.
Think about the dishwasher that “just stopped working.” The tenant says it died on its own. You suspect they ran it dry for months. Who is right? If all you have is a repair invoice that says “replaced motor,” you have proved you spent money, not that the tenant caused the problem. A deposit deduction built on that invoice is the kind that gets reversed in small claims, and then you owe penalties on top.
To make an appliance charge stick, you need three things lined up:
- Proof the appliance worked at move-in. A line on the move-in condition record or inventory list noting each appliance by make and condition, ideally with a photo of the unit and the model sticker. This is what rebuts “it was already broken when I moved in.”
- Evidence of the cause of failure. A photo of the cracked cooktop, the technician’s note that the motor failed from running dry, the bones pulled out of the disposal. Cause is the whole ballgame. Without it, a tenant-caused failure is indistinguishable from an age failure.
- The repair record tied to both. The dated invoice, the amount, and a short explanation connecting the damage to the charge, the same discipline you would use for any deposit deduction.
Miss the first piece and the tenant says it was broken already. Miss the second and you cannot show misuse. Most landlords have the third piece (the receipt) and neither of the other two, which is exactly why appliance charges so often collapse.
What your lease should say about appliances
Half the appliance fights never happen when the lease is specific. A vague “appliances included” invites argument. A clear clause ends it. Spell out:
- Exactly which appliances are included, by type and ideally make or model. “Refrigerator, electric range, dishwasher, and over-range microwave” beats “kitchen appliances.”
- Who repairs them, confirming the landlord maintains provided appliances and the tenant reports problems promptly.
- Who is responsible for misuse, stating that damage beyond normal use is the tenant’s cost.
- Any appliance the tenant owns, if they brought their own washer or fridge, noted so there is no confusion about who fixes it.
- Reporting duty, requiring the tenant to report a malfunction quickly, since a small leak ignored for a month can become a large repair you should not have to eat.
A landlord-owned appliance the tenant uses is still the landlord’s to maintain, but a tenant who hides a problem until it cascades changes the picture, and only if you can show they knew and sat on it.
Document the appliance, not just the repair
Notice what every section above keeps coming back to. The law on appliances is not complicated. What decides the money is whether you can prove two things: that the appliance worked when the tenant moved in, and what actually caused it to fail. A stack of receipts proves neither.
This is the gap DiscoveryMark closes. Instead of a scattered trail of texts, photos buried in a phone, and an invoice you dig up later, the maintenance flow turns a broken appliance into a single, dated record: the request, the photos of the failure, the technician’s notes on the cause, and the repair itself, finalized into a PDF you can file or drop into a deposit dispute. The tenant adds their part through a passwordless link, no account and no app, so the timeline is built with their input rather than reconstructed against them later.
Pair it with a move-in inventory that logs each appliance by condition and you have both halves of the proof that an appliance charge needs, captured at the moment each one happened instead of remembered months later.
How long does a landlord have to fix a broken appliance?
Responsibility is one question. Speed is another, and it depends on the appliance. A failure that touches habitability (no heat in winter, no hot water, a non-working stove in a unit with no other cooking facility) usually has to be addressed fast, often within a few days, and dragging your feet can expose you to repair-and-deduct or withholding claims. A convenience appliance like a dishwasher allows a longer but still reasonable window.
Most states apply a reasonableness standard rather than a fixed deadline, which cuts both ways: it gives you room to schedule a real repair, and it gives a tenant room to argue you took too long. The protection is the same as everywhere else in this article: respond in writing, give a realistic timeline, and document each step. For the detail on timeframes and what counts as reasonable, see how long a landlord has to make repairs.
Frequently asked questions
Are landlords responsible for appliances?
There is no general law requiring a landlord to supply most appliances (a refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, or washer and dryer). But once you provide an appliance, or your lease lists it as included, you are generally responsible for keeping it in working order, the same as any other part of the unit. The main exception is damage the tenant caused through misuse or neglect. A few appliances tied to habitability, like a heat source and hot water, are required almost everywhere.
Does a landlord have to provide a refrigerator?
In most states, no. A refrigerator is not legally required the way heat and hot water are. Nearly all rentals include one because the market expects it, but that is a norm, not a mandate. If your lease says the unit includes a refrigerator, you must provide a working one and keep it working. If the lease is silent and you never provided one, the tenant generally supplies their own.
If a provided appliance breaks, who pays to fix it?
If you provided the appliance (or the lease includes it) and it failed from normal use or age, the cost is yours. If the tenant caused the failure through misuse or neglect, it is chargeable to the tenant. In a dispute the deciding factor is the evidence: whether you can show the appliance worked at move-in and what caused the failure. Document both and the charge holds; skip it and it is your word against theirs.
Can a landlord charge a tenant for an appliance they broke?
Yes, for damage beyond normal wear, like a cracked glass cooktop or a disposal jammed with bones. You cannot charge for an appliance that simply wore out or failed from age. To make the charge stick you need a record of the appliance's condition at move-in and evidence of the specific cause, tied to the repair invoice. See the guide on charging a tenant for repairs.
How long does a landlord have to fix a broken appliance?
It depends on the appliance and your state. A failed heat source or a non-working stove can be a habitability issue that must be fixed quickly, often within a few days. A convenience appliance like a dishwasher usually allows a reasonable but longer window. Most states use a reasonableness standard rather than a fixed number of days, so respond promptly in writing, give a realistic timeline, and document each step.
The bottom line
Are landlords responsible for appliances? For providing them, usually not, outside the habitability essentials. For maintaining the ones you do provide, almost always yes. The lease and the cause of failure decide every case: a provided appliance that wears out is your cost, a provided appliance the tenant broke through misuse is theirs, and an appliance the tenant brought is the tenant’s.
The law here is the easy part. What actually determines who pays is whether you logged the appliance at move-in and documented the cause when it failed. Build that record at the moment, not from memory, and the fridge that dies on a Friday is a routine repair, not a dispute you lose.
