Owner Education / Evictions
Eviction Process in Hawaii
The grounds, the notices and the deadlines — including the one that changed in February 2026 and invalidated a great deal of published advice.
Key Takeaways
- The nonpayment notice changed on 5 February 2026. HRS 521-68 now requires 10 calendar days rather than five business days, with prescribed notice contents and a copy to a state-funded mediation center.
- Mediation is now part of the path. Where mediation is scheduled and the tenant participates, you cannot file for summary possession until 20 calendar days after the tenant received the notice.
- Different grounds sit in different sections. Nonpayment is 521-68, the tenant's failure to maintain is 521-69, breach of a house rule is 521-72, and ending a tenancy without cause is 521-71.
- Only a court order removes a tenant and only law enforcement executes it. Self-help — changing locks, cutting utilities, removing belongings — is unlawful in Hawaii.
Eviction in Hawaii follows a strict statutory sequence, and the most common way an owner loses is procedural rather than factual. Serve the wrong notice, allow the wrong number of days, or miss a required step, and the case is delayed or dismissed regardless of how clearly the rent went unpaid.
This guide sets out the lawful grounds, the notice each one requires, what happens in court, and how possession is actually returned to you.
Read This First
The nonpayment notice changed in February 2026
If you have used a five-day notice before, or you are working from guidance written before 2026, start here. Act 278 of the 2025 session rewrote HRS 521-68 with effect from 5 February 2026. The five-business-day demand it replaced no longer exists.
What replaced it
A written notice allowing not less than ten calendar days after receipt for payment, before the rental agreement terminates. The notice has prescribed contents, a copy must go to a state-funded mediation center, and mediation can extend how long you must wait before filing. A notice giving five days, or omitting the required contents, is not a valid notice.
The ten-calendar-day notice must include all of the following:
- Your name and contact details as landlord or agent, including phone number, email and mailing address where possible.
- The address of the dwelling unit under the rental agreement.
- The name and contact details of every tenant listed on the rental agreement.
- The current rent due as at the date of the notice, after applying all rent paid from all sources.
- Notice that a copy is also being provided to a state-funded mediation center, which will contact both parties to schedule mediation.
- Notice that you may file for summary possession if the rent is unpaid and mediation is not scheduled within ten calendar days of the tenant's receipt, whether or not the session itself falls inside that window.
- A warning in bold typeface, in substantially the form the statute sets out, explaining the ten-day and twenty-day timings and how receipt is calculated.
- Notice that you will engage in mediation if mediation is scheduled.
The Judiciary prepares a notice form carrying this information and makes it available on its website. Using that form is the safest route.
When is the notice "received"? If you post it in a conspicuous place on the dwelling unit, receipt is deemed the date of posting. If you mail it by USPS, properly addressed and with appropriate postage, it is deemed received 2 business days after the postmark, unless it is returned undeliverable. That date is what every subsequent deadline runs from.
Before Court
Mediation is now part of the path
You must provide the ten-day notice to a state-funded mediation center offering free mediation for residential landlord-tenant matters. Those centers offer both in-person and remote sessions, and must allow remote appearances on request.
What happens next determines when you may file:
- No mediation scheduled within the ten calendar days — you may file for summary possession once that period expires.
- Mediation scheduled within the period and the tenant participates — you may only file after 20 calendar days from the tenant's receipt of the notice. This applies whether or not the session itself takes place inside the ten days.
- The tenant fails to appear, or cancels — the twenty-day extension does not apply.
If the tenant schedules mediation, you are required to participate. Mediation takes place within thirty days of the center making contact with both sides. When you do file, the summary possession complaint must state the status of the mediation or settlement effort and show proof that the notice was posted or sent to the mediation center.
One narrowing is worth knowing: the notice is not required where the action is based on breach of a mediated or other settlement agreement, or where the summary possession proceeding rests on something other than nonpayment of rent. In an action based on breach of a mediated agreement, the court will not require further mediation before trial.
Other Grounds
Noncompliance, house rules, and ending a tenancy
The tenant's failure to maintain (HRS 521-69). Where a tenant is in material noncompliance with their obligations under HRS 521-51 — keeping their part of the premises clean and safe, disposing of waste properly, using fixtures correctly, not damaging the property — notify them in writing and allow not less than ten days after receipt to remedy it. You may then terminate and bring summary possession, or, where the problem can be put right by cleaning, repairing or replacing a damaged item, remedy it yourself and bill the tenant, with that bill treated by all parties as rent due on the next regular collection date.
Breach of a house rule (HRS 521-72). For a rule authorised under HRS 521-52, serve notice specifying a time not less than ten days within which the tenant must remedy the breach, in substantially the form the statute prescribes. If the breach continues or recurs after the date given, you may bring summary possession within thirty days of that continued or recurring breach.
The exception to the cure period
Under 521-69, no time to remedy is required where the tenant's noncompliance causes or threatens to cause irremediable damage to any person or property. Section 521-72 carries a parallel exception where the breach causes or threatens damage to any person, or amounts to a violation of HRS 521-51(1) or (6). Both are narrow, and reaching for them when they do not apply is a reliable way to have a case dismissed.
Ending a tenancy without cause (HRS 521-71). No reason need be given, but the notice period depends on the tenancy:
- 45 days — landlord ending a month-to-month tenancy. The tenant may vacate at any point in those final 45 days, but must tell you the date and pay prorated rent for the period occupied.
- 28 days — tenant ending a month-to-month tenancy.
- 10 days — either party, where the tenancy is less than month-to-month, such as week to week.
- 120 days — where you contemplate voluntary demolition, conversion to a condominium property regime under chapter 514B, or changing the use of the building to transient vacation rentals. If the notice is revoked, or amended and reissued, the period runs afresh from that date.
For a fixed-term lease you generally wait for the term to expire unless a statutory ground applies. If a tenant holds over after termination without your consent, they may be liable for a sum not exceeding twice the monthly rent under the previous agreement, computed and prorated daily for each day they remain — but you must bring summary possession within the first 60 days of the holdover.
In Court
Summary possession and the writ
Once the notice period has run and the tenant has not complied, you file a summary possession action in District Court. Both parties are expected at the hearing. If the tenant does not appear, the court may enter default judgment for you. If the tenant prevails, they remain in the unit and both sides follow the court's order.
Tenants can and do raise defences, and most are procedural: that the notice was not properly served, that partial rent was accepted after service, that the unit was uninhabitable, that the action is retaliatory or discriminatory, or that the violation was cured within the period allowed. Under the current statute, failing to send the notice to a mediation center or to participate in scheduled mediation adds a further avenue. Each of these is avoidable with clean paperwork.
If you succeed, the court issues a writ of possession authorising law enforcement to remove the tenant. The writ is the tenant's final notice to vacate and take their belongings. The interval between issue and execution varies by circuit and by workload, so treat any specific number of days quoted elsewhere as an estimate rather than a rule.
Only a sheriff, deputy sheriff, police officer or other court-authorised person can carry out the removal.
If the tenant is still there when the period stated in the writ expires, that officer removes them and returns possession to you. At that point — and only at that point — changing the locks is appropriate. Doing any part of it yourself beforehand is a self-help eviction, which Hawaii prohibits outright.
Afterwards
Belongings left behind
Regaining possession does not entitle you to discard whatever remains. Under HRS 521-56, where a tenant has quit the premises and left personal property you determine in good faith to be of value, you may sell it in a commercially reasonable manner, store it at the tenant's expense, or donate it to a charitable organisation.
Before selling or donating, make reasonable efforts to tell the tenant what you are holding, where it is, and what you intend to do, by mailing notice to a forwarding address, an address they designated for notification, or failing both, their previous known address. Then:
- A sale must be advertised for three consecutive days in a daily paper of general circulation within the circuit where the premises sit.
- No sale or donation may take place until 15 days after the notice was mailed, after which the tenant is deemed to have received it.
- Proceeds, after deducting accrued rent and the costs of storage, sale and advertising, are held in trust for the tenant for 30 days, and only then forfeited to you.
Property you determine to be of no value, or that remains unsold after that process has been followed, may be disposed of at your discretion.
Most of this is avoidable upstream. Clear reporting terms, documented communication and a lease that sets expectations properly are what keep a tenancy out of court in the first place — the groundwork covered in our Hawaii lease agreement guide and in Hawaii landlord-tenant law.
Quick Answers
Frequently asked questions
How much notice do I give a tenant who has not paid rent in Hawaii?
Not less than 10 calendar days. HRS 521-68 was rewritten effective 5 February 2026, replacing the former five-business-day demand with a ten-calendar-day written notice that must contain eight specified items, including a bold-typeface warning in substantially the form the statute sets out. A copy must also go to a state-funded mediation center. Any guidance still describing a five-day notice for nonpayment is out of date.
Do I have to attempt mediation before filing for nonpayment?
You must provide the notice to a state-funded mediation center, and if mediation is scheduled you are required to participate. If a center schedules mediation within the ten-day period and the tenant takes part, you may only file for summary possession after 20 calendar days from the tenant's receipt of the notice, unless the tenant fails to appear or cancels. The summary possession complaint must also note the status of the mediation or settlement effort and show proof of posting or sending the notice to the mediation center.
What notice applies to a lease or house-rule violation rather than unpaid rent?
A different section and a different clock. For material noncompliance with the tenant's obligations under HRS 521-51, section 521-69 requires written notice allowing not less than ten days after receipt to remedy. For breach of a rule authorised under HRS 521-52, section 521-72 requires notice specifying not less than ten days, in substantially the form the statute prescribes. Neither requires time to remedy where the conduct causes or threatens irremediable damage to a person or to property.
How do I end a month-to-month tenancy when the tenant has done nothing wrong?
Give at least 45 days' written notice under HRS 521-71(a). A tenant ending a month-to-month tenancy gives at least 28 days. For a tenancy of less than month-to-month, such as week to week, either side gives at least 10 days. If you are contemplating voluntary demolition, conversion to a condominium property regime, or changing the use of the building to transient vacation rentals, the notice period is 120 days.
What do I do with belongings the tenant leaves behind?
HRS 521-56 lets you sell the property in a commercially reasonable manner, store it at the tenant's expense, or donate it to a charitable organisation, but only after making reasonable efforts to notify the tenant by mail at a forwarding address, an address they designated, or their last known address. A sale must be advertised for three consecutive days in a daily paper of general circulation in the circuit, and no sale or donation may take place until 15 days after the notice was mailed. Proceeds, less accrued rent and the costs of storage, sale and advertising, are held in trust for the tenant for 30 days.
How Hawaii Coastal Property Management fits in
Most failed evictions are lost at the notice, not at the hearing. We serve the correct notice for the ground, calculate receipt and the filing date properly, route the copy to a mediation center, attend the mediation, and keep the record the court expects — and more often than not, resolve the arrears before any of that becomes necessary.
Island roots, mainland precision.
This article is general information, not legal advice, and eviction law changes — HRS 521-68 was rewritten with effect from 5 February 2026 and is scheduled for repeal and reenactment on 4 February 2028. Statutory references are to the Hawaii Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, HRS chapter 521. Before serving any notice or filing for possession, consult a Hawaii landlord-tenant attorney.
