Lawton, OK Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

Section 6-5-1-501 adopts the International Property Maintenance Code, 2018 edition, by reference, giving it full force within the city as if written out in the Lawton City Code itself, and making any violation of the code a misdemeanor punishable under Section 1-1-119. Section 6-5-1-502 summarizes what that adopted code actually does: it establishes minimum standards governing the conditions and maintenance of all structures and dwellings, minimum standards governing supplied utilities and facilities and other physical things and conditions essential to ensure structures are safe, sanitary and fit for occupation and use, and, specifically, minimum standards governing the condition of dwellings offered for rent.

The same section fixes responsibilities and duties of owners and occupants of structures and addresses the condemnation of dwellings unfit for human habitation and the demolition of such dwellings, tying rental habitability directly to the condemnation and enforcement machinery detailed elsewhere in Article 6-5. Enforcement runs through the code official under Section 6-5-1-504, and Section 6-5-1-505 directs that wherever the IPMC's provisions conflict with the city code or state statutes, whichever version is more restrictive controls, so landlords cannot rely on a looser reading of the model code to escape a stricter local or state rule.

Because the adoption is by reference to the full 2018 IPMC text (on file with the city clerk) rather than a locally rewritten habitability chapter, a tenant or code official applying this section is applying the IPMC's substantive occupancy, sanitation, and maintenance chapters as Lawton law.