We built LeasePatrol to help renters use their rights and make sure you're not taken advantage of by shady landlords.
Upload your apartment, house or room lease. We check every clause against your state's housing laws, and your city's where local rules apply.
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In about two minutes you'll see how many clauses work against you, how serious each one is, and what they could cost you over 12 months.
Residential leases only: apartments, houses and rooms.
A statute behind every flag
Official state text, checked by a person before we use it.
Free first scan
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Don't let the fine print cost you money you don't owe.
Landlords often give you a day or two to sign, and in a busy market the apartment really will go to someone else. That pressure is how broker fees, application fees and stacking late fees get signed without a second look.
Many of them don't hold up under state law. Here's a sample Massachusetts lease run through LeasePatrol: pick a flag to see what the law says and what to do about it.
Sample Action Kit
Residential lease, Massachusetts
What this means
Massachusetts requires the landlord to give you at least 48 hours' notice before coming in to make repairs, at a reasonable time. Only emergency repairs can skip the notice.
State Sanitary Code 105 CMR 410.003
Your landlord must give you at least 48 hours' notice before entering to make repairs, at a reasonable time and if possible by appointment. No notice is needed for emergency repairs.
What to do: Ask for this clause to require at least 48 hours' notice, except for emergency repairs, before you sign.
What this means
In a building with more than one apartment, the landlord must keep shared exits clear and the exterior stairs free of snow and ice. A lease can make you clear snow only from an exit that you alone use and control, and only if it says so clearly in writing.
State Sanitary Code 105 CMR 410.260
What to do: You can sign, but don't take this on. If you're asked to clear the shared stairs, decline and point to the sanitary code.
What this means
Since August 2025, Massachusetts lets a broker charge only the party who hired them. The landlord listed this apartment, so the landlord's broker fee isn't yours to pay.
M.G.L. c. 112, § 87DDD½
A rental broker's fee may be charged only to the party who engaged the broker. A lease clause can't shift the landlord's broker fee to the tenant.
What to do: Don't pay the landlord's broker fee. Decline it when it's requested.
What this means
Massachusetts makes the landlord responsible for keeping the plumbing and the appliances they supply in working order. This clause pushes part of that cost onto you.
State Sanitary Code 105 CMR 410.235
What to do: You can sign, but push back on any bill for a routine repair to the landlord's plumbing or appliances.
What this means
A Massachusetts landlord can keep part of your deposit only for unpaid rent, agreed tax increases, and damage beyond normal wear and tear. A flat cleaning charge is none of those.
M.G.L. c. 186, § 15B
Deductions are limited to unpaid rent, agreed real estate tax increases, and the reasonable cost of repairing damage beyond reasonable wear and tear, listed in a sworn, itemized statement.
What to do: Photograph the carpet at move-in, and contest an automatic cleaning charge at move-out.
What this means
Massachusetts doesn't allow any late fee or interest until rent is a full 30 days overdue. A fee on day 6 isn't enforceable, whatever the lease calls it.
M.G.L. c. 186, § 15B
No interest or penalty for late rent may be charged until the rent is 30 days overdue.
What to do: Pay on time when you can, and decline this fee if it's ever charged before day 30.
What this means
In Massachusetts, landlords and brokers are severely limited in what upfront fees they can charge. Application fees are generally not allowed.
M.G.L. c. 186, § 15B
At the start of a tenancy, a landlord may collect only first month's rent, last month's rent, a security deposit of no more than one month's rent, and the cost of a new lock and key. Any other upfront charge, including an application fee, isn't allowed.
What to do: Don't pay it. Decline the fee when it's requested.
Want this for your lease?
Your free scan shows the counts, ratings and dollar range, plus one flag in full.
Sample lease for illustration, not legal advice. Rules differ by state and city.
From upload to answers in about two minutes.
A PDF, or a photo of each page. Photos from your phone work as long as the text is readable.
Each clause is compared with your state's landlord-tenant law, and your city's where it has its own rules.
How many clauses work against you, how serious each one is, and what they could cost. The first flag is free to read in full.
No login. The first flag is free.
It's fine for turning legalese into plain English. It's less reliable on what's legal where you live: a general chatbot answers from memory, mixes up state rules, and usually can't point you to a statute you can check. Here's the same clause run through both.
“Tenant agrees to pay the first $800 of any plumbing or appliance repair during the term of the tenancy.”
Answers from memory
That kind of clause is generally unenforceable in most states, since landlords are usually responsible for repairs. Rules can vary depending on your location, and I'm not a lawyer — you may want to check your local laws to be sure.
Sounds sure of itself, but it's vague and never names the law it relies on.
No statute you can verify. And its training may predate your state's current law.
Checked against the statute
Massachusetts law makes keeping the unit in repair the landlord's job. This clause tries to shift up to $800 onto you. You can sign, but you don't have to cover repairs the law puts on them.
State Sanitary Code · 105 CMR 410.000
What to send: “Happy to sign, but I won't be covering repair costs the state assigns to the landlord.”
The chatbot reply is a typical example, not a quote from a specific product. The LeasePatrol side shows the real format of a flag.
It invents state law
Ask for the statute number and a general model may give you one that doesn't exist, in the same confident tone it uses when it's right.
Its knowledge has a cutoff
Laws change. A model trained before a recent rule, like Massachusetts changing who pays broker fees, will give you the old answer.
It only answers what you ask
We check every clause. A chatbot answers the question you asked and says nothing about the clause you didn't know to ask about.
See what your state's law says about your lease
No login. First flag free. Your file is deleted after the scan.
The free scan tells you how many problems your lease has. The Action Kit shows you each one and what to do about it.
Each flagged clause in plain English, sorted by severity, with the statute behind it.
An estimate of what a money clause could cost you over a 12-month lease, before you agree to it.
Written for your lease. It asks for specific changes politely, so you can push back without souring the deal.
Record every scratch, dent and stain on day one, so there's a record when you ask for your deposit back.
A full Action Kit, filled in with example data.
No subscription. You pay once, only if you want the details.
$0
$8.99
one-time payment
A lawyer typically charges $300+ to review a lease.
The full kit costs less than a typical late fee.
Before signing
Someone else wrote it, and the apartment goes to the next person by morning. Upload it first and see what is actually enforceable.
Scan a leaseMove-in
A $150 "administrative charge" lands on your move-in statement. We check whether your state allows it and name the statute either way.
Read the fee guidesMid-tenancy
Heat's been out for a week. We pull the exact sanitary or habitability code section for your unit, so your next message isn't just a complaint.
Read the FAQEnding it early
A job relocation, a safety issue, a roommate who left. Early-termination rules differ by state, and most leases only spell out the landlord’s side.
Read the FAQMove-out
Move-out is where most deposit disputes start. Document the unit on day one so there is no argument later about what changed.
Read the deposit guidesShort answers here. The renter guides go deeper, state by state.
LeasePatrol is built for renters. Plenty of landlords are fair and want a clean lease as much as you do, but our job is to read your agreement from your side: checking it against the law and flagging fees or terms that could cost you. So the analysis you get is always in your interest.
You upload a PDF or a photo of your lease. We pull out every clause, compare it against your state and city's landlord-tenant law, and flag anything that's unenforceable, financially risky, or worth negotiating. The free version gives you a risk score and a category breakdown. The paid Action Kit gives you the exact clauses, the statute behind each flag, and a negotiation email you can send as-is.
No. LeasePatrol reviews residential rental leases only: apartments, houses, condos, and rooms you rent to live in. We don't handle commercial, office, retail, car, or equipment leases.
No, and we say that at every step, including before you upload anything. LeasePatrol is a software tool that gives you information and a starting point for negotiating. If you're facing an eviction, a lawsuit, or anything with real legal stakes, talk to a tenant lawyer or your local legal aid office.
Both, at different stages. Software reads your lease and matches clauses to the relevant law, and yes, that includes an AI model. But the law text itself, meaning the statutes we compare your lease against, comes from official state government sources and is reviewed before it goes live, not scraped and trusted blindly. The AI applies the law; it doesn't get to decide what the law says.
Unless you're a real estate attorney, it's hard to spot on your own. Landlords sometimes include terms that don't hold up: waiving your right to a habitable unit, non-refundable deposits where local law requires them refundable, fees that exceed what's legally allowed. LeasePatrol checks your lease against your specific state and city's rules and tells you exactly which lines are the problem.
A few that show up often: making tenants pay for all repairs including structural ones, waiving the landlord's liability for their own negligence, unrestricted entry without notice, and late fees that exceed what state law caps them at. Where these appear, they're typically unenforceable even though they're printed in the contract.
No. But plenty of landlords count on tenants not knowing that and paying or complying anyway. Signing a lease with an illegal clause in it doesn't make that clause enforceable. It just means you now know something your landlord was hoping you wouldn't.
We're live in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington right now, including New York City's local housing code layered on top of state law. We add a new state once its law database has been built and checked. Coverage grows, but we won't claim a state is covered until it actually is.
It depends on your state and your reason. A job relocation, a safety issue, an uninhabitable unit, or just wanting out are all treated differently under the law. Upload your lease and select your state, and we'll tell you what your state's early-termination rules say and what your lease claims separately, since those two things don't always match.
A lawyer might take days and charge a few hundred dollars to review a lease. LeasePatrol gives you a full risk breakdown in a minute or two, well inside the day or so most renters get to decide before the apartment is gone.
One hidden fee or one penalty clause can cost you hundreds of dollars over a 12-month lease. A free scan costs you nothing and takes less time than reading the lease itself.
Usually not, if they conflict with your state's implied warranty of habitability: the baseline legal requirement that a rental be safe and livable regardless of what the lease says. We flag 'as-is' language specifically so you're not stuck covering a landlord's deferred maintenance.
Start free. You'll see your risk score and your first flagged clause before you pay anything.
Free lease scan
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Your lease
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