What's coming next to Renter Check

Renter Check opened with landlord search, reviews, optional tenancy verification, local resources and renter tools. Four more features are already built and are being tested behind the scenes. They are not open to everyone yet. Each one launches only after testing and a legal review of the pages that describe it, so some details below may still change before launch.

Here is what each one does, how it works, and what it means for your privacy.

Lease explainer

Leases are long, and the terms that matter most are easy to miss on a first read. The lease explainer reads a lease with you and gives back a plain-language summary. It works just as well for a lease you are about to sign as for one you already have. When both sides understand a lease the same way, there are fewer surprises later for tenants and landlords alike.

How it works

Paste the lease text, or upload a PDF or Word file. Scanned leases (photos or scans of paper) can't be read yet.
Before you add it, remove your personal details: names, your street address and unit number, email, phone number and any ID numbers. We also remove what we can detect automatically, and we'll ask for a redacted copy when we aren't sure.
The explainer reads the lease with AI and checks it against Wisconsin rules. Where a state rule or a Madison ordinance limits a clause, you get the rule and a link to the official text.

What you get back

A plain-language summary and the key terms, like rent, deposit, fees and deadlines.
Clauses to look at, each marked "Concern" (worth understanding before you sign), "Worth negotiating" (often open to change) or "Standard" (common in leases).
An exact quote from your lease for every flagged clause, so you can find it and read it yourself. If a quote can't be found word for word in your lease, the flag is dropped rather than shown.
Questions to ask before you sign, and common terms your lease doesn't mention.

What it won't do

The explainer never tells you a clause is illegal or unenforceable. Every result says it is general information, not legal advice. If something looks serious, our local resources list clinics that can look at your situation.

Your lease stays yours

We don't store your lease or the result. They exist only while your request runs and in your browser tab, and you can print or save the result yourself. To produce the explanation, the lease text is sent to OpenAI, which may keep it for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring under its own policy. We can't delete it sooner, which is one more reason to remove your personal details first.

The explainer will be free and won't need an account, with a small daily limit per person. Signed-in renters get a few more uses a day, plus two shortcuts: use the same lease to verify your tenancy, or set a reminder to review the place when you move out.

Renter help forum

Some renting questions need more than a guide: what to do about a deposit that hasn't come back, whether a landlord can enter without notice, what a notice on your door actually means. The forum is a place to ask, and to get answers from people qualified to give them.

Asking a question

Pick a topic: security deposits; repairs and conditions; entry and privacy; eviction and notices; leases and renewals; breaking a lease and moving early; rent and fees; discrimination; or something else.
Describe what happened, what was said and what you'd like to happen.
Questions are anonymous. Your name and email are never shown, and posts show only the month, never an exact date.
Forum pages are kept out of search engine results.

Who answers

Every answer is labeled with who wrote it:

Verified attorney, with the state they are licensed in. Attorneys are verified against the public bar directory before they get the label.
Verified legal clinic, for clinics and legal aid organizations we have confirmed.
Law student, for students answering under a supervising attorney, who reviews each answer before it appears.
Community member, for other renters sharing what worked for them.

Answers are general information, not legal advice, and answering a question does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you have a deadline or a court date, contact a legal clinic right away rather than waiting for an answer.

Keeping it safe

Posts are checked for details that could identify someone or don't belong, such as phone numbers, email addresses, unit numbers, exact dates and links. A post that trips those checks waits for a person on our team to look at it instead of going up right away. Anyone can flag a post that breaks the rules, and flagged posts are reviewed by a person.

Private help from legal professionals

The forum includes a directory of verified attorneys and legal clinics. You can send any of them a private message from your account at no cost, and either side can close the conversation at any time.
When you post a question, you can also allow legal clinics and attorneys to message you about their paid services. This is off unless you turn it on, it applies only to that question, and you can switch it off at any time. Each practice can send you one message about the question, and you decide whether to reply.
Either way, a practice never sees your account details, only what you choose to write to them.

Review reminders

The best time to review a rental is often right after you move out, when the details are fresh and you no longer have to think about the lease. Reminders make that easy.

Pick a date, like your move-out day, for a specific building or as a general reminder.
On or after that date, you get one email reminding you to leave a review. If you have verified your tenancy there, the email says so.
The email never names the landlord or the address and contains no dates, so anyone who glances at your inbox learns nothing about where you live.
Every reminder email has a one-click unsubscribe that cancels all of your pending reminders, with no sign-in needed.

Landlord replies

Reviews are most useful when they give the full picture, and part of that picture is how a landlord responds. This feature gives landlords and property managers a fair, clearly labeled way to take part, without weakening any of the protections for people who write reviews.

Claiming a business

A landlord or property manager signs in and claims their business with official evidence, such as a business license, an ownership record or a management agreement. A person on our team reviews each claim, and the document is deleted once the decision is made.

Replying

A verified landlord can post one public reply to each review, shown as "Response from" followed by the landlord's name.
Replies are checked by our team before they appear, and edits are checked again before they go live.
Replies don't change a landlord's scores. Scores come only from what tenants report.

Disputing a review

If a landlord believes a review breaks our rules, for example because the writer was never a tenant, it includes personal information or a threat, or it states something false as fact, they can file a private dispute with a reason. Filing a dispute never hides the review on its own. A person on our team decides. A review is removed only when it actually breaks our moderation policy, and if that happens, its writer is told why.

What landlords see

A landlord's dashboard shows exactly what the public sees, plus their own replies and disputes. Landlords never see who wrote a review, and nothing about a reviewer's account is ever shared with them.

The rule we started with still holds for everyone: no one can pay to remove, hide or boost a review, or to change a score.

When these will open

We don't have dates to share yet. Each feature opens once it has been tested and its pages have been reviewed. If you'd like to hear when that happens, join our email list and check "New features launch". We'll email you when each one opens, and you can unsubscribe with one click.

Nothing on this blog is legal advice. If you face a deadline or an eviction notice, contact one of our local resources right away.

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