What the audit looks at
- Security deposit amount against your state's statutory cap, computed on your rent
- The return deadline written in the lease against the one the statute requires
- The federal lead-paint disclosure, mandatory for any dwelling built before 1978
- Whether the lease names all adult occupants and makes them jointly liable
- Attorney's fees, quiet enjoyment, sex offender registry notice and counterparts — the four clauses generic templates most often omit
- Whether a renter's insurance requirement is stated with a minimum coverage figure
- Whether responsibility for utilities, maintenance and keys is allocated in writing
The mistakes that actually cost money
| What is wrong | What it costs | How it happens |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit above the state cap | Return of the excess, sometimes with statutory damages | Template written for a state with no cap, or before the cap changed |
| Wrong return deadline | Forfeiting the right to withhold anything at all | Copied from a lease used in another state |
| No lead-paint disclosure on a pre-1978 building | Federal civil penalties, and treble damages in private suits | Nobody remembers it applies to single-family rentals too |
| Occupants not named on the lease | No contractual claim against the person who caused the damage | Only one applicant filled in the form |
| No attorney's fees clause | You pay your own legal costs even when you win | Free templates omit it because it favours the drafter |
None of these show up while the tenancy is going well. All of them show up at the end of one that is not.
What this audit is not
It is a compliance check against a rules table covering all 50 states and DC, not a legal opinion. It does not read your document for you, it does not know your city, and it cannot tell you whether a clause is enforceable in your jurisdiction.
That last gap matters: landlord-tenant law is layered. Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and many others impose requirements on top of their state's, and a lease that is perfectly compliant statewide can still be defective inside the city limits. Where money or an eviction is at stake, have a local attorney read the document.
If the audit finds problems
You cannot rewrite a lease that has already been signed, but you have two options that work:
- An addendum, signed by both parties, for anything that needs to change during the term — the cleanest fix for a wrong deadline or a missing disclosure.
- A corrected lease at renewal, which is the natural moment to move onto a document that matches your state.
Rentmark generates a state-aware lease with the cap and deadline filled from the statute and the citation printed on the document, plus an addendum generator for mid-term changes. Building your portfolio and generating the lease are free; you only pay when you want Rentmark to run the tenancy day to day.