Master Disclaimer Language - RentGuard NYC
Last updated: 2026-05-11
Role: attorney-approved master copy. UI-facing strings are mirrored in
disclaimers.md, which is parsed at build time byfrontend/scripts/build-disclaimers.ts. The §4.2 ↔affiliateLongFormsync is enforced byfrontend/test/legal.snapshot.test.ts.
This document is the canonical legal framing for the current RentGuard public beta. The live product is a free NYC building lookup and public-record report with AI summaries, source links, saved buildings, and affiliate disclosures. Lease Review, Search Pass, paid alerts, FARE Act tools, complaint-letter generation, and law-firm products are not live product surfaces today.
1. Building Risk Report
1.1 Short footer language
Public-record indicators only. Not a recommendation, not an investigation, and not legal, rental, financial, insurance, or safety advice.
1.2 Long "What this is" language
What this is. RentGuard NYC retrieves and summarizes information that NYC agencies and public sources have made available about a building. The report may include HPD violations, HPD complaints, HPD multiple-dwelling registration records, DOB complaints, 311 housing complaints, NYC Marshal eviction filings, bedbug and lead-paint indicators, and the NYC Public Advocate Worst Landlord Watchlist.
What this is not. The report is not an investigation, not a recommendation, not an inspection, not a tenant-screening tool, and not legal, rental, financial, insurance, or safety advice. RentGuard does not verify whether a complaint was substantiated, whether a violation was cured, whether the building's current condition matches the record, or whether an owner, manager, broker, tenant, or agency has additional context.
How to use it. Treat the report as a starting point. Check the cited NYC.gov sources yourself. Visit the apartment and building. Ask questions. Talk to current tenants where appropriate. For legal advice or a dispute-specific strategy, contact a licensed New York attorney or a qualified tenant-rights organization.
AI summaries. The plain-English summary is generated by an AI model from retrieved public-record facts. It should not add facts of its own, but AI can still make mistakes, omit context, or describe a record unclearly. Always verify source links before relying on a summary.
1.3 Pre-output framing
RentGuard summarizes public NYC records such as HPD violations, DOB complaints, 311 housing complaints, eviction filings, registration records, and watchlist data. The AI summary is not a verdict on the building, owner, manager, or broker, and it is not advice about whether to rent here. Always verify the cited public records yourself before relying on the report.
2. Sources and Data Limits
2.1 Source-first framing
Every factual count in a RentGuard building report should tie back to a named source. If the report says a building has open HPD violations, DOB complaints, 311 housing complaints, or another public-record indicator, the user should be able to open the relevant source area and check the source directly.
2.2 Public records can be incomplete
Public records may be stale, incomplete, duplicated, delayed, miscoded, closed after our cache was refreshed, or missing context. A source may use a different address format, owner name, BBL, unit label, or time period than the one a renter expects. RentGuard does not promise that agency data is complete or current.
2.3 Corrections
RentGuard generally mirrors public sources. If a public source is wrong, the correction usually needs to happen at the source. Owners, managers, renters, or other users can email corrections@rentguard.cc with the BBL, report link, disputed indicator, and source link. RentGuard may review whether our display matches the source, but we do not adjudicate factual disputes without source support.
3. AI and Scoring Limits
3.1 AI limitations
AI summaries can be wrong. They can miss patterns, overstate patterns, omit relevant context, or use wording that is too strong. RentGuard constrains summaries to public-record facts, but the user should still treat every AI sentence as something to verify against cited records.
3.2 Score limitations
The maintenance score is a simplified signal built from public-record indicators. It is not a building grade from the City of New York, not a safety certification, not a warranty of habitability, and not a prediction that a renter will or will not have problems in the building. A low-risk score does not mean a building is problem-free. A high-risk score does not prove current bad conditions.
3.3 No recommendation
RentGuard does not tell users to rent, avoid, negotiate, report, sue, move, buy insurance, hire movers, or take any other action. The user remains responsible for the rental decision and for any follow-up steps.
4. Affiliate Disclosure
4.1 Short click-through language
RentGuard may earn a referral fee if you purchase a product or service from a partner link. This does not affect the editorial independence of our building reports. Partner recommendations are not endorsements.
4.2 Long transparency language
RentGuard may earn affiliate commissions from partner links, including renters insurance, moving, or moving-concierge providers. We disclose this relationship before click-through and on the "How we make money" page.
Affiliate partners cannot pay to change a building report, remove a source, alter a score, soften a finding, hide a public record, or influence whether a building appears in search results. RentGuard does not accept payment from landlords, owners, property managers, or brokers to change report content.
Once a user leaves RentGuard for a partner site, the partner's terms, pricing, privacy policy, eligibility rules, and customer support govern that relationship.
5. Current Product Boundary
5.1 Planned tools are not live
RentGuard may discuss planned tools such as Lease Review, Search Pass, saved-building notifications, FARE Act analysis, complaint-letter drafting, or law-firm workflows. Those tools are not part of the current public beta unless a future release clearly says otherwise and the legal documents have been updated.
5.2 No paid product disclaimer
The current public beta does not include a paid subscription, Stripe checkout, paid report unlock, refund workflow, lease upload, law-firm client portal, weekly alert product, or DCWP complaint-letter generator. Any pricing shown for planned tools is research or waitlist context, not an offer to sell a live product.
6. Cross-Surface "We Are Not" Block
RentGuard is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. RentGuard is not a real estate broker, property manager, tenant representative, tenant advocacy organization, insurer, or government agency. RentGuard is not affiliated with the City of New York, HPD, DOB, DCWP, NYC Open Data, the NYC Public Advocate, or any other government agency. Building reports are generated from public NYC datasets and AI summarization. Records may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify information with primary sources. RentGuard is not responsible for decisions made based on this information.
7. Page-Level Use Guidance
7.1 Building report pages
Use the pre-output framing near AI-generated summaries and the short footer language near the report footer. Use source-first language near the source tab and correction language where owners or managers may look for next steps.
7.2 Marketing pages
Marketing pages should describe only the live service as usable: free building lookup, public-record AI summary, source links, saved buildings, and affiliate disclosures. Planned features must be described as planned or waitlist-only and must not imply the user can upload a lease, buy a subscription, unlock a report, generate a complaint letter, or access a law-firm portal today.
7.3 Legal pages
Terms and Privacy should track the current product boundary. If a new feature starts collecting lease files, payment data, subscription status, complaint drafts, alert preferences, or law-firm client data, the legal pages should be updated before launch.
End of master disclaimer language.