Our editorial & review process

Information, not legal advice

Everything here is general legal information to help you understand your options and prepare — not legal advice, and not a substitute for a lawyer. Renter Shield is not a law firm, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Tenant rights depend on your state, city, lease, housing type, and timing, and laws change.

How we write

Our content is written in plain, tenant-first language. We explain the general rule and the first safe steps, and we route the specific, jurisdiction-dependent details — exact deadlines, limits, and amounts — to the app or to official sources, rather than stating a number that may be wrong for your situation.

Numbers-from-verified-sources rule

We deliberately do not publish specific legal figures — deposit deadlines, notice periods, rent caps, or fee limits — as blanket facts on these public pages. Those values vary by jurisdiction and change over time. Inside the app, jurisdiction-specific figures are drawn from a knowledge base and shown with their source and a “last verified” status so you can confirm before relying on them.

Content labels

We label content honestly so you know what you are reading:

• Educational — general information written by our team; not attorney-reviewed.
• State-verified — a specific figure confirmed against an official source, shown with its citation and date in the app.
• Tool-generated — output from a calculator or checker, based on the inputs you provide.
• Legal-aid referral — a pointer to a free legal-aid or government resource.
• Emergency resource — safety and crisis help, always free and never gated.

How we source and update renter-rights information

Renter-rights content on this site follows a fixed source hierarchy. We work down the list and stop at the highest-authority source that actually answers the question.

1. Primary law — state statutes, codes, and municipal ordinances published by the legislature, secretary of state, or city clerk.
2. Government housing agencies — state and city housing, code-enforcement, and rent-board pages.
3. Courts and legal aid — court self-help centers, judicial-branch forms, and publications from legal-aid organizations.
4. Federal agencies — HUD and CFPB guidance for protections that apply nationwide.

What we do not use as a source: content aggregators, law-firm marketing pages, unattributed summaries, other renter apps, or AI-generated text. If a claim cannot be traced to a source in the list above, it is not published as verified.

When a page gets updated

• A legislative session or ordinance change affects the rule.
• An official source moves, is replaced, or is withdrawn.
• A reader reports a correction — see Corrections.
• A scheduled re-check of the jurisdiction's sources comes due.

What the status labels mean

• Sourced — traced to an official source, shown with its citation and the date it was checked.
• Unverified — labeled as unverified and never presented as a confirmed figure. We would rather show you a gap than a guess.
• Not attorney-reviewed — our content is written and source-checked by our team. It is legal information, not legal advice, and we do not present it as attorney-reviewed.

Specific jurisdiction figures — deposit deadlines, notice periods, fee limits — are shown inside the app with their source and check date rather than asserted as blanket facts on public pages.

Corrections

If you spot something that looks wrong or out of date, email hello@rentershield.app with the page address and what looks wrong. A person reads it. We aim to reply within 1–2 business days, and if a correction is needed we make it and update the page date. We update pages as laws change and note when a page was last updated. You can also reach us through Support.

Emergency resources are always free

You never need Renter Shield to get help. Call 211 · in a crisis, call or text 988 for local assistance, find free legal aid at lawhelp.org, read HUD tenant rights, or call 911 in an emergency.