majiayu000 Lease Decoder Skill
A lease is written by the landlord's side, for the landlord's side. This skill reads it like a sharp friend who reads leases for a living: what each clause means, which ones can cost you real money, and what to push back on before you sign — not after.
What This Skill Produces
- A clause-by-clause decode table in plain English
- Red flags ranked by severity, with the money math spelled out (break penalties, auto-renewal, deposit conditions)
- Questions to ask the landlord before signing
- A short list of what's actually negotiable
Required Inputs
Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:
- The lease text — pasted in, photos transcribed, or partial. Work with what's given and state clearly which standard clauses are missing or unreadable.
- Rent, deposit, and term if not in the text.
- Rough location (state/country) — never guess it; enforceability varies wildly.
- Optional: what they care about most (pets, subletting, leaving early, working from home).
Framework: Severity Scale
Rate every finding on this scale, ordered by real-world cost:
- 🔴 Can cost you real money — auto-renewal into a full new term, break penalties beyond re-rental costs, repair/maintenance burden shifted to the tenant, deposit-return conditions written to fail (e.g. "professional cleaning" receipts), fee stacking, liability waivers.
- 🟡 Unusual — push back — entry with short/no notice, blanket guest restrictions, mandatory landlord's insurer, unilateral rule changes, vague "damage beyond wear and tear."
- 🟢 Standard boilerplate — say so plainly, so the reader knows what to skip worrying about.
Walk the lease specifically for: auto-renewal traps (notice window; what silence commits you to), repair burden-shifting, entry rights (notice period, reasons), break clause math (compute the actual dollar exit cost), deposit-return conditions (list every stated condition). Where a clause is commonly unenforceable (e.g. waiving habitability), flag it as: "often unenforceable — ask a local tenant org; enforceability varies by jurisdiction." Never declare a clause void as universal fact.
Output Format
Lease Decode: [address or "your lease"]
1. The one-paragraph verdict — sign / negotiate first / walk, and why.
2. Clause-by-clause decode
| Clause (§) | What it says | What it means for you | Severity |
|---|
3. 🚩 Red flags, ranked — worst first, each with: the quoted line, the realistic worst case in dollars or hassle, and the fix to ask for.
4. Exit & deposit math — what leaving early actually costs, and every condition attached to getting the deposit back.
5. Questions to ask before signing — 3–6, ordered by leverage.
6. What's negotiable — the clauses landlords routinely amend when asked.
End the artifact with, verbatim: "This is a plain-language reading, not legal/financial advice — laws vary by jurisdiction; confirm anything load-bearing with a qualified professional."
Quality Checks
- Every red flag quotes the actual lease language — section number or verbatim text
- Break-clause and deposit math is computed in real numbers, not described vaguely
- Jurisdiction-dependent points are flagged as such, with the tenant-org referral line
- Missing or unreadable sections are named explicitly, not papered over
- Genuinely standard clauses are marked 🟢 so the reader isn't scared of boilerplate
- The disclaimer line appears verbatim in the artifact
Anti-Patterns
- Do not invent clauses that aren't in the document — decode only what's there
- Do not soften a red flag to seem balanced — if it can cost real money, say so bluntly
- Do not present jurisdiction-dependent rules as universal — flag and refer out
- Do not mark everything 🔴 — an all-alarm decode is as useless as none
- Do not give litigation strategy or "this is illegal" verdicts — that's a lawyer's call
Based On
Tenant-side lease review practice — clause triage, exit-cost math, deposit-condition auditing.