Terms
Last updated
Draft — not yet reviewed by a lawyer. This page describes accurately what the service does, but it has not been checked as a legal document and should not be relied on as one. RateMyLandlord is not launched.
Plain terms for a service that publishes information about real businesses. If something here is unclear, ask us before relying on it.
What this service is
RateMyLandlord publishes information about rental housing in the District of Columbia, drawn from public records, and hosts reviews written by tenants. It also offers an informational review of lease documents.
It is not a tenant screening service, a credit reporting agency, a law firm, or a real estate broker.
You may not use this for screening decisions
Information from this service may not be used to make decisions about tenant screening, credit, insurance, employment, or any other purpose regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. We are not a consumer reporting agency and this is not a consumer report. Using it that way breaches these terms.
Reviews are opinion
Reviews are the personal experiences and opinions of the tenants who wrote them. They are not statements of fact by RateMyLandlord, we do not adopt them, and we do not verify the truth of every account.
We do moderate. Our content policy sets out what we refuse to publish.
Public records are shown as recorded
Ownership, licensing and enforcement information comes from government sources and is presented as those sources recorded it. It may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong at the source. We say where each record came from and when we retrieved it, and we correct our copy on evidence.
Where we infer a connection between companies, we say so and show the evidence. An inference is not a finding.
Lease review is information, not advice
The lease tool describes what your lease says and what a cited provision says. It does not tell you whether a clause is enforceable in your circumstances, and it is not a substitute for a lawyer. Using it does not create a lawyer–client relationship. Our rule set does not cover every topic — a clause we do not flag is one we have no rule for, not one we have approved.
Your account and your content
You are responsible for what you post. You keep ownership of it, and you give us permission to publish and display it here. You may edit or withdraw it at any time.
One review per tenancy. We may remove content that breaches the content policy, and we may suspend accounts used to manipulate ratings.
If you are the subject of something here
You can request a correction without an account, and if you are a landlord you can claim your profile and respond publicly. We acknowledge within 3 business days and decide within 14.
Changes
We will post changes here with a new date. Material changes will be notified to account holders before they take effect.
Still to be settled
Governing law, venue, dispute resolution and limitation of liability are not yet stated in these terms. They are being settled with counsel, and we would rather leave them blank than publish a guess that a court later reads as our considered position.