Lease Decoder

Decode a residential lease into plain English and rank the clauses that can hurt you. Use when someone asks 'what am I signing', 'decode my lease', 'is this rental agreement normal', or 'can my landlord really do this'. Produces a clause-by-clause decode table, ranked red flags, break-clause and deposit math, questions to ask before signing, and what's actually negotiable.

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.