How we audited US landlord document templates line by line, state by state

Leasekit — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:23:03 +0000

TL;DR

We built LeaseKit, a state-specific US landlord document generator. The legal layer went through eight independent audit rounds against primary state sources, producing 36 citation and effective-date corrections across ten US states. Here is what we learned about how most template sites get state-specific law wrong.

The problem with generic templates

A generic US residential lease template sold on LegalZoom or eForms tries to satisfy every state's rules in one document. The result is either a lowest-common-denominator lease that omits state-mandated disclosures, or a padded document with conflicting clauses that contradict each state's specific statute.

We picked ten states (CA, TX, FL, NY, IL, GA, PA, OH, NC, WA) and built a separate document generator for each state, with each document type (lease, notice to quit, rent increase notice, move-out checklist) aware of that state's current statute.

The audit process

Every piece of template text that cited a statute or quoted a dollar amount got checked against a primary source: the state legislature website, a statute page on findlaw, or the state AG office. We ran eight independent audit rounds. Here is the progression:

v1: 6 findings (mostly obvious typos)
v2: 11 findings (more obvious typos, now that v1 was clean)
v3: 6 findings
v4: 8 findings
v5: 2 findings
v6: 1 finding
v7: 1 finding
v8: 0 findings, CLEAN

Total: 35 findings fixed across 8 rounds, plus one confirmation round.

Three examples of what we caught

IL radon, 420 ILCS 46/25 vs 46/26

The Illinois Radon Awareness Act requires landlords to disclose radon hazards to tenants. Originally, the rule lived at 420 ILCS 46/25. Public Act 103-298 (HB 2217) effective 2024-01-01 repealed Section 25 and added Section 26.

In our audit, the citation flipped between 46/25 and 46/26 across two auditors before a primary-source check on the Illinois General Assembly legislation browser settled it on 46/26. Template sites still citing 46/25 are pointing tenants at a repealed section.

CA 1950.5 small-owner carve-out

California AB 12 (effective 2024-07-01) capped residential security deposits at one month rent but preserved a two-month cap for small natural-person landlords. The carve-out originally lived at Cal. Civ. Code 1950.5(c)(4)(A). AB 414 (effective 2026-01-01) inserted a new paragraph (4) ahead of the carve-out, renumbering it to (c)(5)(A).

We initially cited (c)(4)(A). Our v7 audit caught the renumbering.

TX SB 38 effective-date split

Texas SB 38 amends Property Code 24.005 (forcible detainer procedure). We initially stated the amendments took effect September 1, 2025. The substantive amendments to 24.005 actually take effect January 1, 2026; only Section 16 (Supreme Court rulemaking) took effect September 1, 2025. Two different effective dates, one bill. Easy to conflate.

Why the architecture matters

LeaseKit is stateless. Submission tokens are HMAC signed and carry the form data in the URL. No database, no session store, no user authentication for document generation. A buyer's form submission survives a page refresh because the state is in the URL. Stripe Checkout takes payment; the webhook triggers PDF generation.

This matters for the legal layer because every document is regenerated from scratch on every purchase. There is no "cached PDF from 2024" that was generated against a repealed statute. Every download uses the current state rules data.

What we open-sourced

The source template is on Gumroad for €400, https://leasekit.gumroad.com/l/leasekit-source. Includes the ten-state rules data, four document templates, Stripe integration, 40 SEO landing pages, and the audit methodology notes.

For operators who want to acquire the whole business instead of forking, we listed LeaseKit on Acquire.com at €7,500.

Live demo at https://leasekit.io.

What we did NOT claim

No attorney review. No bar-admitted attorney has signed off, and we do not claim one has.
No court acceptance testing. No filings.
No user testimonials (there are zero users at launch).

The marketing claim is substance: "line by line, state by state, eight audit rounds, 36 primary-source corrections." Buyers can verify the audit reports and the git commits match.

Built in collaboration with final year law students and developers.

DEV Community: Leasekit