What does my lease actually say? Forward it and find out
Send Mabel your lease PDF and get the clauses that actually matter in plain English: break fees, deposit rules, renewal traps, and what to flag.
Nobody reads their lease. You skim page one, check the rent amount, sign 24 pages of ten-point type, and hope. Then a year later you need to move for a job and discover, somewhere on page 17, that breaking the lease costs two months' rent plus a "re-letting fee," and that the lease quietly renewed itself in March because you didn't object in writing 60 days before it ended.
The lease always said this. It just said it in a way designed not to be read.
What to send
Forward the lease PDF to [email protected] with a line like:
"Signing this Thursday. What should I know before I do? Especially anything about breaking it early, getting my deposit back, and what happens at renewal."
Or, if you signed long ago and a situation has come up:
"I might need to move out in October, eight months early. What does my lease say that will happen?"
Mabel reads the whole document, including page 17.
What comes back
A plain-English map of the parts that matter:
Breaking early: Section 14 says early termination costs two months' rent plus a $350 re-letting fee, and you must give 60 days' written notice. Note: the landlord still has to try to re-rent the unit in your state, which can reduce what you owe.
Your deposit: They have 30 days to return it, itemized. Section 9 lets them deduct for "excessive wear," which is vague; take dated photos at move-out.
The renewal trap: This lease auto-renews for a full year unless you give written notice 60 days before the end date. For you that deadline is May 1. Put it in your calendar now. (Ask and I'll attach a calendar invite for it.)
One odd clause: Section 22 makes you responsible for the first $100 of any repair. That's unusual and worth asking about before you sign.
That last category is often the most valuable: the clause you'd never think to look for because you didn't know it could exist.
To be clear about what this is: Mabel decodes the document and tells you which questions to ask, but she's not a lawyer, and a genuinely contested lease situation deserves a local tenant lawyer or housing agency. What she does is make sure you walk in already knowing what page 17 says.
Leases are also full of personal details, so it's worth knowing how this works: Mabel has no access to your inbox or files, only the one PDF you forward, and the conversation is kept only while it's active — up to 24 hours after your last message — then deleted automatically. Forwarded files themselves are gone as soon as she's replied.
Pro tip
Tell her your state and your actual situation. Landlord-tenant rules vary a lot by state, and "I'm in Texas and thinking about getting a dog" points the reading at the pet clause, the deposit rules, and nothing you don't need. A lease is 24 pages; your question is usually about three of them.