Packet Terms

The simple version

1. What Packet is, and is not

Packet is a document assembly and communication tool. A licensed real estate agent invites you to apply for a specific apartment, sets the document requirements for that apartment, and receives your assembled application. Leaseswap's role is limited to helping you collect, organize, check, and deliver the documents the agent asked for.

Leaseswap is not a real estate broker, real estate agent, salesperson, or any other licensee under New York Real Property Law § 440 et seq., and is not a landlord or property manager. We do not decide, recommend, or influence whether any application is approved or rejected, we do not negotiate lease terms, and we do not set the document requirements for any apartment. Those requirements come from the agent and the landlord, and every decision about your application is made by them.

2. Applicants, co-applicants, and guarantors

An application may include several people: a primary applicant, one or more co-applicants who will also sign the lease, and one or more guarantors. Each person participates through their own private invitation link, signs in with their own account, and uploads their own documents.

• Your documents are never visible to other people on the application. A guarantor's files do not pass through the applicant, and the applicant's files are not shown to the guarantor.
• An invitation may only be claimed by the email address it was sent to. Do not forward your invitation link to anyone else.
• If you invite someone else to the application (for example, a guarantor), you represent that they have agreed to be contacted by us for that purpose.

3. Your documents

When you upload a document or provide information through Packet, you represent and warrant that:

• The document is yours, or you are legally authorized to provide it.
• The document and the information you provide are genuine, accurate, and complete to the best of your knowledge, and have not been altered or fabricated.
• You will promptly correct or replace anything that becomes inaccurate while your application is open.

Submitting falsified, altered, or fraudulent documents is grounds for immediate termination of your access to Packet, will be disclosed to the agent handling your application, and may be reported to the appropriate authorities.

4. No credit checks, no consumer reports, no tenant screening

Leaseswap is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and Packet is not a tenant screening service. We do not prepare, assemble, or furnish consumer reports, we do not run credit or background checks on anyone, and we do not evaluate, score, rank, or make any judgment about any applicant, co-applicant, or guarantor.

• If an apartment's requirements include a credit report, you obtain your own report and upload it. Our systems deliberately do not read or extract its contents: no score, account, or balance information is captured.
• If you sign a credit or background check authorization form, that authorization runs between you and the agent or landlord who requested it. Any check performed under it is performed by them or their screening provider, under their own legal obligations, not by Leaseswap.

5. AI-assisted document review

Packet uses AI to guide you through the checklist, check uploaded documents for completeness, legibility, and consistency, and assemble the final packet with a factual cover summary. This processing runs on Amazon Bedrock (Anthropic Claude models) under a zero data retention configuration: the model provider does not store your documents and does not train on them.

• The AI performs clerical checks only. It does not evaluate you as a tenant, and it is designed to refuse questions about approval odds or tenant quality. Questions it cannot answer are escalated to the agent.
• AI review can make mistakes. A document the AI marks as complete may still be questioned by the agent or landlord, and a document it flags may in fact be fine. The agent reviews your application before anything is sent to a landlord.
• By using Packet, you consent to this AI-assisted processing of the documents and information you provide, as described here and in Section 2 of the Privacy Policy.

6. Fair housing

We do not ask about, collect, or consider race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, familial status, source of income, military status, immigration status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, New York State, or New York City law, and Packet is designed not to surface such characteristics to agents beyond what the documents the agent requested inherently contain. Agents and landlords are independently bound by fair housing laws, including the federal Fair Housing Act and the New York City Human Rights Law. If you believe you have experienced discrimination in connection with an application, contact us at [email protected] and consider contacting the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

7. Delivery of your application

Your assembled packet is delivered to the agent who invited you, and the agent forwards it to the landlord. By submitting your application, you direct us to make that delivery. Once your packet has been delivered, the agent's and landlord's handling of it is governed by their own legal and professional obligations, not by these Packet Terms. You may withdraw an application that has not yet been decided; withdrawal stops future deliveries but cannot recall copies already delivered.

8. Retention and deletion

We delete your uploaded documents and the compiled packet 30 days after your application reaches a final state (forwarded, accepted, rejected, withdrawn, or expired), and we purge the personal data our systems extracted from them at the same time. Deleting your Leaseswap account also deletes your packet documents. Copies already delivered to the agent or landlord are outside our systems and are not affected by this deletion.

9. Fees

Packet is free for applicants, co-applicants, and guarantors. We do not charge you an application fee, and we do not collect or hold any rent, deposit, or other payment in connection with your application. Any lawful fee associated with your application (for example, a statutorily capped application fee) is charged by and paid to the landlord or their agent directly, subject to New York law.

10. Acceptable use

In addition to the acceptable use rules in the Terms of Service, you agree not to:

• Upload documents belonging to another person without their authorization
• Misrepresent your identity, income, employment, or housing history
• Share your invitation link or attempt to claim an invitation sent to someone else
• Attempt to extract, manipulate, or interfere with the AI assistant, or use it for any purpose other than completing your application

11. Disclaimers

Packet is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not guarantee that any application will be reviewed, accepted, or acted on by any agent or landlord, that an apartment will remain available while you apply, or that AI review will catch every issue with your documents. The disclaimers, limitations of liability, and indemnification provisions of the Terms of Service apply to your use of Packet.

12. Other terms

Except as expressly modified by these Packet Terms, your use of Packet is subject to the Leaseswap Terms of Service, including without limitation provisions regarding governing law, venue, dispute resolution, modification of terms, and definitions. We may update these Packet Terms as the feature evolves; material changes will be presented to you for acceptance the next time you use Packet.

13. Contact

Questions about these Packet Terms can be sent to [email protected]. Questions about your data can be sent to [email protected].