United States: rental market overview

The United States has no federal residential-tenancy statute — landlord-tenant law is set entirely by each state, and Brokik's v1 template is configured for the State of Texas (Texas Property Code, Title 8, Chapter 92 "Residential Tenancies"), chosen as the simplest, most landlord-friendly reference jurisdiction: no statutory deposit cap, no rent control, and no state income tax. Under the Texas statute of frauds (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 26.01), only a lease longer than one year must be evidenced by a signed writing — a shorter tenancy can technically be oral — but Brokik always generates a full written lease regardless of term, and no notary is required. Each party signs with a code sent by email, and Brokik records the signing date and the document checksum.

Brokik's template identifies the parties by Social Security Number (or EIN for a business landlord), describes the property precisely, and states the monthly rent with the fixed-term-to-month-to-month rollover built in from day one, so nothing has to be renegotiated from scratch if the parties simply let the lease run past its end date.

Texas sets no statutory ceiling on the security deposit (Tex. Prop. Code §§ 92.101–92.109) — landlord and tenant agree the amount freely, and market practice in most Texas metros sits around one month's rent, occasionally more for a tenant with weaker credit. The deposit may not be treated as the final month's rent unless the landlord agrees to that in writing.

The refund clock is precise: the landlord must return the deposit, less an itemized list of lawful deductions, within 30 days of the later of the tenant surrendering the property or giving the landlord a written forwarding address (§ 92.107) — the 30 days do not start until both have happened. A landlord who withholds the deposit in bad faith is liable for statutory damages of $100, three times the amount wrongfully withheld, and the tenant's reasonable attorney's fees (§ 92.109), so Brokik's template pairs the deposit clause with a move-in/move-out inspection checklist to keep every deduction documented.

A fixed-term Texas lease simply ends on its stated end date; if the parties don't sign a new one and the landlord lets the tenant stay on, the tenancy automatically continues month-to-month on the same terms. Either party can then end that month-to-month tenancy by written notice of at least one full rent-payment period — customarily 30 days (Tex. Prop. Code § 91.001) — and Texas imposes no just-cause requirement: a landlord doesn't have to give a reason, provided the fixed term has already ended.

Ending a tenancy is always a judicial process. Before filing a forcible-detainer suit to recover possession, the landlord must give the tenant a written notice to vacate of at least 3 days, unless the lease sets a longer period (Tex. Prop. Code § 24.005); only a court order lets the landlord actually retake the property. Self-help eviction — changing the locks, shutting off utilities, or removing the tenant's belongings without a court order — is illegal in every U.S. state, Texas included.

Texas law doesn't make a written move-in/move-out inspection checklist a formal condition of a valid lease, but the implied warranty of habitability (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.052) and the deposit-deduction rules lean on one indirectly: without a signed record of the property's condition and utility-meter readings at move-in, a landlord has no reliable baseline to justify a deduction at move-out, and a tenant has no easy way to prove the damage wasn't theirs.

Brokik treats the checklist as standard practice for every Texas tenancy even though it isn't a statutory prerequisite: condition, fittings and meter readings recorded once when the tenant moves in and again when they move out, each copy signed by both parties. It's the single easiest way for a landlord to make a deposit deduction stick under §§ 92.103–92.104 — and just as often the easiest way for a tenant to get the full deposit back.

Beyond the deposit and termination rules, a Texas landlord carries a short list of disclosure duties that apply on top of state law. The landlord must disclose their own name and address, or their managing agent's, to the tenant (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.201), and — since 2021 — any known flooding history or flood-zone status of the property (§ 92.0135). If the property was built before 1978, federal law (42 U.S.C. § 4852d, 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A) requires the landlord to hand over the EPA's lead-hazard pamphlet, disclose any known lead-based paint or hazards, and have both parties sign a Lead Warning Statement before the lease is signed, keeping the record for at least three years.

The federal Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 3601–3619) bars discrimination on seven protected grounds — race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability — and requires a landlord to make reasonable accommodations, such as allowing an assistance or service animal even under a no-pets policy. There is no U.S. equivalent of a European energy-performance certificate for a residential lease: only a handful of cities require large buildings to report energy-benchmarking data, and no clause models an EPC obligation into Brokik's Texas template.