--- name: al-394-check-a-rent-ledger-line-by-line-before-an-eviction-case description: "Rent ledgers drift: a late fee charged twice, a payment posted to the wrong month, a rent increase applied early, a charge the lease never allowed. On Oct 28, 2026 Anthropic added a gallery of ready-made legal artifacts to Claude for Legal. One of the access-to-justice tools, the Rent Ledger Reviewer built by the nonprofit Rising for Justice, helps attorneys find errors in a landlord's rent ledger when preparing an eviction case, based on D.C. law. Anthropic says each output in the gallery links to its source and that a lawyer applies their judgment to Claude's first pass. The prompt below gives landlords, property managers, tenants and advocates a general version of that ledger check for any AI assistant. It is a starting point for review, not legal advice, and local rules on fees and notices vary. Use when the user wants help with rent ledger review (legal & compliance) for a small business." --- # Check a rent ledger line by line before an eviction case, deposit dispute or move-out: have an AI match every charge and payment to the lease and receipts, and flag errors with the evidence Rent ledgers drift: a late fee charged twice, a payment posted to the wrong month, a rent increase applied early, a charge the lease never allowed. On Oct 28, 2026 Anthropic added a gallery of ready-made legal artifacts to Claude for Legal. One of the access-to-justice tools, the Rent Ledger Reviewer built by the nonprofit Rising for Justice, helps attorneys find errors in a landlord's rent ledger when preparing an eviction case, based on D.C. law. Anthropic says each output in the gallery links to its source and that a lawyer applies their judgment to Claude's first pass. The prompt below gives landlords, property managers, tenants and advocates a general version of that ledger check for any AI assistant. It is a starting point for review, not legal advice, and local rules on fees and notices vary. ## Inputs to collect first Ask the user for anything below that they haven't already given you. Don't guess missing facts. - Landlord / property manager / tenant / tenant advocate - Rows: date, description, charge, payment, balance - Bank or receipt lines: date, amount, reference - City, state or province ## Instructions Do the task below with the user's inputs in place of each [bracket]. Act as a careful bookkeeper reviewing a residential rent ledger. I am the [landlord / property manager / tenant / tenant advocate]. I will paste: the lease terms (rent amount, due date, grace period, late fee rule, any rent increases with their start dates, deposit amount, allowed extra charges such as parking, pet or utilities), the ledger [paste rows: date, description, charge, payment, balance], and proof of payments [paste bank or receipt lines: date, amount, reference]. Location: [city, state or province]. 1) Rebuild the ledger month by month from the lease terms and the payments, and show what the balance should be. 2) Make a table of every difference between my rebuilt ledger and the one given: date, line, what the ledger shows, what it should show, the amount, and the evidence (quote the lease clause or the payment line). 3) Flag specifically: duplicate or stacked late fees, fees charged before the grace period ended, payments missing or posted to the wrong month, increases applied before their start date, charges the lease doesn't mention, and arithmetic errors in the running balance. 4) Give the corrected balance and a short plain-language summary I can share. 5) List what to check with a lawyer or the local housing authority, such as legal limits on late fees and notice rules in my area. Don't guess any missing number; mark it OPEN and ask me. ## Safety checks (share these with the user) - Check every figure, price and total against your own records before anything is sent, posted or booked. A person approves refunds, discounts, payments and price changes. - Anything legal, tax or compliance-related is a first draft for a qualified person to check. It is not professional advice, and clause references and deadlines must be checked against the source. - Remove names, contact details, account numbers and other personal data the task doesn't need before you paste, and check your AI tool's data and training settings. - Check names, dates, numbers and any claim against your own source material before you use the answer. AI can misread or invent details. - Say clearly which parts need a person to review or approve before anything is sent, paid, posted or filed. ## About this skill - Works with: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google Sheets, Excel - Based on this real-world example: https://claude.com/resources/articles/introducing-artifacts-for-legal-work - Free prompt from AgentPlaybook Real Estate: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/prompt/al-394-check-a-rent-ledger-line-by-line-before-an-eviction-case-dep/ - To install in an agent that supports Agent Skills, save this file as SKILL.md in a folder with the same name as `name` above (for example in your skills directory). Install steps for Claude.ai, Claude Code, Cursor and Codex: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/skills/