The rules library — what Seayora publishes, and what it deliberately does not
How Seayora’s statute-cited landlord and tenant rules work: where each figure comes from, how to read a state page and a state-by-state comparison, and why a state you expect to see is sometimes missing on purpose.
Seayora holds the statutory deadlines that govern a tenancy — how long a landlord has to return a deposit, how much notice a rent increase needs, how much notice before entering, how long a tenant has to pay late rent — as data, not as prose. The same rows drive three things: the deadline the product computes on a live tenancy, the reminder it sends before that deadline falls due, and the public pages at /answers.
That is the important part. The answer you read on the website is generated from the same rule the engine enforces on your lease, so the two cannot disagree, and correcting a rule corrects both in the same edit.
The three ways in
| Page | What it answers |
|---|---|
| /answers/<question>-in-<state> | One question, one state — "How long does a landlord have to return a security deposit in New Jersey?" It carries the answer, the checkable figures, the statute and the date it was last checked. |
| /answers/state/<state> | Every rule Seayora holds for that state, on one page, with an at-a-glance table at the top and every statute listed at the bottom. |
| /answers/topic/<rule> | One rule across every state Seayora holds a statute for — the comparison table, with the citation beside each figure. |
Where the figures come from
Every figure is read from a published statute and stored with its citation, the date it was checked and whether it came from the seed or from an operator’s override. Nothing in the library is written by a model, and nothing is written by hand as prose: each sentence is composed from the columns of the row it cites. An operator who corrects a rule in the admin console changes what the page says on the next cache turn.
Why a state you expect is missing
This is the part most rule tables on the internet get wrong, and it is deliberate here. Seayora publishes a rule only where it holds a real statute for it. Where it does not, there is no page at all — the URL returns a 404 rather than a plausible-looking default.
- The gap is per FIELD, not per state. Tennessee publishes its termination and late-rent periods and says nothing about entry notice, because Tennessee has no general entry-notice statute — its 24-hour rule applies only to showings in the final 30 days of a tenancy.
- A comparison table is shorter than fifty rows on purpose, and says so. An empty cell in a table of legal deadlines reads as "no requirement", which is a different rule.
- A question that has the same answer in forty states is not published as forty pages. Deposit interest appears only in the states where interest is actually owed.
As of 6 September 2026 the library covers 51 jurisdictions for security deposits and contractor sales tax, and 33 for notice periods. The other 18 carry only the customary figure, are flagged for review, and are published nowhere.
Reading a figure correctly
- Business days are marked as business days. Florida’s three-day rent demand excludes Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, and Alabama’s seven-day notice is seven business days — both are shown that way rather than as a plain day count.
- Where notice rises with the length of the tenancy, every band is shown. New York is 30, 60 or 90 days depending on how long the tenant has lived there.
- Where a state’s act is a local option, the page says so. Kentucky’s Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act applies only in the counties and cities that adopted it; Tennessee’s applies only in counties over 75,000 people.
- Notes carry the complication. Where the simple rule is true but incomplete, the exception is printed underneath it rather than left out.
What it is not
It is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances add to them, and a specific lease may set a longer period than the statute requires — a longer one usually governs. The citation is on every page so you can check it, and you should before serving a notice or withholding a deposit.
How the product uses the same rules
When you end a tenancy, Seayora computes the deposit return date from the state’s own statutory period, records whether the deadline came from the statute, the lease or a manual entry, and reminds you before it falls due. Lease renewals and served notices work the same way, and a notice served with less than the statutory period is refused unless you override it and record a reason.
Related guides
Related features and guides
- Security Deposits on Seayora — Documentation. How to collect, hold, document, and return a security deposit — the ledger behind the figure, the statutory deadline, the itemized statement, and what freezes when.
- Rent Increases & Notices — Documentation. How to communicate a rent increase or other lease notice to a tenant, with a documented delivery record.
- Lease Renewals & Amendments — Documentation. Renewing an expiring lease, the last day you can lawfully serve notice, what the local market is asking, and what a served notice freezes.
- Message Threads, Drafts & History — Feature. Threaded conversations with unread counts, drafts, read state, archiving, and a permanent history tied to the listing, lease, or job it concerns.
- Maintenance Requests & Work Orders — Feature. Tenants submit work orders with photos and video from their phone. Landlords triage, dispatch, and track every request to completion in one place.
- Property Management Accounting — Feature. A full chart of accounts and general ledger purpose-built for rentals — income and expenses tracked to the unit, with rent, fees, and maintenance posting automatically.