The Unit File

Management Account Terms

Last updated: October 8, 2026

These Management Account Terms (the "Management Terms") are extra rules for property managers and owners who open a free management account on The Unit File at www.theunitfile.com (the "site") so they can claim a building and post a Response from management under renter reports. The site is run by The Unit File LLC, an Indiana limited liability company ("The Unit File," "we," "us," "our").

Management accounts are free. Claiming a building and posting a response cost nothing.

These Management Terms add to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Site Guidelines. By checking the box at management sign-up, or by using a management account, you agree to all of them. If you don't agree, please don't open or use a management account.

Questions? Email legal@theunitfile.com.

1. How these Management Terms fit with our Terms

  • Our Terms of Use still apply to everything you do on the site. Words defined there (such as "report," "Unit Score" and "Site Guidelines") mean the same thing here.
  • If these Management Terms and the Terms of Use conflict about a management account or a response, these Management Terms control for that issue.
  • Nothing in these Management Terms reduces any renter's rights under the Terms of Use, including Section 7 (your right to post honest reviews), Section 10 (how we moderate) and Section 12 (disputes and takedown requests).

2. Words we use

  • "Management account" means a site account we've set up for management use, tied to one person's sign-in.
  • "You" means the person who opens or uses the management account and the organization that person acts for.
  • "Organization" means the owner, management company or other business you act for, as you name it at sign-up. Its name appears on your responses.
  • "Claimed building" means one building (one building page on the site) that we've approved your account to respond for. Each approval covers one building only.
  • "Response" means a reply you post under a renter report. On the site it's labeled "Response from management."
  • "Management content" means your responses and anything else you submit through a management account.

3. Who can open a management account

You may open a management account only if:

  1. you're at least 18 and can agree to these Management Terms;
  2. you're the owner or manager of each building you claim, or an employee or authorized agent of the owner or manager; and
  3. you have authority to act for your organization and to accept these Management Terms for it.

When you open an account, claim a building or post a response, you promise that:

  1. you're the owner, the manager, or an authorized agent of the owner or manager for each claimed building;
  2. your organization has authorized you to speak for it on the site and to agree to these Management Terms for it; and
  3. everything you tell us (your name, organization, work email and any documents) is true, and you'll keep it up to date.

One person per account. Don't share your login or let anyone else use your account. Several people from one organization may each have their own account, and each must be approved. Each person may have only one management account.

Your organization is responsible for its people, including every response they post.

Tell us when things change. Email legal@theunitfile.com promptly if you leave your organization or lose authority for a claimed building, if your organization stops managing or owning a claimed building, or if you think someone else is using your account. A colleague at your organization may also ask us to remove a former employee's access.

4. Claiming a building

Two ways to get approved

You can claim a building in one of two ways:

  1. Work-email approval. You confirm, with a one-time code, that you get email at a work address on the domain of the building's own website. Free email addresses (such as Gmail or Yahoo), school domains and listing sites never qualify. Some work-email claims go to manual review instead, for example when a domain is shared by many buildings, or when another organization already has a claim on the building.
  2. Manual approval. We review your request by hand. We may call the leasing office at a phone number we find on the building's official website (never a number you give us) and give a one-time code, or review a letter of authorization or a business card. We may ask for more information or a second kind of proof.

By opening an account, you agree that we may do these checks.

How long approval lasts

  • Work-email approvals end 90 days after you confirmed your work email with a code, unless you re-confirm it with a new code before then. If we can't send you a new code, you can ask for manual approval.
  • Manual approvals last 12 months. To keep responding after that, you must be approved again.
  • Your management account itself must be re-checked at least every 12 months.
  • When a claim ends, you can't post or edit responses for that building until it's approved again.

What approval means (and doesn't)

Approval means only that we took reasonable steps to confirm that the account holder has authority to speak for that building. It does not mean that we checked, agree with or vouch for anything in a response, that any renter report is true or false, or anything about the building's quality, safety, condition, prices or legal compliance. It isn't an endorsement, rating or recommendation. Responses show the label "Response from management" and your organization's name.

Our right to approve, deny or revoke

The Unit File LLC may deny, limit, suspend or revoke an approval at any time, in our discretion, including when we can't confirm your identity or authority, when someone with a stronger claim asks about the same building (for example, after a management change), when information you gave us turns out to be wrong, or when you break these Management Terms, the Terms of Use or the Site Guidelines. We don't have to tell you every reason. A building whose claim we revoked won't be approved again automatically.

5. Responses

One response per report

  • Each renter report can have only one "Response from management," no matter how many people or organizations have accounts. People from the organization that posted it can edit it. Another organization can't add a second one or take it over.
  • Responses can go only under reports that are showing on the site. If a report is hidden, its response is hidden with it.
  • Length: 20 to 1,500 characters. Plain text only. No links.
  • Edits: when you edit a response, the site shows it was "edited." We keep a private copy of every version.
  • You can't delete a response yourself. You can edit it, or ask us to remove it at legal@theunitfile.com.
  • We may limit how often you post.

Your response is your own content

A response is your speech and your organization's speech, not ours. You are responsible for it. We host it with your organization's name on it. We don't write, rewrite or approve what responses say. This matches Section 11 of our Terms of Use (our role as a platform).

What a response must not do

Your response must not:

  1. retaliate or threaten. No threats of any kind, including legal threats, and no retaliation or hint of retaliation against anyone who posts. If you think a report breaks our rules, use the dispute process in Section 9;
  2. identify, or try to identify, the renter. Don't guess who wrote a report, don't say or hint that you know, and don't describe the renter or their household in a way that could point to them;
  3. include personal information. No names (including staff names), unit numbers, lease terms, move-in or move-out dates, rent amounts, balances, payment history, maintenance tickets, notices, eviction or collection details, or anything else from a tenant file or your records about any person;
  4. discriminate. No statement that shows a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, familial status or any other trait protected by the federal Fair Housing Act, the Indiana Fair Housing Act (Ind. Code 22-9.5) or local law, including comments about who "fits" or should live at the building;
  5. make false statements. Stick to your own account of the facts and your organization's position. Don't state as fact that the renter or anyone else committed a crime, lied or did something wrong;
  6. offer incentives to change or remove a report. No money, rent credits, discounts, gifts, deposit returns, lease changes or other benefits to change, remove or add a review, and no asking the renter to contact you to "resolve" the review in exchange for taking it down;
  7. advertise. No specials, prices, promo codes or other promotions; or
  8. break any law, anyone's rights, or our Site Guidelines.

Please do: be courteous, address the experience described, explain what changed if something did, and invite current residents to use your normal office channels.

6. Things you can never do

These rules have no exceptions:

  1. You can't edit, hide, remove, bury, reorder or change any renter report, rating, photo or rent figure, by any means: through your account, a request to us, a flag, a technical trick or a third party. Our free dispute process (Section 9) is the only way to ask us to review a report.
  2. Responses never change scores or placement. Responses and management accounts are never used in Unit Scores, company scores, "would sign again," ratings, rankings, sort order, search results, or which reports appear and in what order.
  3. You can't find out who wrote a report, and we never tell managers who wrote one. Don't try to work it out from your records, from timing or any other way. We share information about who wrote a report only when the law requires it (for example, a valid subpoena or court order), as Section 12 of our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy explain. Renters see the same promise: "Your name is never shown."
  4. You can't pressure, threaten, intimidate or pay renters to change, remove or post reviews, or contact a renter about a review to get it changed or removed.
  5. You can't use a lease or other contract to stop, limit or punish honest reviews. The federal Consumer Review Fairness Act (15 U.S.C. § 45b) generally makes form-contract terms that restrict or penalize honest reviews void and unlawful. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) bans fake reviews, buying reviews, and using threats or intimidation to suppress reviews. See also Section 7 of our Terms of Use.
  6. You can't post or arrange fake, insider or incentivized reports, including reports by staff, owners, friends or competitors (Section 14 of our Terms of Use).
  7. You can't scrape the site or use bots or scripts with your account.

7. How we moderate responses

  • We moderate responses with the same neutral standard we use for renter reports. We publish, hold or remove a response. We don't edit your words.
  • Holds. Our system may hold a response for review before it appears, for example if it seems to contain a phone number, unit number, name, legal threat, link or ad. If an edit is held, the earlier published version stays up until we decide.
  • Reasons. We may hide or remove a response for the same seven reasons listed in Section 10 of our Terms of Use and in the Site Guidelines (fake or spam, including posts by someone without authority for the building; defamatory on its face, harassing, threatening, abusive or obscene; personal information, including anything that identifies or tries to identify a renter; discriminatory; clearly false or misleading on its face; off-topic; or the subject of a copyright or legal request, or plainly illegal). We record which reason we used.
  • Flags. Signed-in users can flag a response, one flag per account. If 3 different users flag a response, it's hidden until we review it. Editing a hidden response doesn't bring it back. Flags never hide renter reports.
  • We never hide a response because it disagrees with a report, and we never hide a report because a response disagrees with it.
  • The Unit File LLC may reject, hold or remove any response at any time.
  • If you disagree with a decision, email legal@theunitfile.com with "Response appeal" in the subject line, a link to the report, and why. We'll take another look, but we don't promise any outcome.

8. Free service, no payment

  • No paid features are offered under these Management Terms, and nothing in them requires payment. Claiming a building, posting and editing responses, and disputing reports are all free. This matches Section 17 of our Terms of Use (paid features).
  • We provide management accounts "as is," with no promised review times or uptime. We may change, pause or stop management accounts or responses at any time. If we stop the feature, we may remove responses from the site.

9. Disputing a renter report

  • A management account doesn't create a separate or faster way to challenge a report. Use the free dispute process in Section 12 of our Terms of Use and in the Site Guidelines: email legal@theunitfile.com with "Dispute" in the subject.
  • There is no paid dispute route. Disputes from management accounts get no priority and no special treatment.
  • We check the report against the reasons in Section 10 of our Terms of Use. We don't decide who's right about disputed facts.
  • Don't send us tenant records or try to identify the renter as part of a dispute.

10. License you give us

You keep ownership of your management content. By submitting it, you give The Unit File a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, display, publish and distribute it on the site, show it with your organization's name, format it for display, moderate it, and keep private copies (including earlier versions) for records, disputes and legal needs. Our service providers may use it only to help us do these things. The license lasts while your content is on the site, and after that for backups, records and legal needs.

You promise that you own your management content or have every right needed to post it and grant this license.

11. Privacy for management accounts

  • What we collect: your sign-in through Clerk; your name (kept private); your organization's name (shown on responses); your work email and its domain; verification records (how we checked you, the result and date, callback notes, and any letter or business card image); which buildings you're approved for and when approval starts and ends; your responses, every earlier version, flags about them and our moderation decisions; and messages you send to legal@theunitfile.com.
  • Letter and business card images are deleted 30 days after we decide on your request. The decision itself is kept.
  • We keep the rest only as long as we need it to run your account, handle disputes, stop repeat abuse and meet legal needs.
  • We use this information to verify you, run your account, show your responses, moderate, prevent impersonation and abuse, handle legal claims and follow the law. We don't sell it. See our Privacy Policy.
  • Managers never receive renter identities. Your dashboard shows only what's already public on the site, plus combined counts.

12. Suspension and ending your account

  • You can stop using your management account at any time. To close it, email legal@theunitfile.com.
  • The Unit File LLC may suspend or close a management account, revoke a claim or remove responses at any time, including if we believe you've broken these Management Terms, the Terms of Use or the Site Guidelines, if we can no longer confirm your authority, or to protect renters, the site or others.
  • Responses after a claim ends may stay up with your organization's name as of when they were posted, unless we remove them under Section 7 or you ask us to.
  • Sections 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 16 continue after your account ends.

13. Disclaimers

Section 19 of our Terms of Use applies. We also don't promise that our checks will catch every impersonator, that any response will be published, or that responding will help your organization's reputation or leasing.

14. Limit on our liability

Section 20 of our Terms of Use applies. Our total liability for all claims about management accounts, responses or these Management Terms is limited as that section says. Because management accounts are free, that limit is $100.

15. Indemnity

Section 21 of our Terms of Use applies. You (including your organization) also agree to defend and indemnify (cover the costs of) The Unit File LLC and its owners, members, employees and agents against any claim, loss or expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from your management content; your conduct toward any renter about a report, including any attempt to identify, contact, pressure or retaliate against a renter; any false statement about your identity or authority; or your breaking these Management Terms, the Terms of Use or the law. This doesn't apply to the extent the claim was caused by our own willful misconduct.

16. Governing law

These Management Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Indiana, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and by applicable federal law. As in Section 23 of our Terms of Use, any lawsuit about them must be brought only in the state courts located in Marion County, Indiana, or the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

17. Changes to these Management Terms

We may update these Management Terms. We'll post the new version at /terms/management and change the "Last updated" date. For a significant change, we'll try to give more notice, such as a notice in your dashboard. If you keep using your management account after changes are posted, you accept them.

18. Contact

The Unit File LLC
Email: legal@theunitfile.com