How BizLeaseCheck Works

1) Upload

Upload any of the 15 supported document types — a commercial or residential lease, personal guaranty, SBA loan package, franchise FDD, MSA, CRE or business purchase agreement, MCA, equipment finance agreement, employment / NDA, LLC operating agreement, construction subcontract, insurance policy, or assumed-lease assignment. Upload a PDF or paste the text. Text-based PDFs work best, but scanned/image PDFs are supported too (OCR may take a bit longer).

Start here: Analyze a document.

2) Preview

You receive a free preview that includes an executive summary, a danger score, and top red flags (details may be blurred).

See exactly what it looks like: Sample report.

3) Unlock (optional)

If you want full details, you can unlock a report with a one-time payment or use a subscription plan. Unlocking reveals full clause citations, negotiation tactics, and deeper analysis.

Details: Pricing.

4) Use the results

• Budget: identify cost drivers (CAM/NNN, taxes, insurance, utilities).
• Negotiate: prioritize the few clauses that change the economics the most.
• Compare: compare lease numbers and risk across locations and terms.

Analysis methodology

BizLeaseCheck uses a multi-step AI pipeline. Each PDF is parsed for embedded text using pdfjs-dist; pages that lack extractable text fall back to image OCR via OpenAI's vision API. The combined document text is then analyzed by a document-type-specific prompt that scores risk categories and surfaces specific clause evidence with an approximate page number.

Lease risk categories scored on lease reports

1. Personal guarantee / guaranty terms
2. Operating expenses / CAM / pass-throughs
3. Repairs and maintenance
4. Assignment, sublease, and change of control
5. Default and remedies
6. Insurance and indemnity
7. Relocation, demolition, condemnation, and casualty
8. Use clause, exclusives, and radius restrictions

Guaranty and SBA categories scored on guaranty reports

1. Scope: unlimited/unconditional vs. limited guaranty
2. Joint and several liability
3. Continuing guaranty and future advances
4. Waiver of suretyship defenses
5. Waiver of subrogation and reimbursement
6. Spousal guaranty, community-property exposure, and ECOA-sensitive signatures
7. Collateral and cross-collateralization, including UCC-1 all-assets filings, after-acquired property, home-equity collateral, and life-insurance assignments
8. Confession of judgment / cognovit provisions
9. Acceleration, cross-default, and default triggers
10. Reinstatement / bankruptcy clawback revival
11. Absence of burn-off, release, or burn-down mechanics
12. Governing law, venue, and jury-trial waiver
13. SBA-specific owner-guarantee, collateral, standby-creditor, and SBA-form issues

FDD categories scored on franchise disclosure reports

1. FTC Franchise Rule timing, including the 14-calendar-day furnishing rule and receipt dates
2. FDD completeness and the 23 disclosure Items in 16 CFR Part 436
3. Item 19 financial performance representations, substantiation prompts, and missing-FPR diligence
4. Item 5 initial fees and Item 6 royalty, brand-fund, transfer, renewal, technology, and audit fees
5. Item 7 estimated initial investment, working capital, and startup-cost range pressure testing
6. Item 8 required purchases, approved suppliers, affiliate revenue, and rebate questions
7. Item 12 protected territory, reserved rights, online channels, alternate channels, and encroachment risk
8. Item 17 renewal, termination, transfer, right-of-first-refusal, dispute-resolution, and covenant issues
9. Items 3 and 4 litigation and bankruptcy disclosures
10. Item 20 outlet movement, closures, transfers, terminations, non-renewals, and franchisee-call prompts
11. Item 21 financial statements and franchisor support-capacity questions

Quality controls

• PDF uploads are capped at 12 MB and 150 pages to prevent runaway analysis on outlier files.
• OCR fallback is bounded at 60 image pages per upload with per-request timeouts so jobs fail fast instead of stalling.
• Every red flag must include a short verbatim evidence excerpt from the document and an approximate page number.
• The AI never claims to be an attorney; negotiation email drafts are written as the tenant, borrower, or business owner, not as counsel.

SBA and guaranty authority signals

Guaranty content cites primary or authoritative sources where available, including SBA Form 148, SBA SOP 50 10, 13 CFR § 120.160, and Regulation B / ECOA. State-law pages cite official state code, court, SBA, or Cornell-style legal sources when making specific claims.

FDD authority signals

FDD content cites official FTC and eCFR materials only, including the FTC Franchise Rule, 16 CFR Part 436, 16 CFR 436.5 disclosure Items, and 16 CFR 436.2 furnishing timing. Franchise state registration and relationship-law questions are intentionally left for qualified counsel and the later state-law content layer.

Data sources for jurisdiction guides

State and provincial guides are written from publicly-available statutes (linked in each guide), official court resources, SBA resources, industry reports on commercial leasing norms, and tenant-side or borrower-side legal commentary. Each guide cites primary sources where a specific claim is made, and we update them when major legislation changes the landlord-tenant or lender-guarantor balance in a jurisdiction.

What we do not do

• We are not a law firm. We do not provide legal representation, advice, or attorney-client privilege.
• We do not negotiate on your behalf, sign documents, or communicate with landlords, lenders, or creditors.
• We do not benchmark against real-time market rents — use a commercial broker for current local comparables.
• Reports can be wrong. Always confirm critical clauses, guaranty exposure, collateral pledges, and state enforcement questions with a qualified professional before signing.

Privacy and data

We store uploaded PDFs in private storage to power the viewer and exports. We also store extracted text and analysis outputs so you can retrieve reports and unlock paid content.

For details, see Privacy policy.

Important limitations

BizLeaseCheck is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. It can miss context and it can be wrong. Use it to move faster and ask better questions—then confirm critical decisions with qualified professionals.