To try and keep this as simple as possible, think of the difference between a landlord and management company this way. When something in the apartment breaks, do you call an individual (landlord) or a company (management company)? The actual owner of the apartment does not factor into the evaluation, unless the owner is the person that you call when something breaks (and would be considered the landlord).

Metro areas are the "largest" of the three and is the terms for a city and all associated neighborhoods, suburbs, etc. A neighborhood is a section of a city, such as Back Bay in Boston). A suburb is a separate town that can be very close to the main city (i.e., Cambridge to Boston) or farther away.

Determining if an area is a neighborhod or a suburb is sometimes more of an art than a science - just let us know if you think the way that we've classified something is confusing and we'll adjust accordingly.

An advocate is a member of Landlord Review that will allow other members to email them to inquire about a review. The initial contact is made using the Landlord Review website, so that the advocate's personal information is protected. Once the advocate receives the inquiry, it is up to the advocate to respond to the inquiry using their personal email account. We ask that advocates respond to inquiries within seven days.

If you set a preferred metro area, that metro area will be automatically loaded when you log in. Once you log in, you can easily view other metro areas by clicking on the "View other metro areas" link on bottom-left of every page. You are free to update the preferred metro area at any time.

You can search for landlords outside of your preferred metro area at any time by clicking on the "View other metro areas" link on bottom-left of every page. If you close your browser of log out of the website, your metro area is returned to your preferred metro area.

There are threee different types of searches. The first is a list of all landlords, management companies, etc. that have been added for the specified metro area. This is best if you know the name of the landlord that you are looking up. The second method is most useful to find a set of landlords, management companies, etc. that meet a set of specified criteria. The third method is a full list of landlords, arranged alphabetically, for you to browse for a specific landlord.

Landlord Review is only populated with landlords, management companies, etc. that members have taken the time to write reviews about. If you don't see your current or previous landlord, please add them today and review them. Unfortunately, there is no "master list" of landlords, management companies, etc. that can be used to seed the website.

Members which have declared themselves to be advocates allow other members to directly contact them for inquiries, comments, etc. on their reviews. Not all members have declared themselves to be advocates, and we understand and respect their wishes. However, we greatly appreciate all of our advocates as we see this as one of the unique features of Landlord Review - giving potential tenants the ability to contact previous tenants to get the real scoop on landlords, management companies, etc.

If you haven't declared yourself to be an advocate, please consider updating your registeration and become an advocate today.

Reviews are flagged by users for many reasons, but primarily because it contains potentialy objectionable content. Once the review is flagged, it is reviewed by Landlord Review and any objectionable content is removed. When a review is flagged, only the review is eligible for review - the ratings (# of stars) associated with the review are not eligible to be changed.

At this time, landlords can only be associated with one metro area. This means if Jim Smith has property in New York and in Boston, Jim Smith must be added as a landlord for Boston and then again for New York. Furthermore, the landlord profiles are not associated and are essentially treated as separate landlords. While this is not optimal (and we hope to enhance this functionality in the near future), this scenario does not occur very often.

Landlord Review requires users to register before writing reviews for several reasons. First, since we trying to build an active community of tenants, we want to add you to the community. Second, we want to ensure that each person has an equal voice when writing a review, so we restrict members to a single review for a particular landlord, management company, etc. Finally, if we find that a user is continually abusive in their reviews or otherwise does not adhere to the terms of use, we may restrict the member's access to the website. Landlord Review will not sell, share, or distribute your personal information for any reason.

If you would like to write an anonymous review, check the radio button so that your username will not display with the review. If you are an advocate, you will still be able to receive emails, with your personal information being protected as an advocate. You can update this setting at any time by updating your review and checking the appropriate radio button.

The best way to avoid a review from getting flagged is to use common sense, keep it factual, and don't write an emotional diatribe. If a review is flagged, it will be scrubbed for content that is not related to the landlord's ability as a landlord (i.e., calling the landlord a drug dealer will not be permitted). Remember, any review can be flagged for review. Just because the review is flagged for review does not mean that content will be removed.

The partial phone number is provided to distinguish landlord's with similar names. Please use the partial phone number to ensure that you are reading or writing reviews for the intended landlord.

To ensure that all tenants have an equal voice, members are restricted to a single review for a particular landlord, management company, etc. You are free to update your previously written reviews at any time.

The list of landlords that appears when you are about to read a review includes only landlords that have reviews written about them. The list of landlords that appears when you are about to write a landlord shows the full set of landlords for the metro area you've selected. It is possible that a landlord was added to Landlord Review but a review was never written for that individual.

Since phone numbers are being used to uniquely identify landlords, we do not allow a landlord to be added without a work phone number. We ask that you do not "make one up" if you do not know it - we need to keep this landlord information as accurate as possible for other tenants to use.

Please email us if you would like to request a mero area, suburb, or neighborhood to Landlord Review. We will usually review your request in 24 hours and inform you when a decision regarding the request is made.

Partial phone numbers are provided for identification purposes only and are not meant to contact the landlord.

Heck yeah! We want to keep the information stored at Landlord Review as accurate as possible. If you see an error, please submit a request to update the information and we'll take a look at it. Unless the change seems egregious, we will make it right away. (Egregious requests, such as a request to change the name of a landlord named Jim Smith with really bad ratings to Marcus Beasley will most likely not be allowed).

If you read a review that contains questionable content, such as references to events that are not related to the ability of the landlord, personal atttacks, or extremely personal (and unrelated) information. It should be flaged for review. We'll take a look, scrub it of any inappropriate content, and re-post it pronto.

Yes, you can. Please keep it very simple (making text bold, italics, etc.) Please don't include links to external sites or images. Any HTML more complicated than basic HTML probably won't be supported.

Each user is only allowed to write one review for a particular landlord, management company, etc, so the "Add Review" link is not displayed if you have already written a review for the landlord, management company, etc.

Yes. Just change the metro area that you're looking at by clicking the "View other metro areas" link on the bottom-left side of the page, choose another metro area, and then find whatever landlord you want.

Generally, the answer is no. But again, use your common sense. Don't call a landlord a drug dealer or refer to extremely personal events such as divorces, deaths in the family, etc.. We've tried to cover you with the flagging of reviews and scrubbing of objectionable content, but we can only review the flagged content.

So far, the courts have indicated that the publishers of opinions, i.e., Landlord Review, is not liable for the opinions expressed on the website.