Terms of Service

Use of This Site

You may use this site to review rental information, application guidance, and property management services for lawful personal or business purposes. You agree not to misuse the site, attempt unauthorized access, or interfere with site operations.

Accounts and Security

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or submit a rental application. You agree to provide accurate information, keep your sign-in credentials confidential, and notify us promptly of any suspected unauthorized use of your account. You are responsible for activity that occurs under your account. We may suspend access where reasonably necessary to protect the platform, other users, or your account.

Listings and Information Accuracy

We work to keep listing details, pricing, and availability current, but information can change without notice. The site content is provided for general information and does not guarantee that any property will remain available or that any application will be approved.

Applications and Eligibility

Submitting an inquiry, rental application, or owner contact request does not create a lease, management agreement, or promise of acceptance. Final decisions are made after required screening, documentation review, service fit evaluation, and compliance checks under applicable laws and company standards. Completing the prequalification questionnaire is not a rental application; submitting one creates no lease, approval, reservation, or hold on any property, and no priority over other prospective renters.

Prequalification Submissions

If you complete the prequalification questionnaire, Carwoods may use an AI service, at an administrator's request, to generate an internal narrative summary comparing your answers to our published Tenant Selection Criteria. This is a human-reviewed decision aid only, distinct from the AI-Assisted Responses feature described elsewhere in these Terms — no automated decision is made from a prequalification summary, and any resulting determination is made by a person. You agree that the information you submit in a prequalification questionnaire is accurate and complete. Carwoods may compare it with the information you later provide on a formal rental application, and a material misrepresentation discovered at that stage, or after approval, may result in rejection of the application or termination of a resulting lease, together with any other remedy available to Carwoods under applicable law.

Portal and Subscription Services

The Carwoods portal is offered as a subscription software service for property managers and independent landlords. A free tier is available with limited functionality. Paid tiers are available on Carwoods.com and, in the iOS app, as auto-renewing in-app subscriptions purchased through Apple. Access to the portal does not guarantee a specific level of service, uptime, or feature availability. We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any tier with reasonable notice. Subscriptions are tied to the account holder; they are not transferable.

Automatic renewal. A paid subscription renews automatically for the same billing period — monthly or yearly — until it is cancelled. The renewal price and the billing period are shown before you confirm. A subscription bought through Apple is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase, and renews within 24 hours before the end of the current period unless it is cancelled first.

Cancellation and management. You may cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and the subscription stays active until then. A subscription bought through Apple is managed and cancelled in your Apple Account subscription settings; we cannot cancel or change it for you. A subscription billed on Carwoods.com is managed in your billing settings on the web.

Refunds. Refunds for a subscription bought through Apple are handled by Apple under Apple's refund policy and must be requested from Apple; we cannot issue them. Refunds for a subscription billed on the web are handled by us through our payment processor, Stripe.

Apple-billed and web-billed subscriptions. You may hold only one paid subscription at a time. A subscription bought through Apple is billed and managed by Apple; a subscription bought on Carwoods.com is billed and managed through Stripe on the web. Moving from one to the other means cancelling the first and subscribing on the other; you are never billed on both at once.

Payments

Online rent payments offered through the portal are processed by Stripe, a third-party payment processor, under Stripe's own terms and privacy policy. Carwoods does not store full card numbers or bank credentials on its servers. Submitting a payment authorizes the charge you confirm at checkout, including any autopay schedule you enable; you can cancel autopay in the portal before the next scheduled charge. Payment obligations between tenants and landlords are defined by the lease, not by the portal, and manual payment entries recorded by a landlord are bookkeeping records only — they do not move money. You are responsible for fees resulting from failed payments or chargebacks where permitted by law and the lease.

Late Fees, Caps, and Waivers

Landlords and property managers are solely responsible for the late-fee amounts, caps, and waivers they set through the portal, and for whether they comply with the lease and applicable law. Where the portal suggests a cap, or applies one automatically, that figure is offered as a convenience only; it is not legal advice and does not mean the figure suits your lease or property.

A late-fee waiver is permanent once recorded: Carwoods cannot undo or edit it, and a mistaken waiver can be corrected only by recording a new manual late-fee entry. You are responsible for what you write in a waiver note. The note is stored with the waiver and is visible only to you and Carwoods administrators; avoid including sensitive personal information you do not need to record.

Financial Record Retention

You may delete your account at any time from your profile, and you may remove an individual property from your portfolio at any time. In either case — account deletion or property removal — we retain a pseudonymous record of the related financial transactions (amounts, dates, and status only, with no personal identifiers) for approximately seven years from that deletion or removal, to satisfy our tax and bookkeeping record-keeping obligations, after which it is purged. Deleting your account also permanently deletes your personal information; removing a property does not delete your account. Any applicable tax forms, such as 1099s, are issued by our payment processor, Stripe, not by Carwoods.

Tenant Data

Property managers who use the Carwoods portal invite and manage their own tenants. The property manager, not Carwoods, is the data controller for their tenants’ personal information within the portal. Property managers are responsible for obtaining appropriate consent from their tenants and complying with applicable privacy laws. Carwoods processes tenant data solely to provide the portal services to the property manager.

Move-out Notices and Landlord Responses

The portal lets tenants submit notices to vacate and lets landlords record an accept, counter, or reject decision. These records are a convenience for both parties to track the move-out process; they do not replace any notice requirement imposed by a lease, local ordinance, or applicable law. The legally binding notice is whatever the lease and applicable law require — not the portal entry. Tenants and landlords remain responsible for meeting notice periods, delivery requirements, and any other legal formalities. Carwoods does not guarantee that a portal entry satisfies statutory notice or that a counter-proposal is enforceable. Any forwarding address provided by a tenant is shared with their landlord; Carwoods does not use it for any other purpose.

Elsa

Elsa is Carwoods' AI assistant. Elsa may suggest draft responses to tenant maintenance requests and other communications; these suggestions are generated automatically and are offered as a convenience only, and the landlord or property manager is solely responsible for reviewing, editing, approving, and sending any response to a tenant, including any AI-generated draft — by sending an AI-suggested message, the landlord or property manager accepts full responsibility for its content. Elsa also answers questions about your own portfolio data using a third-party AI model, and can create and update records for you — for example, updating a maintenance request, recording a rent payment, or posting a message to a tenant — but only after you confirm each change: Elsa first shows you the exact change, and your records aren't changed until you confirm it. A change you confirm may notify your tenants exactly as the same change made in the portal would, and, where the portal shows you a change history for that record, it is recorded there as made via Elsa. You are responsible for every change you confirm, just as any action you take based on an Elsa answer remains your responsibility. Elsa may be unavailable, incorrect, or incomplete, and its suggestions and answers do not constitute legal, safety, medical, or professional advice — Carwoods makes no warranty that they are accurate, complete, legally compliant, or appropriate for any particular situation. Landlords and property managers should exercise independent judgment and consult qualified professionals when required.

Elsa Conversations

Conversations you have with Elsa are retained for 90 days after your last activity and are then purged automatically; you may delete a conversation at any time, and account deletion removes all of them.

Connected AI Apps

If you connect an external AI client to your portfolio data, you are responsible for that client and its provider. Carwoods shares only the data scopes you approve, does not control what the connected app does with that data, and you may revoke a connection at any time from your profile. A connected app can create and update records only within the change permissions you separately approve for each data area; a change it makes may notify your tenants exactly as the same change made in the portal would, and, where the portal shows you a change history for that record, it is recorded there as made via that app. A connected app can upload new documents to your Document Center only under a separate, distinct permission you approve for that; editing a document's details is a different permission that never touches the file itself. You are responsible for every change made under the change permissions you approve. A lapsed subscription or an account we deactivate ends every connection.

Change Feed Permission

Approving the change-feed permission lets a connected AI app view change events from your own portfolio for 7 days after they happen. It does not let the app change anything. Events can concern your tenants' requests, payments, and leases, so you are responsible for approving only apps and providers you trust with that information. Carwoods may switch the change feed off at any time.

Unattended Actions

Unattended actions are off by default. If you turn them on for a connected AI app, you authorize that app to make the changes its change permissions allow on your behalf, without asking you each time, within the hourly limit you set. The app declares an action as unattended itself, so you are responsible for choosing apps you trust and for every change they make, including changes that notify your tenants. Unattended actions never apply to upkeep assigned to a tenant. You can switch unattended actions off, or disconnect the app, at any time.

AI Usage Allowance and Overage

Every use of Elsa — including drafted responses and portfolio questions — draws on a monthly AI usage allowance based on your portfolio, resetting on the first of each calendar month (UTC) without rollover. Stripe customers may opt in to overage at the displayed multiple of estimated cost, with total charges capped at their approved monthly budget. Carwoods absorbs processing overruns. Withdrawing consent or lowering the budget affects future usage; charges already incurred remain payable. Admin pricing and allowance changes take effect next month. Apple and complimentary accounts pause when their allowance is exhausted.

AI Usage Tracking and Audit

We track and audit every use of Elsa and any connected AI app on your account, including calls made through the Model Context Protocol endpoint, to protect the security of the platform, enforce the AI usage allowance, and investigate misuse.

Suspension for Abuse or Misuse

We may suspend or deactivate your access to Elsa's portfolio questions and any connected AI app at any time, for your account or a specific connection, if we determine in our reasonable judgment that it is being used abusively or in a manner inconsistent with these Terms. We will tell you when we do, and you may contact us to request reinstatement.

Notifications and Consent

By using portal messaging features, you agree to receive service notifications related to onboarding, maintenance, and rent payment activity according to your profile preferences. SMS delivery requires explicit opt-in. Security and compliance notifications, payment receipts, and notices of upcoming automatic payments may be sent regardless of optional channel preferences.

Landlord Calendar Feed

The calendar feed link is a credential. Anyone who holds it can see the events in your feed, so you are responsible for keeping it private and for sharing it only with people and calendar apps you trust. If you think it has been exposed, reset or turn off the link in your profile; the old link then stops working. The feed is read-only and provided as a convenience. Calendar apps refresh on their own schedule, so it can lag behind the portal, and you should not rely on it as the only record of a deadline.

Third-Party Services

Some actions may route you to third-party services such as HAR.com or other application providers. Those services have their own terms, policies, and availability. We are not responsible for third-party content, downtime, or actions outside our control.

Prohibited Use

You may not copy, scrape, republish, or commercially exploit site content without written permission. You also may not upload malicious code, submit false information, or use this site in a way that violates law or another person's rights.

Intellectual Property

The Carwoods name, logo, site content, and portal software are owned by Carwoods or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive license to use the site and portal for their intended purposes; no other rights are granted. Content you submit through the services remains yours, and you grant us a license to host, display, and process it as needed to operate the services.

Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate access to the site or portal if you breach these Terms, create risk or possible legal exposure for us or other users, or where required by law. You may stop using the services at any time, and you can request account closure through the portal or our contact page. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination — including disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnification, and governing law — survive.

Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

This site is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, to the extent allowed by law. Carwoods is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from your use of the site or reliance on posted information.

Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Carwoods, its owners, and its agents from claims, damages, and reasonable legal fees arising out of your misuse of the services, your violation of these Terms or applicable law, or content you submit — except to the extent caused by our own negligence or willful misconduct.

No Legal Advice

Information on this site is provided for general informational purposes only and is not legal, tax, accounting, or investment advice. You should consult qualified professionals for advice specific to your situation.

Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, you agree to contact us and allow thirty days to attempt an informal resolution. Unless applicable law requires otherwise, any dispute that cannot be resolved informally must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Harris County, Texas, and each party consents to the jurisdiction of those courts. Nothing in this section limits rights you may have under consumer-protection or tenant-protection laws that cannot be waived.

Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Updated Terms are effective when posted on this page. Your continued use of the site after updates means you accept the revised Terms.

General Provisions

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any posted service-specific terms, are the entire agreement between you and Carwoods regarding the site and portal.

Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, please contact us through our Contact Us page.