By Nadav Zohar, Partner, Kimball Tirey & St. John

More tenants are using ChatGPT or similar AI tools to draft demand letters directly to landlords and to respond to attorney correspondence. In many cases, these letters are lengthy, abusive, and confident in tone, but they often cite irrelevant law, make unsupported factual claims, and assert demands that do not line up with the actual facts or the governing legal standards. That does not mean the correspondence should be ignored. It does mean, however, that style and volume should not be mistaken for merit. A polished or legal-sounding letter is not necessarily a well-founded one, and A-I-generated content can make weak claims appear more substantial than they really are.

If you choose to respond directly to an abusive tenant, one practical consideration is that many of these letters appear to be copied and pasted straight into A-I tools to generate the next round of correspondence. There is no perfect way to prevent that, but there are a few options that may make your response less easily searchable, less machine-readable, and harder for an A-I tool to be used by the tenant to process and respond to:

• Convert some or all key text into images before sending: This can make text extraction less clean, though it also makes your own editing more cumbersome.
• Use headers, text boxes, or other formatting strategically: This can disrupt copy/paste or text extraction.
• Password-protect documents when appropriate: This may deter casual forwarding or uploading, though it is not a complete solution once the recipient opens the file.
• Use regular mail instead of email in appropriate cases: Where a tenant is being abusive, sending repetitive AI-generated messages, or using email mainly to provoke ongoing back-and-forth, one option is to stop engaging by email and instead send correspondence by regular mail or certified mail with tracking. That approach can slow the cycle of immediate AI-generated responses, can make the document harder for an A-I took to process and respond to, and reduce the incentive for constant electronic escalation.
• Use Prominent Watermarks: Use Word’s watermark feature to add a large, visible watermark on every page that says something like: “CONFIDENTIAL & PRIVILEGED – DO NOT UPLOAD TO AI SERVICES.”
• Saving as an “Image PDF”: This creates a PDF where each page is a single image, preventing text selection or extraction.

When dealing with abusive A-I using tenants, I personally like to call them out for their abuse. Below is a sample paragraph I sometimes use when a tenant’s correspondence appears to rely heavily on AI-generated or formulaic legal language:

“The landlord notes that your recent communications appear to rely heavily on artificial-intelligence-generated and/or formulaic legal language. Whether your communications were drafted personally, through the use of ChatGPT or similar A-I tools, or with other assistance, that does not alter the underlying facts, create evidentiary support where none exists, or transform ordinary residential issues into legally actionable claims. Repetition of the same allegations in increasingly lengthy, legalistic, or AI-assisted correspondence does not make those allegations correct. The landlord’s position is based on the facts known to date, not on the style, volume, or format of your correspondence.”

You can also consider using the following when appropriate:

“The landlord has considered and responded to your position. Absent materially new facts, it will not continue devoting resources to repetitive correspondence that simply repackages the same allegations in different wording, including A-I-assisted or lawyer-styled demands. Likewise, threats of litigation, agency complaints, or negative online reviews will not compel the landlord to provide concessions beyond those it is voluntarily offering.”

At the same time, each situation is different. Please use your best judgment before responding to tenant correspondence, especially where the facts are disputed, emotions are elevated, or legal issues may be developing. If you are unsure how to respond, you can always reach out to us before sending anything, and we are happy to help evaluate the situation and prepare an appropriate response. Don’t allow tenants to bully you with A-I and make sure your employees/staff are trained on the topic.

Nadav Zohar is an attorney and partner in the Los Angeles office of the law firm of Kimball Tirey & St. John. This article is for general information purposes only. Laws may have changed since this article was published. Before acting, be sure to receive legal advice from a licensed professional. For more information, go to https://www.kts-law.com/.