Legal

Terms of Service

Effective April 26, 2026 · Read this carefully — by using LotKey, you agree to it.

LotKey is a service that watches the New York City affordable-housing lottery system on your behalf, checks every lottery for matches against your household profile, and submits applications you qualify for — automatically. These Terms set the rules for that service.

We’ve tried to write them in plain English. If anything here is unclear, email hello@mylotkey.com before you sign up — we’d rather answer than have you misunderstand.

1. Accepting these Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and the operator of mylotkey.com (the “Service”), referred to in these Terms as “LotKey”, “we”, “us”, or “our”.

By creating an account, clicking a button that says “I agree” (or similar), or using the Service in any way, you accept these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any additional policies we link to here. If you don’t agree, don’t use the Service.

2. Who can use LotKey

You can use the Service only if all of the following are true:

You are at least 18 years old.
You have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract under New York law (and, where applicable, US federal law).
You are using LotKey for your own household, not as a broker, relocation agent, or service provider on behalf of someone else.
You are not currently subject to any suspension or removal from NYC Housing Connect that would make your applications ineligible.
Your use of the Service does not violate any law or regulation that applies to you.

LotKey is built for residents of and applicants to the five boroughs of New York City. We don’t guarantee the Service is appropriate or available outside of that context.

Conflict-of-interest categories that can’t use LotKey. NYC Housing Connect lotteries are subject to anti-conflict rules set by HPD and HDC. Some people are prohibited from being awarded a lottery unit, regardless of how they apply. If any of the following describes you, you are not eligible to use LotKey for that lottery:

You are the developer of a lottery building, or hold an equity interest in the developer or any of the developer’s agents.
You are a director, officer, member, employee, or agent of such a developer — or an employee of any of the developer’s agents.
You are the spouse, sibling, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, or in-law of any person described above.
You are an employee of HDC and the lottery building is part of a project HDC is involved in.
You are an employee of HPD seeking a unit in a building that has been involved in HPD programs or projects in the last three years, and you (a) work in the division administering that program, (b) work in HPD’s Marketing Unit, (c) are or were involved in decisions about that program, or (d) would obtain the unit through a process different from the one used by the general public. If you are an HPD employee invited to confirm eligibility, you must consult HPD’s Office of Legal Affairs and obtain written confirmation that there is no conflict before proceeding.

By using LotKey, you confirm that none of the above applies to you. If your circumstances change while your account is active — for example, if you take a job at HPD, HDC, or a developer — you must let us know so we can pause filings on your behalf.

3. What LotKey is — and what it isn’t

What we do: We monitor the public NYC Housing Connect platform (operated by NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, “HPD”), match open lotteries against the profile you give us, and submit applications on your behalf to the lotteries you qualify for. We notify you about activity on your account and any actions a building or HPD requires from you.

What we don’t do:

We are not NYC HPD, NYC Housing Connect, or any government agency. We are an independent, private company.
We don’t select winners, influence selection, jump queues, or improve your odds of being chosen for any unit beyond ensuring you are entered into every lottery you qualify for.
We are not a real estate broker, attorney, financial advisor, housing counselor, or rental agent. We don’t represent you in those capacities and nothing on the Service is legal, financial, tax, or housing-counseling advice.
We don’t guarantee that you will be selected for any lottery, invited to any viewing, offered any unit, or housed in any specific timeframe. The lottery is run by HPD and the participating buildings; outcomes are theirs, not ours.

You can always apply directly, for free. NYC Housing Connect is free to use. You can register and file applications yourself at any time at housingconnect.nyc.gov. Our subscription pays for the automation, monitoring, and notifications — not for access to the lottery itself, which is and always will be free.

4. Your account

To use the Service you must create an account. You are responsible for:

The accuracy of the information you give us at signup and over time.
Keeping your password (and any third-party login you use, like Google) secure.
All activity that occurs under your account.

One person, one account, one household. You may not share your credentials, sell or transfer your account, or operate accounts for other people. If you discover unauthorized use of your account, notify us immediately at hello@mylotkey.com.

5. Your authorization to file applications on your behalf

This is the most important section in these Terms. Read it carefully.

When you complete onboarding and start a paid subscription, you grant LotKey a limited, revocable authorization to do the following on your behalf:

Create and maintain your NYC Housing Connect profile (or interact with an existing profile you provide credentials for).
Submit lottery applications under your name, using the household information you have given us, to lotteries you qualify for under their published eligibility rules.
Receive, store, and forward to you any communications a building or HPD sends about those applications.
Withdraw applications at your written request, or when you cancel your subscription and ask us to do so.

You confirm that:

All information you give us — your legal name, date of birth, household composition, income, address, preferences, and any self-attested status (student, NYC employee, military service, disability) — is true, complete, and accurate to the best of your knowledge at the time you provide it, and you will keep it current.
You understand that submitting false information to a New York City housing lottery may be a violation of New York law and may disqualify you from current and future lotteries. The information we submit is the information you give us; you are responsible for its truthfulness.
You are authorizing applications in your legal name as it appears on your government-issued ID. We submit the name you give us; if it’s wrong, your application can be invalidated.

Don’t double-apply. NYC Housing Connect rules disqualify applicants who submit more than one application to the same lottery. If you have already applied to a lottery directly — or plan to — tell us in your account settings so we don’t file a duplicate on your behalf. By default, we assume you have not applied to any lottery outside LotKey. You are responsible for keeping that list accurate; duplicate applications can disqualify you from the lottery, and we are not liable for that outcome.

You can revoke this authorization at any time by canceling your subscription, deleting your account, or emailing hello@mylotkey.com. Once revoked, we will stop submitting new applications. Applications already submitted before revocation will remain on file with HPD or the building (we cannot retroactively un-submit them, but we can request withdrawal on your behalf).

6. The lottery process — what we don’t control

Once an application is submitted, the lottery itself, log numbers, eligibility verification, document review, viewings, and unit assignment are entirely in the hands of HPD and the participating building. LotKey is not a party to your application beyond the submission, and we do not communicate, negotiate, or interact with HPD or any building on your behalf after that point.

If you are selected, we’ll surface whatever information our system has from HPD about your application — typically the building name, contact details, log number, and any next-step request — so you can act on it directly. From there, every next step is yours: supplying documents (ID, pay stubs, tax returns), attending viewings, and signing the lease are between you and the building. We do not collect, hold, or transmit your supporting documents. We’re happy to point you to what’s typically required if you ask, but the actual selection-and-lease process is beyond the scope of what we do or store.

7. Free trial, subscription, and billing

LotKey is sold as a paid subscription with an optional free trial.

Free trial. When you sign up for a free trial, we collect your payment method but do not charge you for the trial period stated at signup (currently 7 days). Unless you cancel before the trial ends, your subscription will automatically begin and your payment method will be charged.
Subscription fee. The current subscription fee is $14.99 per month, charged in advance. We may change pricing at any time, but a price change will not affect a billing period that has already started; we will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email before any new price applies to your subscription.
Payment processor. Billing is handled by a third-party payment processor. By providing payment information you agree to that processor’s applicable terms. We don’t store your full card number on our servers.
Taxes. Stated prices do not include sales, use, or similar taxes. You are responsible for any taxes that apply to your purchase.
Failed payments. If a charge fails, we will retry within a standard recovery window. We may pause new lottery submissions while your account is past due, and we may terminate your subscription if it remains unpaid.

8. Cancellation, refunds, and the housewarming refund

Cancel anytime. You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account’s billing settings or by emailing hello@mylotkey.com. Cancellation stops future renewals; you keep access to the Service for the rest of the billing period you’ve already paid for.

No prorated refunds for partial months. Other than the housewarming refund described below, we do not refund unused portions of a billing period. This is consistent with industry-standard subscription pricing.

Housewarming refund. If you accept a unit through a lottery that LotKey filed on your behalf and move into that unit as your primary residence within 12 months of accepting it, we will refund your most recent month’s subscription fee. To request the refund, email us proof of move-in (a signed lease executed within that period is sufficient) within 60 days of your move-in date. The refund applies to one (1) month per household, once per lifetime.

Free trial cancellation. Cancel before the end of your free trial and you will not be charged.

9. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

Provide false, misleading, or fraudulent information.
Use the Service to apply on behalf of anyone other than yourself or members of your own household.
Submit applications you know you don’t qualify for in the hope of slipping through eligibility checks.
Reverse-engineer, scrape, copy, or build a competing service from the Service or its underlying systems.
Probe, scan, or attempt to compromise the security of the Service or any third-party system we connect to.
Use the Service to harass, defame, or harm another person, or in any way that violates the law.
Bypass any rate limits, access controls, or technical measures we’ve put in place.

We may suspend or terminate your account if we reasonably believe you’ve violated this section. We may also report suspected fraud or unlawful activity to the appropriate authorities.

10. Your data and privacy

How we collect, use, store, and share your information is described in our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

Quick summary of what these Terms add on top:

You own your information. We don’t sell it. We don’t share it with anyone except the building / HPD when filing an application you authorized, a small set of service providers acting under confidentiality (for hosting, database, payments, email delivery, and product analytics), and as required by law.
You can export or delete your data at any time from your account settings. Deletion takes effect immediately for our active systems and within a reasonable backup retention window for backups.
We never use your personal information to train AI models or sell it to data brokers.

11. Our intellectual property

The Service, the LotKey name and logo, our website, software, and content are ours (or our licensors’). While these Terms are in effect, we give you permission to use the Service for its intended purpose — that permission is personal to you, can’t be transferred, and can be revoked. Anything we don’t explicitly give you, we keep.

12. Communications

By creating an account, you agree to receive emails and (if you opt in) text messages from us related to your account, your subscription, and the lottery applications we file on your behalf. These are service communications, not marketing — you can’t opt out of them while you have an active account.

You can opt in or out of optional marketing emails at any time from your account settings or by clicking the unsubscribe link in any marketing message.

Feedback requests. We may also contact you — by email, SMS, or in-app message — to ask about your experience with the Service. This applies to all users, including recent ones, and helps us improve LotKey for everyone. Feedback requests aren’t marketing; you can decline to respond at any time, and you can ask us to stop sending them by emailing hello@mylotkey.com.

13. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the maximum extent permitted by law, LotKey disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranties arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

We don’t warrant that:

The Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free.
Every eligible lottery will be detected, matched, or filed in time.
You will be selected for any lottery, invited to any viewing, or housed.
NYC Housing Connect, HPD, or any participating building will accept, process, or act on any submission we make on your behalf.

Some states don’t allow certain warranty disclaimers. If you live in such a state, the disclaimers above apply to you only to the extent allowed by your state’s law.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, LotKey, its officers, directors, employees, and agents will not be liable for any:

Indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost savings, lost opportunities (including a missed lottery, a lost unit, or a delayed move-in), loss of data, or loss of goodwill — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Damages caused by HPD, a building, a landlord, or any third party.
Damages caused by your violation of these Terms, by inaccurate information you provided, or by your decision (or failure to decide) to act on a notification we sent you.

Cap on direct damages. Our total cumulative liability to you for all claims arising out of or related to the Service or these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid LotKey in the twelve (12) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred US dollars ($100). This cap applies regardless of the legal theory of the claim.

Some states don’t allow these limitations. If you live in such a state, the limitations above apply to you only to the extent allowed by your state’s law.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless LotKey, its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to (a) information you provided that turned out to be false, misleading, or incomplete, (b) your violation of these Terms, (c) your violation of any law or third-party right, or (d) your use of the Service in a way we did not authorize.

16. Termination

You can terminate this agreement at any time by canceling your subscription and deleting your account.

We can terminate or suspend your account, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you’ve violated these Terms, if your account is past due, if maintaining the account would expose us to legal risk, or if we discontinue the Service.

On termination: your right to use the Service ends; we’ll stop submitting new applications on your behalf; we’ll process any outstanding refund you’re owed under Section 8; and we’ll retain or delete your information as described in our Privacy Policy. Sections 5 (Authorization — to the extent it covers already-submitted applications), 11 (IP), 13 (Disclaimers), 14 (Liability), 15 (Indemnification), 19 (Governing law), 20 (Arbitration), and 21 (Miscellaneous) survive termination.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we’ll notify you by email and post the updated Terms here at least 30 days before they take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. If you don’t agree, cancel your subscription before the effective date.

18. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to the arbitration agreement in Section 19, any lawsuit arising out of these Terms must be brought in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York, and you and LotKey consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

19. Arbitration agreement and class-action waiver

Read this section carefully — it affects how you can resolve a dispute with us.

You and LotKey agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service (a “Dispute”) — except for the carve-outs below — will be resolved by binding individual arbitration, not in court, and not as part of a class or representative action.

How arbitration works:

Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Information at www.adr.org.
Arbitration will take place in New York County, New York, or by video / phone if you prefer and the AAA rules allow it.
The arbitrator’s decision is final and enforceable in any court of competent jurisdiction.
For claims of $10,000 or less, LotKey will pay the AAA administrative fees and the arbitrator’s fees, unless your claim is determined by the arbitrator to be frivolous.

Class action waiver. You and LotKey each agree that any Dispute will be brought only in your or our individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated, or representative action. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims and may not preside over any form of representative or class proceeding.

Carve-outs. Either party may bring a Dispute (a) in small-claims court if it qualifies under the court’s rules, or (b) in court to seek injunctive or other equitable relief to protect intellectual property or confidential information.

30-day right to opt out of arbitration. You can opt out of this arbitration agreement and class-action waiver by emailing hello@mylotkey.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Use the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” and include your full name and the email address on your account. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

If this section is unenforceable. If any part of this Section 19 is found unenforceable, that part will be severed and the rest remains in effect. If the class-action waiver itself is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim must be brought in court (not in arbitration).

20. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and LotKey about the Service, and replace any prior agreement on the same subject.
No waiver. If we don’t enforce a right under these Terms, that doesn’t mean we’ve waived it.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.
Assignment. You can’t assign or transfer these Terms without our written consent. We can assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of our assets.
Force majeure. We’re not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control (acts of God, government action, internet outages, denial-of-service attacks, HPD or NYC Housing Connect downtime, etc.).
Notices. We’ll send notices to the email on your account; you’ll send notices to hello@mylotkey.com.
Headings. Section headings are for convenience only and don’t affect interpretation.
Independent service. LotKey is an independent service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NYC HPD, NYC Housing Connect, the City of New York, or any building owner or developer.

21. How to reach us

For anything — questions about your account, support, billing, legal notices, or just to say hi: hello@mylotkey.com.

Thanks for reading. We know it’s long. Email us if any of it feels off.