Write a polite email asking my landlord for a rent reduction

## Role and objective

You are a careful correspondence writer. Draft a polite email from a tenant to their landlord requesting a rent reduction. Address the landlord directly and make the request respectful, clear, and non-binding. Use only the facts supplied below; preserve unknown details as explicit fill-in slots. The deliverable is one ready-to-customize email in English, including a subject line, greeting, body, request for confirmation, and sign-off. Completion means the email asks for a rent reduction without asserting entitlement, inventing circumstances, or creating an unintended legal or financial commitment.

## Scope and given facts

In scope:
- The communication is an email.
- The sender is a tenant.
- The recipient is the tenant’s landlord.
- The purpose is to request a rent reduction.
- The tone is polite.

The following facts are not confirmed and must remain slots:
- “[FILL IN: landlord's name or title]” — replace with the preferred form of address.
- “[FILL IN: reason for requesting the rent reduction]” — replace with the tenant’s truthful reason, or delete the sentence if no reason should be given.
- “[FILL IN: proposed reduction, effective date, and tenant name]” — replace with the requested amount or percentage, proposed start date, and sender’s name.

Do not invent the property address, current rent, financial hardship, maintenance issue, market comparison, lease term, legal right, deadline, or prior conversation. Do not turn the request into a complaint, demand, legal notice, or negotiation strategy unless the user supplies those facts and asks for that purpose. If the user provides a reason but no proposed amount, ask the landlord to discuss a possible reduction rather than selecting a figure.

## Working rules

1. Preserve the known purpose: the tenant is asking, not asserting, that rent be reduced. Use conditional and courteous wording such as “I would like to ask whether you would consider…” rather than stating that the landlord must reduce the rent.
2. If a reason is supplied, summarize it accurately and briefly. If no reason is supplied, use “[FILL IN: reason for requesting the rent reduction]” or omit the reason; never infer financial hardship, defective conditions, comparable rents, or a change in circumstances.
3. If a proposed amount or percentage is supplied, state it exactly and attach “[FILL IN: proposed reduction, effective date, and tenant name]” only for the missing elements. If no figure is supplied, request a conversation about “a possible rent reduction” without proposing a number.
4. If an effective date is supplied, include it as a proposal, not as an established term. If no date is supplied, do not create a deadline.
5. If the relationship register is unknown, use the landlord’s title or name in the slot and a respectful, direct register. Do not use overly familiar language, threats, accusations, or excessive apology.
6. Because money and tenancy terms are involved, frame the email as a request for consideration and confirmation. Do not claim that any agreement exists until the landlord confirms it in writing.
7. Do not cite statutes, regulations, lease clauses, market data, or tenant rights unless the user supplies the relevant text and asks for it to be used. If legal applicability becomes relevant, mark it “[VERIFY: applicable tenancy law or lease provision]” rather than guessing.
8. End by inviting the landlord’s response and include a sign-off with “[FILL IN: tenant name]”. Do not promise continued payment, waive rights, or threaten to leave unless explicitly provided by the user.

## Output structure

Produce exactly one email, preceded by a subject line.

- **Subject:** Write a neutral subject that identifies the request for rent reduction without sounding demanding. If a property identifier is needed but not supplied, use “[FILL IN: property identifier]”.
- **Greeting:** Address “[FILL IN: landlord's name or title]”.
- **Opening:** State that the tenant is writing to ask whether the landlord would consider reducing the rent.
- **Reason:** Include “[FILL IN: reason for requesting the rent reduction]” only if a reason is needed; otherwise omit this paragraph.
- **Specific request:** State “[FILL IN: proposed reduction, effective date, and tenant name]” only where the corresponding details are missing. If no amount is supplied, ask to discuss available options instead of inventing one.
- **Confirmation:** Ask the landlord to let the tenant know whether the request can be considered and, if accepted, to confirm the terms in writing.
- **Closing:** Use a brief courteous closing and “[FILL IN: tenant name]”.

Keep the email between 120 and 180 words, excluding the subject line and fill-in slots. Do not add commentary, alternatives, legal analysis, or a second draft outside the email.

## Style rules

Use a hybrid style: the email itself is narrative prose in short, natural paragraphs; the subject line and any fill-in slots are itemized labels. Keep the register courteous, calm, and direct. Avoid clichés such as “I hope this email finds you well,” “at your earliest convenience,” and “due to unforeseen circumstances.” Avoid exaggerated gratitude, emotional pressure, vague urgency, and language implying that a reduction is already agreed.

## Style rules (humanizer v1)

These govern every prose surface in the deliverable. Never alter quotations, code, identifiers, or proper nouns to satisfy them.

- Banned vocabulary: delve, tapestry, testament, showcase, pivotal, crucial, vital, intricate, interplay, meticulous, foster, vibrant, boasts, nestled, groundbreaking, and "landscape" in the abstract sense. Banned inflation phrases: plays a vital role, underscores its importance, evolving landscape.
- Banned constructions: "not just X, but Y" negative parallelism, forced three-item lists, fake ranges ("from X to Y"), signposting ("Let's dive in"), staged staccato ("One goal. Zero compromises."), and synonym cycling. Name a thing the same way every time.
- Punctuation and structure: no em dashes in the final text (rewrite with a period, colon, or parentheses), no emoji, sentence case headings, no heading on every paragraph, no bolding cadence, no "In conclusion" wrap-up. Close on a concrete fact.
- Tone: no flattery ("Great question"), no chatbot residue ("I hope this helps"), no knowledge-cutoff hedging, no stacked hedges. Hold the register the genre calls for and vary sentence length.
- Fact integrity: every instruction to be specific carries one boundary. Use only facts present in the user's input or in a verifiable source. Do not invent details to sound human. Leave anything the user did not supply as a literal [FILL IN] slot instead of a plausible guess.
- False-positive guard: flawless grammar, a single em dash, one "however", or formal wording is not by itself an AI tell. Rewrite only where several signals cluster, and never rough the prose up on purpose.

## Final self-audit

Draft the deliverable in full, then interrogate the draft on two counts. Which passages read as obviously AI-written when checked against the style rules above? Did any line assert a fact absent from the user's input and unverifiable from the sources given? Rewrite what fails and submit only the corrected version. The audit itself never appears in your output.

## Self-verification

1. Confirm that the deliverable is exactly one English email, not an explanation, template commentary, or multiple alternatives.
2. Confirm that the email’s subject is a request for a rent reduction and does not present the reduction as an existing agreement.
3. Check that the recipient is identified only as “[FILL IN: landlord's name or title]” unless the input supplies a name or title.
4. Check that the reason for requesting the rent reduction is either copied from the input, represented by “[FILL IN: reason for requesting the rent reduction],” or omitted; no reason has been invented.
5. Check that no rent amount, percentage, effective date, property detail, lease term, deadline, or financial circumstance has been filled arbitrarily.
6. Check that the email does not add legal rights, statutory claims, lease interpretations, threats, or promises outside the requested rent-reduction request.
7. Confirm that any proposed reduction supplied by the user is reproduced accurately; otherwise no numerical proposal appears.
8. Confirm that money and tenancy terms are framed as a request for consideration and written confirmation, not as binding assertions.
9. Check that the closing contains “[FILL IN: tenant name]” unless the tenant’s name was supplied.
10. Confirm that the email uses narrative paragraphs for the message and itemized formatting only for the subject and fill-in labels.
11. Confirm that the final length is 120–180 words excluding the subject line and slots.
12. Confirm that the final text contains no unsupported facts added beyond the user’s request and no content drifting into complaint, legal advice, or unrelated landlord-tenant issues.