Editorial Policy

This page explains how content on HelocPilot gets made, checked, updated, and fixed. It’s short on ceremony because the point isn’t to sound rigorous — it’s to give you specific commitments you can hold us to.

Who is responsible

Every article on HelocPilot is published under a named author. Alex, our founder and editor, reviews every article for accuracy on lending mechanics before publication — how rates are indexed and margined, how draw and repayment periods work, how loan-to-value math is calculated, and whether the fees described match what lenders actually charge. When something is wrong, responsibility lands on the named author, not on an anonymous “team.”

Sourcing standard

Every statistic we publish links to a primary source in that article’s source list. If we cite a rate, we link the index it comes from. If we cite a survey, we link the survey itself — not a blog post summarizing it. If we cite a regulation, we link the regulator.

When a claim can’t be tied to a primary source, we do one of two things: label it clearly as our own estimate and show the math, or cut it. We don’t publish numbers we can’t trace.

Update cadence

HELOC pricing is built on a variable index — most often the prime rate, which moves with the federal funds rate. That means the moments our content is most likely to go stale are the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meetings, which happen eight times a year on a published calendar.

So our update cadence is tied to that calendar: rate-sensitive content is reviewed and refreshed after each FOMC meeting. Evergreen explainers — how a draw period works, what CLTV means — are reviewed at least annually, or sooner when products or rules change. Every page displays its publication and modification dates so you can judge freshness yourself.

Corrections

We will get things wrong sometimes. Anyone publishing about a moving market who claims otherwise is lying to you. Here’s what happens when we find an error, or when a reader reports one:

• We correct it promptly. Errors in lending mechanics or math are treated as urgent, not as backlog.
• We update dateModified honestly. The date changes when the content materially changes. We don’t bump dates to game freshness signals, and we don’t leave stale dates on corrected pages.
• Material corrections are noted on the page. If a fix could have changed a decision you made based on the earlier version, we say what was wrong and what changed. Typo fixes don’t get a ceremony; substantive corrections do.

AI assistance and human verification

Every article on HelocPilot is reviewed and verified before publication by a human expert with direct lending and origination experience — Alejandro (Alex) Espinoza, our founder and editor. He checks the lending mechanics and every figure and calculation for accuracy, and he is accountable for what publishes: if it’s on the page, a person who understands these loans signed off on it and owns it. “The AI got it wrong” is not an excuse available to us.

This content is produced with AI assistance, and we state that plainly rather than minimize it. The question that actually protects you isn’t “was this written by a human?” — it’s “did a qualified person verify this and put their name on it?” Here, the answer is yes, every time.

What we won’t do

• We won’t let partner compensation shape conclusions, rankings, or math. How We Make Money covers this in detail.
• We won’t publish anything that hasn’t been through editorial review.
• We won’t quietly rewrite history. Material corrections are visible, dated, and explained.
• We won’t pad articles to rank for search terms at the expense of giving you a straight answer.

Report an error

If you spot a mistake — in the mechanics, the math, or a source — tell us at hello@helocpilot.com. You’ll get a real response, and if you’re right, a real correction.