NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation (SLI) project will soon initiate the next component of its State and Local Tenant Protection Series: A Primer on Renters’ Rights with a webinar series focused on state and local tenant protections. The first webinar in the series, taking place November 20, will give attendees the opportunity to learn more about efforts undertaken at the federal, state, and local levels to address excessive rental fees, known commonly as rental “junk fees.” Registrants will hear from a broad range of speakers, including tenant advocates, members of national housing organizations, and legal service providers, about specific campaigns, resources, and efforts to advocate for laws limiting junk fees. The webinar will take place from 2 to 3:30 PM ET and will be co-hosted with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), the Housing Policy Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin’s Law School, and Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA). Stay tuned for information about how to register.
For millions of renters today, the high cost of housing has far outpaced wages, forcing tenants to spend greater shares of their monthly income on rent and other rental expenses, including fees. Such fees, which can include application fees, processing fees, pet fees, convenience fees, administrative fees, late fees, and other types of obligatory fees, can raise total rental costs and quickly accumulate for tenants, putting safe and decent rental housing out of reach. Indeed, according to a 2023 NCLC report, a survey of legal services and nonprofit attorneys found that there were more than 27 different types of fees that these groups had seen assessed in the rental market. These fees can show up at all stages of a renter’s tenancy and can even be undisclosed from prospective tenants in rental listings, forcing tenants to be uninformed about the total cost of renting, even before a lease is signed.
Lack of awareness about the types and cost of fees charged during tenancy leads to a host of problems for tenants. Rental fees imposed at the outset of a tenant’s rental search – such as application fees, security deposit fees, key fees, and holding fees – can create barriers for tenants in accessing housing, while rental fees that are not advertised as part of the monthly rate can lead tenants to spend more than their anticipated budgets. According to the NCLC survey, not accurately disclosing fees to tenants upfront can lead tenants to spend hundreds of dollars per month alone in rental fees.
To address these concerns, states and local governments have undertaken efforts to address excessive rental fees in the private rental market. As of 2024, NLIHC has tracked 16 states and eight localities that have passed such protections for tenants. In the upcoming webinar, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from tenant advocates from Connecticut about efforts to enact “Senate Bill 998” in 2023. The bill addresses rental application fees, security deposit fees, tenant screening fees, and fees for non-payment of rent.
In August 2024, NLIHC’s SLI initiative released a toolkit on protections against excessive rental fees, which includes an overview of such protections, the common components of laws that limit junk fees, information about state and local jurisdictions that have adopted such protections for renters, and suggestions about provisions that can be considered when enacting or advocating for such protections. The toolkit was the first in the State and Local Innovation Tenant Protection Series, which also includes toolkits on “just cause” eviction standards, rent stabilization laws, and laws that strengthen code enforcement procedures and habitability standards. The toolkits are meant to provide foundational information about the core components of select policy interventions that can keep tenants stably housed – and free from the threat of eviction – and to help spark dialogue around the critical importance of state and local tenant protections. Alongside the toolkits, the SLI team has also released a series of tenant case studies focused on state and local campaigns to enact the same four tenant protections.
Learn more about laws limit excessive rental fees here.
Learn more about NLIHC’s SLI project at: https://nlihc.org/state-and-local-innovation