It’s Legal for New York Landlords to Make Tenants Pay Broker Fees, but Don’t Expect Them to Be Happy About It
In the Internet Age, stage musicals require more suspension of disbelief than most other works of fiction. Therefore, the musicals whose soundtracks were first released on CD or on music streaming services must contain just the right mix of cynicism and childlike wonder to achieve any staying power. In the early years of the 21st century, minivans full of recent driver’s ed graduates lumbered down the roads of flyover states, their inhabitants belting out the lyrics as they blasted the soundtracks to Rent and Avenue Q. For musical theater geeks in Middle America, no thought is more comforting than the thought that there is a big world out there and that it is probably just as dismal as home. The setting of both of those musicals, one more fictionalized than the other, is New York City, where prices are so steep that tenants are unable to afford even a meager existence. To teens in the Midwest, where land is plentiful and eccentricity is unwelcome, the New York City of works of fiction is so strange that it might as well be King Arthur’s court. People who have lived in New York know the reality; New York is so expensive for tenants that Rent is several orders of magnitude more realistic than Friends. People are more likely to break into song as a response to any and all stimuli than they are to be able to afford to live in New York on the income you get while working in a coffee shop. This does not mean that being a landlord is especially affordable, though, and it could get more expensive with new changes to the rules about broker fees. If you are involved in a broker fee dispute with a tenant, contact a Bronx real estate attorney.
The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act
Finding an apartment to rent in New York City is so difficult that most tenants and landlords get matched through a broker. The broker’s fees are, on average, 15 percent of the annual rent, in other words, about two months of rent. Unlike in most cities, New York landlords can require tenants to pay the broker’s fee, and many of them do, even if the landlord was the one who initially sought the broker’s services.
That could change in the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act becomes law. It would make the broker’s fees the responsibility of whichever party hired the broker. Proponents of the new law say that it would bring relief to tenants, but critics of the law say that landlords would not be able to afford the broker fees unless they make rents more expensive than they already are.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Real Estate Attorney
A real estate lawyer can help you think of effective ways to find tenants quickly if the law changes to make broker fees your responsibility. Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.
Source:
theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/29/renters-new-york-city-real-estate-brokers-fees
