A new state law that kicked in Jan. 1 aims to make sure tenants know the full cost of renting an apartment or home before they sign a lease.
The law comes in response to complaints that some landlords were surreptitiously adding hundreds of dollars in fees to the monthly rent. The new law also requires landlords to notify existing tenants about plans to hike or add new fees and limits how much property owners can collect from new renters.
“It doesn’t stop landlords from charging fees or increasing fees, but it certainly gives people more notice and more transparency,” said Rep. Christopher Kessler, the South Portland Democrat who sponsored the original bill.
Starting on Jan. 1, landlords will have to disclose in language that is “plain and readily understandable by the general public” any recurring fees that tenants must pay in addition to rent.
Some fees could be mandatory — for instance, to cover utilities or maintenance of common areas. But the law also requires landlords to clearly disclose when a fee is optional. One such optional fee, in some cases, could be for the use of a fitness center. And landlords cannot terminate a lease or deny one to a new renter because they opted not to pay those optional fees for additional services.
Organizations representing housing management associations and landlords had opposed Kessler’s bill during the public hearing, arguing that it was an unnecessary regulatory overreach that could prompt some property owners to stop leasing their properties at a time when Maine needs more housing.
The bill passed the Legislature last spring along largely party-line votes, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposing the measure.
Kessler introduced the bill in 2023 in response to public complaints from renters living in Redbank Village, a 500-unit housing complex in South Portland where many residents are low to moderate income. In 2022, residents said the relatively new owners of the development, JRK Property Holdings of Los Angeles, reportedly began notifying tenants that rents would increase hundreds of dollars a month. Tenants worried about their ability to find alternatives given Maine’s affordable housing crisis, particularly in the Portland area.
South Portland city officials responded by passing ordinances enacting a temporary moratorium on evictions and prohibiting owners of larger housing complexes from increasing the rent more than 10 percent in a year.
Kessler had previously accused Redbank’s owners of “offloading the responsibility of property repairs and maintenance completely onto the tenants” by imposing new fees. And he said many optional fees are often buried in the fine print of lease agreements that can run dozens of pages long.
“This is going to do a couple of things: one, it is going to give tenants more transparency when they are shopping for an apartment,” Kessler said. “So when they are going to sign on the dotted line or get a copy of the lease agreement, they are going to be able to see the full price of things.”
The new law will require landlords to notify tenants at least 45 days before increasing or adding fees. It also extends to mobile home tenants an existing provision of the law that prohibits landlords from charging would-be tenants an application fee that exceeds the costs necessary to conduct a background check, a credit check and processing.
The new law limits landlords to collecting only the first month’s rent, a security deposit and any mandatory recurring fees at lease signing. The law does not, however, prohibit landlords from charging or collecting fees for late or missed rent payments, utility bills or to make repairs.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
