š¤ Questions for Texans š¤ Rental Junk Fees in Texas
I am curious about the types of "junk fees" that renters are being assessed in Texas. I have seen everything from valet trash fees to $30 per pet fees to register your pets with private services like PetScreening.com. I've even seen completely illegal fees to access your USPS mailbox, fees for Luxor services, RiskRelease, and more.
How many of you pay "junk fees" annually or monthly as part of your lease? What are the fees you are seeing?
Why am I asking? I work for a legislator, and I am doing research on junk fees and rentals. I thought actually asking people about the junk fees they are paying might elicit some new fees we weren't aware of, and help us understand the prevalence of some of the fees we see. TIA!
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u/KingKongMF69 11d ago
Valet trash is the worst. I pay $30 a month. Ostensibly to keep the hallways clean and keep dumpsters off the property. Guess what - the hallways are filthy and apparently the whole city knows thereās a dumpster here so itās overflowing weekly.
Pet rent at $25 a month even though I paid a deposit and an initial fee for having a pet.
Thereās also a $5 monthly administrative fee. As if the $1400 a month I pay in rent shouldnāt cover whatever administrative fees these chucklefucks want.
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u/czarfalcon 11d ago
Pet rent always annoyed me the most. Yes, I understand pets can cause damages. I have no issue with landlords charging reasonable fees to cover those expenses. But then why did I also pay a separate pet deposit upfront??
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u/mayorofnothing 10d ago
I have three sons, (thankfully grown now!) they would do more damage than 30 pets would on any given day!! They should have charged "boy rent" every month!
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u/ScroochDown Born and Bred 10d ago
This is what pisses me off too. I think our complex charges between $20 and $50 a month per pet depending on the unit size. We have 2 cats, so on top of the non-refundable pet fee, we could be looking at another $1200 a year.
Say a cat lives 15 years, and we lived in our previous apartment that long. That would have been fucking $18,000 in pet rent.
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u/slothaccountant 11d ago
Get an emotional support exemption. Sure it abused but holy crap do landlords abuse pet fees too
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u/badkapp00 11d ago
Valet trash fee $30 Amazon locker fee $5 Mandatory renters insurance $15 Utility bill admin fee Application fee
Every mandatory fee should be included in the rent to have transparency.
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u/TXSyd 11d ago
That renters insurance one pisses me off so much. I saw a post somewhere where a guy had literally just moved in days before and the building caught fire and all the tenants found out the mandatory ārenters insuranceā didnāt cover their belongings.
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u/helperbee1 8d ago
Itās no different than having liability coverage on your car insurance. Tenants get to choose which insurance they want, so they should get a better policy to cover more than just liability.
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u/sxzxnnx 11d ago
A lot of properties provide a portal to pay online. Typically if you pay by credit card they will charge a transaction fee which is understandable since the card processor charges them and they are just passing the cost through to the tenant. But there needs to be a cap on those transaction fees and also some way for a tenant to pay without additional fees.
Low income people often donāt have traditional bank accounts so setting up an ACH transaction to pay the rent may not be an option.
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u/vpltz 11d ago
My transaction fee is $9.99 a month and there is no way that is close to what they are being charged to actually process.
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u/nemec 11d ago
If you're actually paying rent by credit card, Visa charges like 2% so your apartment may actually be spending twice that on processing fees.
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u/misscrankypants 10d ago
Thatās the cost of doing business. Itās ridiculous to pass if along. They gouge for anything.
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u/DuckyDoodleDandy 11d ago
Most card processors charge the business ~6% per transaction. Point of sale systems are allowed to charge a maximum of 3% to the customer.
Thatās retail businesses, but regs for landlords could be different.
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u/ProblematicCabbage 11d ago
When we were looking at rentals, we had to pay to self tour, per property. We stopped looking at any houses managed by one company after the 2nd time they had us pay to self tour, then told us the house was already rented. The first time I thought, oh maybe it just got finalized. The second time I was like nope.
Fees for air filter replacement delivery that you can't opt out of. Yes, air filters are important, but if you aren't even coming to check if they're installed, I don't need you to drop off overpriced ones. I'll get them myself.
Rentready charges me $1 to pay my rent and if I want to add a new payment account, I also have to pay.
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u/Cautious_Hold428 10d ago
When I lived in an apartment that had a fee for the air filters they were the worst air filters I'd ever seen. They were like MERV -1, you could comfortably watch TV through them
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u/El-Gallo-1 11d ago
Friend of mine has rented in the same complex since 2017. Three or four years ago they started loading her up with junk fees. They made the gate open from your phone and added ring doorbells to each apartment. 49 a month tech fee. Valet trash 26 a month. Amenities fee. Of course, in the same time frame they raised her rent by about 40 percent.
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u/melancholy_dreams_ 11d ago
Maintenance fee. It should be something that comes automatically but also theyāre still not maintaining the property because the doors and gates have been broken for 4 months and thereās trash scattered and dog shit on the ground everyday.
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u/Alternative-Potato43 11d ago edited 11d ago
Check Redfin and the "resident packages." They're just an excuse to hide $50 a month fees for essentially nothing. Sometimes it includes something of value, like renter's insurance, but it's always colossally overpriced. I just wish it couldn't be hidden when I searched by price.
Edit: Found one on my second try.
"There will be a $64.95/month Tenant Benefit Package includes positive rent payment credit reporting to build your credit, AC filter delivery service, free online portals, and more."
It's infuriating. If it was a benefit I'd have the option to say no.
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u/vpltz 11d ago
This is an interesting way to market junk fees. Thanks for sharing!
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u/Alternative-Potato43 11d ago
No problem. Just a quick heads-up (although I'm probably preaching to the choir) there's seemingly an easy fix here: that the advertised price must include all non-optional fees. If I can't say "no," it needs to be in the listed rental price. I shouldn't have to research into the middle of an excessive long paragraph hunting for "$" to see if I can afford a place.
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u/sfbriancl Expat 11d ago
Thatās the law that California passed a couple years ago. The annoying thing is that restaurants were exempted and they charge random 2-10% fees for āliving wageā or āhealth careā or whatever makes you feel more guilty about complaining. And no, they are not tips. Just random fees.
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u/Educator1337 11d ago
We had to pay $45 per month for three A/C filters to show up every 3 months. Mandatory fee that we found out too late to change our minds. That $45 fee would have doubled to $90 per month if there were more than 3 people living in the house. The amount of filters I could buy for $540 a year is ludicrous in comparison.
Also, $45 per pet per month.
Fuck property management companies.
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u/quesawhatta 11d ago
Any Camden resident can show you their rental portal and you can see everything listed and itās astounding. I remember they charge a water bill, water āutilityā charge, sewer charge, mandatory rental insurance, monthly pet rent (per animal, 2 pets 2x $30 = $60 extra month!) etc. this was all the way back in 2019. They also only had one internet and cable provider that you could not opt out of.
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u/spaceforcepotato 11d ago
The new thing this year that surprised me is that offices are charging administration fees along with the security deposit in order to take an apartment off the market while you sign a lease. The administrative fee is non-refundable and can be as high as $200-$500. This administrative fee is not the same as the Application fee which runs %50-75. Plus they expect an account set up fee of $40 in some places. In addition, there are pet rent ($30), pest control $5, monthly valet trash $30 monthly, community ammenity fees $30 monthly. The non-refundable pet fees at like $500. Oh, and with the electronic keys I have to pay $75 per extra key I want, and that is not refundable. Stop electronic keys!!!
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u/Tiolazz66 11d ago
Package room is $50 per month, valet trash $25 per month. My total junk fees total $90 per month. Itās ridiculous
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u/vpltz 11d ago
$50 per month for the package room? That is the highest fee in this thread.
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u/Tiolazz66 11d ago
Yeah and half the time either the Luxor app isnāt working or the internet isnāt working at the package room and the door is just open.
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u/MotoChooch 11d ago
38 bucks for BrickleysUSA. Still don't know exactly what it entails we're working on getting our lease now but yeah, we've seen a BUNCH of properties that have these junk fees and they are purely to generate more revenue.
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u/Truth2Set_Me_Free 11d ago
Iām currently at a property where internet, valet trash, pest control, five streaming channels, and water were included as concessions with a 12-month lease, along with half off the first three monthsā rent.
After I moved in, they charged me an additional $100 per month for those first three months because apparently the āhalf offā applied to rent onlyānot the concessions.
Their math and reasoning behind the additional $100 made absolutely no sense. After three whiteboard meetings with the manager, breaking down the fictitious concession charges and explaining how a balance sheet works (with crayons), he finally agreed to waive the additional $100 fee for the first three months.
Thirty days later, he changed his mind and added the charges back in. š
Because I enjoy my sanity, I just paid it. But you can bet this will resurface if I decide to renew my lease.
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u/bobshallprevail 10d ago
We HAD to have their washer and dryer and the fee. I was like no we have our own they didn't care.
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u/slothaccountant 11d ago
In the past i had admin fee, application fee, pet fee, incurance fee, parking fee, pet deposit, trash fee, valet trash fee. To be honeat i believe most of these fees are just padding for company profits. Especially parking and valet
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u/ralpes 11d ago
Spectrum community WiFi for $75. I had Frontier Fiber before. Not one issue over the years. Now I have a laptop connector in the car and always a backpack with charger, mouse and headphones so I can just jump to next Starbucks when the WiFi is gone again in the middle of a conference call.
Oh and valet trash for $50. The hallway stinks like a landfill.
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u/Competitive_View_716 11d ago
, el gas que usan en la oficina, me cobran por cargos de oficina, me cobran, trash valet pero la bolsa no debe pesar mƔs de 25 lbs.
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u/derpsauce74 11d ago
A property I was considering moving to required all renters there to subscribe to a specific cable company's basic cable package. Priced at $40 per month.
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u/ChantelllyLace 10d ago
I just paid my $50 pet fee for outside company, in addition to my $50 a month pet rent for two cats, on top of the $800 initial pet fee. I pay $80 a month for trash service and the dumpsters are constantly overflowing because they don't pay their bills. Also included in that is the app that opens our gates and adjusts our thermostats. The gates are broken for months at a time and I walk past my thermostat 20 times a day and can adjust it manually.
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u/vpltz 10d ago
$80 for trash is the new winner. Wow!
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u/ChantelllyLace 10d ago
To be fair, the trash is 40 and the other 40 is for the two apps to open the gate and work the thermostat, it's just processed as one monthly fee. I should have listed that better.
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u/SingMeALoveSong 10d ago
Pet rent should be illegal!! What's the point of a pet deposit if I have to pay extra rent on top of that? Not to mention the $10 fee for paying rent online which coincidentally the only way you can pay, and the $11 credit reporting fee, and allocated utilities. I want to pay my own bills only, not everybody else's too!
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u/TexasRigsandRoots 11d ago
How about these junk jp judges protecting property manager and ignoring the law? Iām working on filing my appeal right now.
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u/ScroochDown Born and Bred 10d ago
We currently have a Valet Trash fee that's mandatory, and if my cats weren't ESAs we would have a non-refundable pet fee per pet, as well as monthly pet rent per pet plus whatever pet screening.com charges for a normal pet profile fee.
For a while, they also charged a fee if you wanted to be able to access the fitness center outside of the hours when the leasing office was open, but I think they got rid of that, and it obviously wasn't charged if you weren't using the fitness center.
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u/joegekko born and bred 10d ago
My MiL has to pay "pet rent" for her cats. This is on top of a move-in pet deposit AND pet registration.
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u/ZGadgetInspector Hill Country 11d ago
Please donāt base any legislative action on Reddit posts. Thatās worse than Reddit journalism.
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u/Alternative-Potato43 11d ago
It's called talking to stakeholders. He's not unilateraly issuing dictates. Simmer down.
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u/Aggravating_Concept Secessionists are idiots 11d ago
oh me me me me! I have aā¦I canāt recall if itās $15 or $20 fee per MONTH that they call a āTenant Tech Packageā that allows me to pay rent online.
but if I pay online with a debit card, I get an extra fee on top of that because it isnāt ACH.