Final Rule Will Only Protect Consumers from Junk Fees Attached to Live Event Tickets and Hotel Stays
WASHINGTON – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took an important step today by finalizing a rule to address junk fees for live events and hotels. While the rule protects travelers and concert-goers, it does nothing to protect the nation’s millions of renters, who face an increasing array of expensive, surprise junk fees that jeopardize their ability to afford safe housing and keep a roof over their heads.
During the comment period, the FTC received 151 unique comments–including coalition comments with many signatories–about junk fees in housing, but the final rule did not address this critical problem for low-income people and working families.
As FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter noted in a concurring statement, these junk fees “have spread and now pervade” industries like rental housing. The Commissioner’s statement featured a comment submitted by a mother in Kentucky highlighting the problem.
My daughter is a low wage employee and we live in Kentucky. Six months ago she rented an apartment that she thought she could afford based on rent and projected utilities. Turns out she owes fees (most undisclosed in the lease) that add up to nearly 20% of the rent. That’s a heck of a jump. As of December there will be no way to pay the rent that doesn’t involve a transaction fee. Not one method.
“Tenants around the country face a bewildering array of unavoidable rental housing junk fees,” said Ariel Nelson, senior attorney at NCLC. “These fees–which range from application fees to mysterious administrative fees, valet trash fees, and move-out fees–often push safe and decent housing out of reach and jeopardize access to future housing and financial stability.”
As FTC Chair Lina Khan noted in her statement about the rule, “[F]ully protecting the public from these unlawful pricing practices will require more work . . . renters can be on the hook for thousands of dollars more per month than the sum they thought they’d be paying.”
“These additional fees are likely to disproportionately impact renters of color,” said Chi Chi Wu, senior attorney at NCLC. “People of color are more likely to be renters and more likely to be cost-burdened by the price of rent.”
“Despite today’s setback for tenants,” said April Kuehnhoff, senior attorney at NCLC. “We applaud prior federal enforcement actions against landlords using abusive rental junk fees and companies using unfair price manipulation as well as efforts to promote price transparency. The federal government – both this administration and the next – must act now to protect tenants and address abusive rental junk fees. Families in crisis cannot afford to wait any longer.”
“State and local governments also have an important role to play in protecting vulnerable renters from abusive rental housing junk fees and enforcing existing tenant protections,” said Steven Sharpe, senior attorney at NCLC. “State and local governments ranging from Colorado to Virginia have already started to crack down on these abusive fee practices, including by prohibiting and limiting fees.”
Related Resources
- Report: Too Damn High: How Junk Fees Add to Skyrocketing Rents
- Report: “What the Heck, Dude!”: How States Can Fight Rental Housing Junk Fees
- Comments Concerning Rental Housing Junk Fees in Response to the FTC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
- Group Comments in Response to the FTC’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Unfair or Deceptive Fees
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