When Mean Green public relations students put the finishing touches on a senior project, they discovered that their classmates — and other Denton residents who rent apartments — often pay more because of hidden fees.
The students in the UNT Mayborn School of Journalism teamed up with the Dallas-based Child Poverty Action Lab in a project that studied 144 Denton rental communities and found that 65% of local landlords don’t disclose all of the fees they charge on their websites, or in telephone calls.
“We hear about junk fees all the time, you know, with concert tickets and things like that,” said professor Kim Keller, who taught the public relations course that studied local housing fees and generated a public relations project about it. “It’s not unique, but the real impact that it had on housing was there. [Child Poverty Action Lab] had done a study on this, a very small study on this, in the summer. They looked at low-income and high-income rental properties in Dallas and also discovered that people are not disclosing it.”
Housing affordability across the country has been a hot topic since before the COVID-19 pandemic. But once the pandemic’s federal eviction moratorium was struck down in August 2021, rental rates were on the rise and hidden or junk fees made those increases sting even more.
Keller said students spent about eight weeks on the project and found that some renters were paying hidden fees for services they neither use nor need. Those costs, students found, can increase Denton residents’ monthly rent by a median of 5%. Many of these fees don’t show up until the lease is signed or monthly bills are sent out. Keller said the class project found that the additional costs caused an increase on rent from as little as 4% and as high as 10%.
What exactly is a junk fee, though?
“We were working with CPAL’s definition, and this is anything above and beyond rent that we discovered is not disclosed on the front end,” she said. “There’s the pet piece. Pest control: You have to pay a monthly pay for pest control. Maintenance fees. Amenity fees, like you’re not using the gym, but you end up paying a fee for that. And package fees. You know, it was just nickels and dimes.”
Students in the class called rental communities and visited websites to see what was disclosed. The class was also able to get lease agreements from students. The project found that there were fees assessed that renters couldn’t really contest, such as garbage collection fees that cover the cost of staffers who collect renters’ trash left by their front doors. A renter could take trash to the dumpster and never leave bags for management to collect, but that wouldn’t eliminate the fee.
The UNT students hosted focus groups to learn more about junk fees. That’s where they learned that students are surprised by bills that come in after they’ve paid their rent.
“They discovered that some of it was on the lease,” Keller said. “But a lot of it, what they were telling us in the focus groups was, ‘All of a sudden I get a bill for this.’ And we didn’t even get into the violations.
“Some of the things they were talking about, like trash pickup, and if you have too much trash on your porch, for them to pick up, there’s a fee for that. It adds up, and they don’t know about these fees. How do you budget for that?”
Property owners and landlords are living with some of the same costs as their renters. The costs of services, materials and supplies have risen, and the UNT students found that most rental communities disclose one-time fees, such as application and administrative fees, deposits and pet fees and pet deposits. For students and other low-income residents, though, bearing the climbing costs and then getting bills for hidden fees can push them to cut costs elsewhere. At UNT, more students are using the campus food pantry.
“Over 30% of college students are food insecure,” the food pantry’s website reports. “[And] 56% of food-insecure students are working, 75% of food-insecure students receive financial aid through their institutions, and 43% have a meal plan. Indeed, food insecurity cuts across all demographic statuses, enrollment levels, and geographic locations.”
Nonprofits across North Texas confirm that residents will skip everything from health care to groceries to keep their housing and transportation. The United Way of Denton County’s most recent data shows that 23% of the county’s residents are what they define as Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained and Employed, known by the acronym ALICE.
Texas lawmakers haven’t moved to cap junk fees, and less than one year ago, the Biden administration published a “blueprint for a renters bill of rights” that prioritized safe, accessible housing, clear and fair leases, and a right for renters to organize. As of Sunday, the White House web page with the document was no longer available.
The University of Texas created a proposal two years ago that highlighted opportunities Texas policymakers have to regulate mandatory fees that landlords charge. The university focused on five areas that lawmakers could address:
- Require disclosure — increase transparency in the housing rental market by requiring landlords to disclose all mandatory fees.
- Ban specific types of fees — policymakers can prohibit specific types of add-on fees.
- Restrict fee amounts — cap the amount landlords charge for certain types of services or lease violations.
- Prohibit mid-lease changes to fees and rent — forbid landlords from applying new fees or raising rent in the middle of a tenant’s lease.
- Ban evictions for unpaid fees — require landlords to apply tenant payments to outstanding rent before applying payment to fees.
University of Texas at Austin published another proposal last year in its housing policy clinic.
Texas isn’t alone. Arkansas and Oklahoma don’t have laws eliminating junk fees. Washington state lawmakers filed a bill last year that would make renting fairer and more stable for residents in mobile homes, but the measure died after pushback from associations representing housing providers. New York, one of the states often cited as having the most expensive housing costs in the nation, capped rental application fees at $20. Landlords have to waive the fee if the applicant provides their own background check or credit check done within the last 30 days.
In Denton, Keller said, application fees ranged from $15 to $125. The rental application fee allows leasing agents to review your rental background. An eviction or having more than two late rent payments in six months can cause some landlords to reject you as a tenant.
UNT Legal Services does offer limited representation for landlord and tenant concerns. And the university sees housing insecurity as a major barrier to completing a degree or certificate. The office of the dean of students offers some assistance for students experiencing housing insecurity.
“We’ve seen students that have talked about having to work, and they’ll do without food or they will not buy textbooks,” Keller said. “Just all these different ways that they’re trying to cut corners just to make it. You know, for an adult that’s got an established job and everything, and it was like, ‘Oh, 5% isn’t gonna derail us.’ But when you are living on a very specific amount of money, that 5% hurts ... and then you think about international students, they’re coming into a new country and a new culture, and they don’t expect the junk fees. It cuts across a wide group of students.”
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
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