The broker ignored your demand. Small claims is next.

NYC ADMIN. CODE § 20-699.21 ET SEQ. · CPLR § 5004

Send the letter first, then file.

Nothing in the FARE Act requires a demand letter before you sue. You should send one anyway. A written demand with a deadline, mailed with proof, does three things for the case that follows: it shows the judge you gave the broker a fair chance to refund, it pins down the broker's position in writing before the hearing, and it often ends the matter so that you never file at all. The sequence from evidence to letter is on charged a broker fee after the FARE Act, and the law itself is on our FARE Act hub.

If the deadline passed and nothing happened, file. Do not send a second letter, and do not keep calling. The broker has made a decision, and the only thing that changes it is a court date.

The forum and the limit.

Broker fee cases go to the small claims part of the Civil Court of the City of New York. Each borough has one. The limit is $10,000, which covers nearly every residential broker fee; a claim above that can be trimmed to $10,000 to stay in small claims, or filed in the regular civil part, where the rules are more formal. You do not need a lawyer. The filing fee is modest and depends on the amount claimed. Hearings are typically scheduled in the evening, and most cases are heard by an arbitrator, a volunteer attorney, unless you insist on a judge, which adds delay and rarely changes the result in a documents case.

File in the county where the broker or brokerage does business or where you live. For a brokerage with a Manhattan office and an apartment in Brooklyn, either works. Our NYC small claims court guide walks through the filing form, the fee, and service.

Who to name as the defendant.

Name the brokerage, not just the individual agent. Real estate salespersons in New York work under a licensed broker, and the brokerage entity is the one that holds the license, receives the fee, and has assets. Use its exact legal name, which you can find on the Department of State's entity database or on the agent's license lookup. If you only know the agent's name, name both the agent and the brokerage. If the landlord collected the fee or directed the broker to collect it, consider naming the landlord entity as well; a second defendant costs a little more to serve and prevents finger-pointing at the hearing.

Getting the name wrong is the most common way a winning case produces an uncollectible judgment. Take ten minutes on the entity search before you file. If you later need to enforce the judgment, the name on it has to match a real entity with a real bank account; see collecting a small claims judgment in New York.

What to bring.

Organize the documents in the order you will tell the story. Make three copies: one for the arbitrator, one for the other side, one for you.

1. The listing, screenshotted with the broker's name, the brokerage, the date, and any fee language. This is the document that establishes the broker was the landlord's agent.
2. Your first contact with the broker, showing you responded to the listing rather than hiring the broker to search for you.
3. The fee demand: the invoice, email, text, or lease rider stating the amount and the label.
4. The payment record: bank statement, Zelle or wire confirmation, check image, or cash receipt, with the date.
5. The lease, showing the apartment, the rent, and the dates.
6. Any agreement the broker had you sign, especially one calling the broker your agent, with the date it was signed relative to the listing and your first contact.
7. The demand letter and proof of mailing or delivery.
8. The DCWP complaint confirmation, if you filed one.
9. A one-page timeline: listing date, first contact, fee demanded, fee paid, lease signed, letter sent, deadline passed. Arbitrators appreciate this more than any speech.

Do not bring a printout of the statute unless you want to. The arbitrator knows the FARE Act. What the arbitrator does not know is your timeline, and that is what the documents prove.

How to present the case.

You will have a few minutes. Say the date you paid, the amount, to whom, and that the broker published the landlord's listing. Hand over the listing and the payment record. State that under the FARE Act a landlord's agent cannot collect a fee from the tenant, and that you demanded a refund in writing on a specific date and received none. Ask for the fee plus interest from the date of payment. Stop talking.

Expect one of three defenses. The broker represented you. Answer with the listing and your first message. The fee was for something else. Answer with the invoice label, the amount, and the fact that no other service was provided; a charge that functions as payment for finding or showing the apartment is the prohibited fee whatever it is called. The lease predates June 11, 2025. Answer with the date the fee was demanded and paid; the Act turns on the fee, not the lease.

Interest and what the judgment includes.

A judgment for the fee will ordinarily carry New York's statutory interest of nine percent per year, under CPLR § 5004, running from the date you paid. On a $4,800 fee paid in July 2025 and decided in mid-2026, that is roughly $430 of interest on top of the refund. Ask for it expressly; arbitrators award what is requested. You can also ask for the filing fee and service costs as disbursements.

Whether the Act allows anything beyond the fee itself, such as a penalty or attorney's fees, in a private action is a question to state carefully. Treat the refund plus interest as the claim and let anything more be a bonus. If you paid application or deposit overcharges as well, add them; the state limits are on illegal rental application and move-in fees.

What a demand letter does here.

In a case this well-documented, the letter's job is to make the hearing unnecessary. A brokerage that receives an attorney's letter citing Administrative Code § 20-699.21 et seq., with the listing and payment record attached and a 14-day deadline, is looking at a small claims loss it cannot realistically defend, plus a DCWP file. The rational response is a refund, and that is usually what happens. When it does not, the letter becomes the first exhibit that shows the arbitrator the broker was told and chose not to pay.

Our flat-fee demand letters page explains how we prepare them. If you would rather draft your own, how to write a demand letter in New York covers the parts. And if you are deciding whether to skip the letter and go straight to court, demand letter vs. small claims is the honest comparison.

After you win.

Most brokerages pay a judgment when it is entered, because an unpaid judgment is a licensing problem and a business problem. If yours does not, you have the usual enforcement tools: an information subpoena, a bank restraint, and a marshal's execution against the brokerage's accounts. A judgment against a licensed real estate broker that goes unpaid can also be reported to the Department of State, which is a legitimate step after a judgment, not a threat to make before one. The mechanics are on collecting a small claims judgment.