Whoever hires the broker pays the broker. That is the law now.

NYC ADMIN. CODE § 20-699.21 ET SEQ. · RPL § 238-a

What the FARE Act changed on June 11, 2025.

The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act, New York City Local Law 119 of 2024, is codified at Administrative Code § 20-699.21 and the sections that follow it. It took effect June 11, 2025, after a court challenge by the real estate industry failed to stop it. The core rule fits in one sentence: a broker who works for the landlord cannot collect a fee from the tenant.

That covers more than the broker the landlord formally signed with. Under the Act, a broker who publishes or markets the landlord's listing is treated as the landlord's agent. So the agent whose name was on the StreetEasy post, who met you at the door, and who then handed you an invoice for 15 percent of the annual rent is, for purposes of the law, working for the landlord, and the landlord is the one who owes that fee. The only broker a tenant can lawfully be charged for is one the tenant actually hired, in a real sense, to search on the tenant's behalf.

The Act does not ban broker fees. It reassigns them. Landlords who want a broker to fill a unit now pay for that service the way they pay for any other service. Tenants who want their own broker can still hire one. What is gone is the arrangement where the landlord's hire sent the tenant the bill.

The disclosure rules that stop fee relabeling.

The second half of the law is disclosure, and it exists because everyone involved knew what would happen next. A landlord's agent who can no longer charge a broker fee will be tempted to charge an administrative fee, a move-in fee, a technology fee, or a listing fee that happens to equal one month's rent. The Act requires that every fee a tenant will be expected to pay in connection with the rental be disclosed in writing, both in the listing itself and before the tenant is bound to pay. A charge that surfaces for the first time at lease signing, or that was never itemized in the listing, is a problem for the landlord on its own, separate from whether the charge is a disguised broker fee.

The practical effect is that the label on the invoice does not control. A required payment to the landlord's agent for finding, showing, or securing the apartment is the fee the Act prohibits, whatever it is called. If the number matches what a broker fee used to be and the money goes to the person who showed you the unit, you should treat it as a broker fee and so will a demand letter.

Enforcement: DCWP, and your own right to sue.

The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection enforces the FARE Act. DCWP accepts complaints from tenants at no cost, investigates, and can bring its own proceedings against brokers and landlords who violate the fee or disclosure rules. Filing a complaint costs you nothing and creates an official record that the charge was reported, which matters later if the broker claims the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

What a DCWP complaint does not do, by itself, is put your money back in your account on any particular timeline. Agency enforcement runs at the agency's pace and is aimed at the violator's conduct generally, not at your specific refund. That is why the law also gives tenants a second track: a private right to recover the fee.

The Act gives a tenant who was charged a prohibited fee the right to bring their own action to recover it. In plain terms, you do not have to wait for the city. You can demand the money back from the broker and the landlord directly, and if they refuse, you can sue, which for most broker fees means small claims court. That private right is the legal basis for a demand letter: the letter cites the fee prohibition, the disclosure requirement, and your right to sue, attaches the listing and the payment record, and gives a deadline.

Many tenants use both tracks at once. The DCWP complaint builds the regulatory record; the demand letter pursues the specific dollars. Nothing in the law requires you to choose one and forgo the other, though if you end up in court you should expect the judge to ask whether the city has already resolved anything. We walk through the full sequence on what to do if you were charged a broker fee after the FARE Act.

The other illegal fees: application fees and deposits.

The FARE Act sits on top of a set of state-law limits that have been in place since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, and a landlord who ignores one often ignores the others. Under Real Property Law § 238-a, the fees a landlord can charge a prospective tenant for an application, background check, or credit check are capped at the actual cost of the check or $20, whichever is less, and the landlord must waive the fee if you supply your own recent background or credit report. Processing fees, move-in fees, and key fees charged to a residential tenant are not permitted. And under General Obligations Law § 7-108, a security deposit or advance cannot exceed one month's rent.

So a tenant who paid a $75 application fee, a $500 move-in fee, a two-month security deposit, and a broker fee to the landlord's agent has four separate claims, and the broker fee is usually just the largest. We cover the state-law fees on illegal rental application and move-in fees in New York. If the deposit itself is the problem, the security deposit demand letter addresses both the overcharge and the landlord's obligation to return it within 14 days of move-out.

What to do if you paid after June 11, 2025.

The Act reaches fees charged after its effective date. That is a question about when the fee was imposed and paid, not when your lease starts or even, in many cases, when it was signed. A lease signed in May 2025 with a broker fee collected in late June sits inside the law. A fee paid in full on June 10 does not, however unfair it was.

If you are inside the window, gather four things before you do anything else: a screenshot of the listing showing who posted it, any message or invoice demanding the fee, the lease, and your payment record with its date. Then decide on your tracks. File with DCWP, which is free. Send a written demand to the broker and, where the landlord collected or directed the fee, to the landlord. If the deadline passes with no refund, file in small claims. The step-by-step is on the paid-a-broker-fee page, and the court mechanics are on suing for a broker fee in NYC small claims.

What a demand letter does here.

Broker fee disputes have a feature most small claims lack: the tenant almost always has the whole case on their phone. The listing shows who the broker worked for. The invoice shows the amount and the label. The bank record shows the date. The statute supplies the rule. An attorney's letter assembles those four things in order, names the Act by section, states the private right of action, and sets a deadline, usually 14 days. Brokers are licensed by the state and answerable to DCWP; most of them understand that a documented FARE Act violation is not something to litigate over one fee. Landlords who directed the charge are in the same position.

A letter is also how you handle the standard defense, which is that the broker represented you. The listing usually answers that. If the broker posted the unit, the Act treats the broker as the landlord's agent, and a letter that attaches the listing says so before the argument is even raised. Our flat-fee demand letters page explains how the process works.

When a letter is not the right tool: if the fee was paid before June 11, 2025, the Act does not apply and the older rules, which permitted the charge, govern. If you genuinely hired your own broker, in writing, before the search began, the fee is lawful. And if the broker has vanished, closed the brokerage, and cannot be located, a letter has nowhere to go; a DCWP complaint and a small claims filing against the landlord may be the only path.

Small claims, interest, and what you can expect to recover.

The New York City Civil Court's small claims part hears claims up to $10,000, which covers the overwhelming majority of broker fees. You do not need a lawyer, the filing fee is modest, and hearings are usually in the evening. A judgment for the fee will typically carry New York's statutory interest of nine percent per year from the date you paid. Whether the Act allows anything beyond the fee itself in a private action is a question we state carefully: the refund is the core remedy, and you should not count on penalties when you decide whether the case is worth bringing. For most tenants it is, because the fee is a month's rent or more and the evidence is already in hand.

Our general NYC small claims guide covers filing, service, and the hearing, and the comparison between a letter and a filing is on demand letter vs. small claims.

Read next.

• Charged a broker fee after the FARE Act? Evidence, the DCWP complaint, the demand letter, and small claims, in order.
• Illegal rental application and move-in fees in New York: the $20 cap, the one-month deposit limit, and what to demand back.
• Suing for a broker fee refund in NYC small claims: forum, limit, what to bring, interest.
• Landlord won't make repairs in New York: if the same landlord is also ignoring the apartment itself.
• How to write a demand letter in New York: if you want to draft the first letter yourself.

Whichever route you take, the sequence is the same: document, demand in writing, and file if ignored. The law finally puts the fee on the party who hired the broker. Making that real for your own apartment takes a letter.