When Aleks Posielski received a lease renewal offer from his landlord in May, he was taken aback by an unexpected charge.

Posielski would have to pay an $85 “lease renewal fee,” if he committed within 10 days, even though his lease wasn’t up for six months.

Otherwise, the lease renewal fee would start to increase every 10 additional days — to $150 and then to $250. If Posielski needed more than a month to decide, it would grow to $500.

With an 11-month-old baby, Posielski and his wife didn’t want to uproot their lives. So, the Tacoma, Washington, couple re-signed despite their frustration with the fee.

“I'm still kind of angry about it,” he said in an interview this month.

Tenants across the state say that they face an increasingly confounding landscape of rental charges: amenity fees to access common areas, mailroom fees to receive packages, technology fees for app-enabled door locks and even building-wide utility fees to keep the lights on in the hallways and leasing offices. Many who spoke with The Seattle Times say they have to pay fees to move in, to move out and even, in Posielski’s case, to stay in place.

In Seattle, the issue took center stage this month when the City Council voted unanimously to ban most rental fees — a shot across the bow to the rental housing industry. The ordinance prohibits almost all types of mandatory fees and includes enforcement measures.

Seattle isn’t alone; other cities in Washington with similar restrictions include Bellingham and Olympia.

“There are various municipal ordinances, and Seattle's is definitely one of the strongest,” said Ariel Nelson, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, which advocates for fee bans.

The bill’s implications are still rippling through Seattle as policymakers determine how to implement it. Meanwhile, its passage has prompted tenants across the region to ask: What about us?

Posielski and his wife live in Tacoma, so they’re not protected by the ordinance.

In addition to the lease renewal fee, the pair must pay a $35 fee for what his landlord calls a “resident benefits package.” It includes services they don’t want or need, but it’s mandatory.

“People are out here trying to extract money from their tenants in what I think are dishonest means,” Posielski said.

There have been efforts statewide to curb these practices.

Last year, the Washington Legislature considered a bill that would have banned most mandatory rental fees statewide, among other renter protections. But ultimately, the parts related to rental fees failed after industry lobbying.

For now, Seattle’s bill could serve as a model, say experts and consumer protection advocates, whether for the nation or just the next town over.

“Seattle is, through its policy, providing a North Star for what other cities and towns can look to as they craft their own rules,” said Neale Mahoney, economics professor at Stanford University who spoke in favor of the ban in early July. “It's something that people can look to for guidance in terms of sound principles.”

‘Ancillary income’

The practice of charging rental fees dates to at least the 2000s.

Some corporate landlords have turned to rental fees to boost revenue, according to a Business Insider report. In doing so, they found new ways to earn additional revenue while shifting many of the costs of doing business to tenants.

“As a general matter, we've seen the growth of add-on fees and back-end fees throughout the economy over the last sort of decade,” Mahoney said.

Rental companies often refer to extra money earned through fees as “ancillary income.” It can be so lucrative that some of the nation’s biggest landlords report earning millions of dollars’ worth of nonrental revenue each year.

Ancillary income might come directly from tenants via charges like pet rent or parking premiums, or by adding a markup on third-party services like trash pickup and package room access. Landlords also can make ancillary income indirectly by negotiating group internet plans for residents or referring them to specific renters insurance providers.

“Out of many small fees comes one larger number,” wrote the industry publication Multifamily Executive in an explainer more than a decade ago. “That’s the power of ancillary income — operators can inject a significant amount of extra revenue throughout the year, just by adding a few dollars to each lease.”

Under Seattle’s ordinance, which takes effect in July 2027, landlords will be prohibited from charging all but a very limited number of fees, including application screening fees, certain move-in fees, security and pet damage deposits and utility fees.

The rental housing industry defends the fees, arguing that renters prefer to know exactly what they pay for each individual service they receive from their landlord rather than a single all-inclusive rental price.

“The benefits of having fully transparent pricing and fee breakdowns greatly outweighs the inconvenience of having to click through a couple of additional layers or to make a phone call to figure out what your pricing might be,” said Jake Mayson, director of government affairs for the Washington Multi-Family Housing Association, which represents corporate landlords in the state. To him, rent is just meant to cover a tenant’s individual apartment.

Mayson is a renter himself. In his most recent billing cycle, he paid around $280 in utilities and $275 for parking, which would not be affected by the rental fee ban. He also paid $50 for pet rent, $2 for pest control and a $17 special improvement district fee, all of which would be banned under Seattle’s ordinance.

In the wake of Seattle’s rental fee ban, he warned that landlords might respond by rolling fees into rent, driving advertised prices up.

“You're going to get into a position now where housing inside the city of Seattle is going to look artificially even more expensive than it does compared to anywhere else.”

In 2025, Washington instituted a cap on rent increases, limiting hikes to 7% plus inflation, up to a maximum of 10%.

But advocates say eliminating fees will benefit tenants in the long run by making the market more competitive and potentially driving rents down.

“Research shows that the best way to communicate the total price is to show it all-in and upfront,” Mahoney said. “There's no economic reason why you should have to do the math.”

‘Keep things in budget’

Jonathan Smith, 36, has been doing the math for five years.

He moved into his rental apartment in West Seattle in November 2021.

At the time, he paid $1,674 per month for his one-bedroom apartment. He also paid pet rent for his cat, a fee for a parking spot and his own unit utilities, including water, sewage and trash.

Then more fees started to pile up.

During his first lease renewal, his landlord added a sewage capacity fee of $30 to $60 per month.

In later lease renewals, his landlord added a $2 per month pest control fee, a $2 special improvement district fee, a $5 per month admin fee and a $25 per month technology fee to pay for the building’s call box and app-enabled door locks. (Free physical keys are unavailable.) He also now pays a $15 per month charge for common-area electricity.

These fees are confounding to Smith. “They own the building, they own the property, they should be responsible for common areas as a courtesy to people paying rent,” he said, referring to the landlord.

Rent has still gone up, even as it seems to cover less. Five years since moving in, Smith now pays $2,100 per month in rent for his unit alone — a 25% increase. The cost of a parking spot has also increased from $175 to $190. His pet rent remains $50. All the new rental fees add around $80 or more each month, or close to $1,000 per year.

Previously, Smith considered looking for a new apartment that didn't charge fees, even though he loves his current home and dreads moving.

“I’d like to stay in one place for a long duration,” he said. “But if it’s necessary to keep things in budget, then I’m in a position to have to do it.”

But since the passage of the rental fee ban, he's now more open to renewing his lease.

Early questions

Seattle joins a small but growing group of cities and states trying to curtail rental fees. But protections are patchwork, and actual enforcement varies from one jurisdiction to another.

Some questions linger about how exactly Seattle’s ordinance will be implemented, and what potential loopholes remain.

For example, the new regulations don’t affect utility billing. That leaves open the possibility that landlords might be able to keep collecting many existing fees — including common-area utilities, stormwater drainage and sewage-capacity charges.

Tenants who pay common-area charges told The Times that the fees are particularly frustrating because they are unpredictable. In some apartment buildings, common-area utilities also pay for electricity use in leasing offices, meaning tenants are effectively subsidizing their landlords’ operational expenses.

Other cities, including Shoreline and Washington, D.C., have gone so far as to ban such common-area utility charges, arguing that they should be covered by rent. Seattle hasn’t taken that step.

In March, President Donald Trump’s Federal Trade Commission indicated interest in potentially limiting unfair or deceptive fee practices. But any rulemaking could take time and run into opposition.

Just last year, efforts to protect tenants in Washington state from mandatory rental fees died on the vine after industry lobbying.

Washington lawmakers considered a bill that would shore up protections for renters, including prohibiting landlords from making tenants sign nondisclosure agreements and from charging mandatory fees for nonessential services, among other provisions.

Then came Valet Living, one of the biggest valet trash companies in the nation. It argued that its services made housing safer and cleaner, going so far as to insist that they protected tenants by reducing the risk of “trip and falls” on the way to the dumpster. To enable the bill to pass, lawmakers stripped the language prohibiting mandatory rental fees out of the final version.

For now, that means renters in most parts of the state may still have to pay fees.

Sara Portesan, who moved from Bellingham to Bellevue in February, is among those renters. She had to pay a $300 admin fee up front. Then came the variable monthly utility fees.

Before Portesan signed her lease, the building leasing agent gave her an estimate of all the fees and utilities she’d have to pay. But it was a significant underestimate. So, every month, Portesan spends around $300 more on housing than she originally intended.

“When you are moving to a new apartment and there's more fees than you thought, it feels like you're making decisions based on incomplete information,” she said. “That's hard.”

Posielski, who rents with his wife and baby in Tacoma, is on guard now.

After agreeing to re-sign his lease, he got one final surprise from his landlord.

The lease renewal was no longer on the table. His landlord wanted to do something else with their home, either live in it or sell it. Posielski’s family would have to move out.

But that’s fine. He’s looking for a new rental. His goal is to find one that doesn’t have fees.

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