2021gettingready t1_ivf5o94 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 3:01 PM

Reply to comment by modernhomeowner in Are tenants completely responsible for paying a broker fee? by [deleted]

Gotcha, I was kinda confused, lol. So how long are brokers fee contracts? Cause I don't want to pay every few months.

modernhomeowner t1_ivf6nt3 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 3:08 PM

Once, the list a property, lease it, they get paid. They don't get anything until the next time they lease it. There is a very small chance a broker puts something in for a renewal, but its rare. Most of the rental agents (not all but most) are in the rental business as a short term career before going into home sale listings, so they aren't forward thinking to put a renewal fee in.

CraigInDaVille t1_ivf74xg wrote on November 7, 2022 at 3:12 PM

The broker is, in theory, providing a service of showing you the apartment and taking care of the lease signing/etc. So you are paying for this service one time, when you sign the lease.

It's absolute bullshit 99% of the time when the broker maybe turned the key on two or three apartments for you and read a listing to you out loud that you could have read yourself. They do very little actual work most of the time and it's outrageous that such low-effort jobs get such high pay, but that's where we are.

Short answer: you only pay the broker fee once.

2021gettingready t1_ivf80lp wrote on November 7, 2022 at 3:18 PM

I know that, what I am saying is I have already moved in with a few people. They are looking for more people to move in.

I was told in the past the landlord told the tenants they have to pay the broker's fee of $3000 if he has to hire an agent to find someone. Isn't that the landlord's bill to pay and a new tenant potentially moving in?

CraigInDaVille t1_ivfc8t7 wrote on November 7, 2022 at 3:47 PM

So it sounds like you are looking to add one or more additional roommates to an existing household (that already paid a broker's fee, presumably, when you first moved in).

Landlords like to use brokers because brokers are allowed to do certain background checks that landlords cannot (it's a stupid loophole in the law that was meant to protect tenants but instead incentivizes this behavior). It's possible your landlord really just wants the background check done.

I would assume that this means that the incoming tenant would be responsible for the fee, rather than those of you who already live there. But in this case it might be best to talk to the landlord to figure out how to avoid this since you're already known tenants with presumably good history of paying on time, etc.