Trash the Junk Fees!
A campaign and victory for tenants
What you need to know: Tenants secured a major victory through the passage of an ordinance to limit application fees to $50. More work remains in both legislation and tenant organizing to stop predatory fees by landlords and protect tenants from hidden costs of renting.
Ann Arbor landlords have taken advantage of low supply and high demand for apartments in Ann Arbor to rake in cash throughout the application process and during tenancy. These fees add to already-exorbitant costs of rent for an apartment and hide an apartment's total cost. A core part of the AATU's platform throughout 2024 and 2025 has been the complete elimination of all such fees.
Waitlist fees, application fees, and other fees paid before move-in or signing a lease have a disproportionate impact on low-income renters and renters of color because they have to on average submit more applications than white and wealthy renters to find a rental unit. These fees raise the barrier of entry to housing and are turning Ann Arbor into a city accessible only to wealthy, white renters.
The Ann Arbor Tenants Union has documented waitlist fees costing nearly $7,000 for a single rental unit. Landlords allege that these are not waitlist fees but instead “options contracts” that credit tenants' accounts after a lease is signed, but the reality is that landlords keep these fees and profit after showing a tenant an apartment not fit for living. Tenants are either forced to forfeit exorbitant amounts or are pressured into living in substandard housing.
These waitlist fees are particularly egregious because they come with no guarantee of signing a lease. However, waitlist fees are only one part of the larger rental junk fee problem: tenants face trash fees, pet fees, move-in fees, move-out fees, cleaning fees, administrative fees, sewage fees, landscaping fees, and more, nearly all of which are assessed without providing any benefit to tenants. Tenants need a broad legislative approach to protect them from profiteering landlords.
AATU organizers held a rally in April 2024 to call for an end to these practices, demanding legislation from the local to state level. We also began circulating a petition and tabling in public venues for this effort, obtaining over 230 signatures.
In the fall of 2023, City Councilmembers Travis Radina and Cynthia Harrison introduced legislation to cap pre-tenancy fees at $50. This ordinance was passed into law on January 6th, 2025, with unanimous support from Council members. Several members from the AATU made comments urging for its adoption. See these comments here, beginning at around 58:48.
This is an important victory for tenants and a blow to landlords' predatory leasing practices. However, the bill does not address fees assessed during tenancy, and the state's lack of rent control means that landlords could easily simply raise rent to extract more from tenants. We consider this a win in transparency for renters, but ultimately tenant unions to negotiate fair rents and statewide legislation for rent stabilization are needed to ensure all tenants are protected.
Let's keep fighting for tenant power to build a just, affordable, and dignified living experience in Ann Arbor!
See our press release for additional details.