Allston renter fights $100 fee to re-sign her apartment lease - and wins
ALLSTON - Renting an apartment can be expensive, especially in Boston, so you have to keep an eye on all of those fees.
Sirine Mansouri was charged a fee to re-sign a lease for an apartment she was already living in.
Mansouri loves her Allston apartment.
"It's nice to look around and see all of the different bits of your life, actually around you," Mansouri told WBZ-TV. "The parking is decent. You can walk to your park. You can walk to coffee shops. There's a lot of artists in the area. And one of the reasons I wanted to be around here was for the music, things like that. So really, I love Allston."
She'd definitely like to stay here for a while.
"We know people around here. I'm actually a part of a group, Boston Artist Impact, they really try to focus on making sure artists can afford to stay in the city," Mansouri said.
But what she didn't know or expect, is what happened when it was time to re-sign her lease. She got an email from her realtor.
"He let us know that he would be sending the lease and then we would be Venmo-ing him $100," Mansouri explained.
One hundred dollars to re-sign the lease - $50 for herself and $50 for her roommate - for an apartment they were already living in.
But it was a Facebook post from her friend, that made her question if the fee was legitimate.
"I wasn't sure, and so I reached out to the Attorney General," said Mansouri.
The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office told her this wasn't a fee she was supposed to be paying and they contacted that broker, Gateway Real Estate Group.
"He actually reached out after they had contacted him, saying that he would return the money if I took down the claim and I told him I wasn't going to do that, but I was still expecting my money," Mansouri told WBZ.
She said he did ultimately end up getting the money back.
We reached out to Gateway Real Estate Group, the realty company Mansouri said the realtor presented as his employer when he charged her this fee.
Craig Peper, the Principal of Gateway, sent this statement saying:
"Gateway does not own or manage the property Sirine Mansouri lives in and had no knowledge of, or involvement in, this transaction in any capacity. Any conversations, agreements or payments involving this transaction were done so between those individuals only and outside of Gateways business."
Mansouri said she's grateful to be in a position that this fee wasn't going to break her, but between inflation, cost of living and the housing and rental markets, every cent counts.
"Even outside of the financial perspective, it was the principle of the thing. Especially in this time period, you see everybody struggling and you're going to compound on it? I don't agree with that," Mansouri said.
The Attorney General's Office said it's important to remember that legally, in Massachusetts, there are only four fees that you can be charged as a new tenant:
- First month's rent
- Last month's rent
- Security deposit
- Lock change fee.
Furthermore, the AG's Office said renters cannot be required to pay the landlord's broker fee.
For more information on how you can protect yourself, visit the AG's website.