Deca Property Management, which manages roughly 1,400 residential and commercial properties in the St, Louis, Missouri, area, says its tenants “know we’re here to help.” In the company’s newer lease contracts, that help includes a mandatory $45.95-a-month “resident benefits package” that includes a fee to Deca for reporting whether they’ve paid their rent to various credit bureaus. In effect, tenants are paying for the privilege of their landlord hurting their credit scores.
This so-called benefit package is just one example of a menagerie of junk fees that landlords across the country are charging their tenants, according to a Lever analysis of approximately 400 court records from eviction and other civil cases. These fees significantly increase the costs of renting an apartment, experts say, and can be for services that landlords are legally required to perform as well as “benefits” that are not in tenants’ best interests.
