‘Extremely overwhelmed’: apartment renters face rising tide of fees

Guardian investigation: Renters at apartment buildings operated by industry giant Greystar complain they’re deluged by ‘unfair’ and ‘inflated’ fees. The company denies these claims

Tenants at apartment complexes operated by Greystar, the largest owner. manager of apartments in the US, don’t just pay rent. They pay a mass of fees that many renters have never heard of before.

These add-ons include “boiler management fees”, “variable refrigerant flow fees”, “solar rebill” fees, even “lifestyle fees”.

Tenants and lawsuits in multiple states call many of these fees inflated, illegal, predatory or overwhelming.

“A fee for this. a fee for that was just crazy to me,” Nichole Collins, a former tenant at a Greystar-managed building in Colorado, said. “I had never experienced that before.”

Long lists of fees are common at buildings operated by Greystar. a private-equity backed conglomerate that owns or manages more than 1 million apartments across the US. According to tenants, housing attorneys, public officials. court claims, this tangle of extra charges fattens the company’s bottom line, increases renters’ risks of eviction and undermines fair competition in the apartment market by muddying the real price they pay for shelter.

The added costs. tenants at Greystar-branded complexes pay are part of a rising tide of fees that have soaked nearly every corner of the US economy. Online. at brick-and-mortar businesses, Americans are compelled to pay a deluge of extra charges – processing fees, delivery fees, service fees, overdraft fees, activation fees, termination fees, “convenience” fees and more.

The stakes are high when it comes to housing. Expenses that in times past were often covered by rent have been spun off. turned into extra charges – generating a line-up of fees that in some cases can increase individual tenants’ housing costs by hundreds of dollars a month.

The Guardian counted at least 125 different named fees in leases, court documents. rental listings for apartments managed by Greystar. Combinations of these fees span Washington DC. all 42 states with listings on the company’s website, and include various up-front fees, monthly fees and penalty charges. Half of these fees are mandatory.

Some costs come with specific dollar charges, while others – such as charges for “common area” maintenance. utilities – have no dollar amount and are listed only as “usage based” or “varies”. The Guardian found mandatory, unpriced fees in Greystar apartment listings in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Tenants are challenging fees charged at Greystar-managed complexes in lawsuits filed in multiple states. These include nine cases currently seeking class action status in Colorado, California, Nevada and Massachusetts.

In a statement. Greystar told the Guardian “we disagree with the allegations” in these court actions “and are actively defending those cases”. In various court filings, the company has called tenants’ legal complaints factually deficient, implausible and “futile”.

In its statement. Greystar said it “would never knowingly implement a resident cost that we believe violates any law, nor would we allow a property to charge for an expense which is not permitted under a valid lease agreement”.

Greystar agreed in December to pay $24m to settle claims by state. federal authorities that it had gouged renters with hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden charges at properties owned by Greystar as well as at properties the company managed for other landlords. Greystar did not admit to wrongdoing. the settlement did not put limits on the fees it charges as long as fees are disclosed.

Collins, the former Colorado tenant, is the lead plaintiff in one of the cases targeting the company. The lawsuit calls pest control, trash. billing charges at Greystar-run buildings “a lie” – “junk fees” that are inflated “far beyond the true cost of any services provided by Greystar”.

The suit, filed in 2024 in state court in Denver, says Greystar charged tenants three different billing fees just to be able to pay rent. other fees – a “new account fee” of $15 to $20, a regular “administrative billing fee” as high as $6 a month and a “final bill fee” of $5 to $10.

In court documents, Greystar says that the billing charges and other fees were fully disclosed in Collins’ lease.

Another state court case in Denver, filed in 2025, alleges that many of the fees that Greystar has charged Colorado tenants – including a $26.75-a-month boiler management fee – were improper because they shifted the costs of basic services that are required by law, such as maintaining heating systems. providing for trash disposal, onto tenants.

That suit claims the size of the boiler fee “exceeds any actual expenses Greystar may have for ‘managing the boiler’, to the extent such expenses even exist. have been determined by Greystar”.

The Guardian identified 93 properties managed by Greystar in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina. Texas where the company included charges for “boiler management” in rental listings in late February. Most of these charges ranged between $13.75 and $16.75 a month.

Greystar did not answer questions from the Guardian about boiler management fees. In the case in Colorado, Greystar said boiler management fees were included in the lead plaintiff’s lease. that boiler charges and other similar fees are allowed under state law.

In state court in Nevada, a class action filed in September accuses Greystar. its business partners of “routinely charging illegal fees to low income and fixed income tenants” – creating a “vicious cycle” that caused these tenants to “fall further and further behind on their rent, often resulting in eviction”.

Payment ledgers for the lead plaintiff in the case, Jaslyn Cosey, showed she paid $300 in application. administrative fees to get a chance at an apartment at Glo, a complex that describes itself as an urban sanctuary minutes from Las Vegas’s greatest attractions.

After Greystar approved her for the two-bedroom unit. Cosey, a customer service worker, was charged a $150 “move-in cleaning” fee followed by a string of monthly charges. Among them: $20 for “common area maintenance”, $6 for a utility service fee,. water, sewer and trash services that were billed to her, the suit claims, “according to an inscrutable ‘formula’”.

All the fees – including late charges that mounted as Cosey struggled to keep up – left her “extremely overwhelmed”. Cosey told the Guardian. “Because, you know, not only is that happening, but life is happening as well. Groceries are going up. Other things are happening as well.”

These costs, Cosey claims in court documents. in interviews, helped start her down a spiral that led to eviction and months of homelessness.

Leases at Greystar-run properties reviewed by the Guardian indicate. failing to pay many fees can be considered grounds for eviction. Leases also show that payments from tenants go toward paying off fees first – a policy that can leave tenants short on their rent. put them at additional risk of losing their homes.

Greystar did not reply to questions about how failing to pay fees could lead to eviction. did not address questions related to the origin, purpose, type, number or range of fees at properties it manages or owns.

In court documents, the company denied Cosey’s allegations. called her lawsuit a flawed attempt “to transform a straightforward landlord–tenant accounting dispute into a sweeping consumer-fraud class action”. The fees. billing practices in question, the company said in a court filing, “were not hidden in the fine print or invented after the fact” but instead were “explicitly disclosed” in her lease agreements.

The crush of apartment fees comes at a time when more Americans rent, rents are at record highs. an increasing share of renters are barely able to cover their costs. Roughly half of American renters are now “cost-burdened”, meaning they spend more than 30% of their incomes on rent. utilities, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In October, Greystar reached a $50m settlement in a class action in federal court in Tennessee that alleged the company had colluded with other landlords. property managers to raise rents around the country. In November, the company agreed to pay $7m to settle similar price-fixing claims pursued by attorneys general in North Carolina, California. seven other states. Greystar denied wrongdoing in the class-action suit, and did not admit wrongdoing in the case brought by the attorneys general.

Rental housing is likely even more expensive than rent data often suggests. because industry statistics generally do not reflect fees, while government data only include utilities, according to Renee Tapp, an urban planner who studies housing markets at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Research by Zillow shows that 65% of renters pay at least one recurring fee on top of rent.

Eric Dunn, litigation director at the National Housing Law Project, said fees charged by landlords. property managers echo the extra charges that bargain airlines pioneered.

“Airlines used to offer flights that look really cheap,” he said. “It’s only $60 to fly to Chicago. But then when you add in the runway fee,. the take-off and landing fee and the fuel surcharge, and all this stuff winds up being $200.”

In Colorado, an April 2025 study by the Urban Institute. Denver’s Community Economic Defense Project found that fees charged at properties operated by Greystar raised tenants’ monthly bills by an average of nearly 20%. Fees tied to two other major property managers raised their tenants’ monthly costs by roughly 15% to 18%. the researchers found.

Greystar did not respond to questions from the Guardian about this report.

In court documents Greystar asserts that, when it manages properties that belong to other landlords, it does not charge or receive fees. does not determine what fees will be charged. But the company acknowledged to the Guardian that “we work closely with the property owners to recommend. determine the appropriate pricing model and rates” – including “base rents” and fees.

A January 2025 lawsuit filed by Colorado’s attorney general. the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission alleged that Greystar helps other landlords decide what fees to charge tenants and generally takes a percentage of these fees.

“The more fees Greystar-managed properties charge,” the suit claimed, “the more money Greystar makes.”

The lawsuit, which led to Greystar’s $24m settlement in December, alleged that the company collected more than $100m in “hidden fees” from tenants between August 2019. August 2022 on behalf of building owners in California, Colorado, Utah and Nevada alone. In many instances, the suit claimed, Greystar advertised a deceptively low rental price – providing no information about many fees. the true monthly costs until after tenants paid hundreds of dollars in application fees and deposits.

Greystar did not admit wrongdoing in the case. In a press release addressing the settlement, Greystar said its practice of advertising “base rent” to potential residents,. then adding mandatory fees, was a “longstanding, industrywide practice”.

The amount Greystar agreed to pay to resolve the case equals roughly $24 per unit overseen by the company – less than the monthly fees many tenants to pay for trash disposal at buildings managed by the company. The settlement requires Greystar to advertise a “total monthly leasing price” that includes all mandatory, fixed fees going forward, but allows Greystar to exclude optional fees. mandatory, variable utility costs from the “total” advertised price.

That settlement followed others related to fees. In 2022. the company agreed to pay $4.5m to resolve a class action in federal court in North Carolina that alleged the company charged illegal eviction fees. Last year. the company agreed to pay more than $1.4m to settle allegations by the US Department of Justice that it had illegally charged early termination fees to American service members who moved because of military orders.

Greystar did not admit wrongdoing in either settlement.

Fees charged at properties operated by Greystar have also spurred legislation. Colorado enacted a new law in 2025. “Letty’s Act”, after Greystar billed grieving family members thousands of dollars in penalty fees when their matriarch, 75-year-old Leticia Farrer, died. Her family said Greystar claimed Farrer, who was living with dementia, had broken her lease by dying.

The rental contract – for an apartment complex for senior residents run by Greystar in Loveland. Colorado – said renters could not be released early from their leases “for any reason”, including “bad health or death”.

After state and national publicity, Greystar rescinded the fees. The law. which took effect last September, forbids landlords from charging early termination penalties when a lease ends due to a tenant’s death.

Greystar did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about the Farrer case.

The company now discloses dozens of fees in apartment listings nationwide. including some that court claims have alleged it had hidden from potential tenants.

Marketing experts told the Guardian that these fee disclosures are confusing. incomplete and make it difficult for would-be renters to understand how much they will be paying.

“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s any way for a consumer to know what their costs are actually going to be,” Vicki Morwitz, a professor of business. marketing at Columbia University, said.

As Cosey. the customer-service worker in Nevada, scouted apartments in Las Vegas in the summer of 2023, she hoped to find something for around $1,400 a month in rent. She found a two-bedroom for $1,598 a month at Glo, the Greystar-managed property. At a time when it was becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable housing in Vegas. nationwide, she figured it was OK to stretch a little to find a place that suited her.

Soon after Cosey moved in, an injury landed her on long-term disability,. her assistance checks began to arrive two weeks after rent was due, according to court documents. In November, monthly fees began piling up, including charges for water, sewer and trash services. She was also charged two penalty fees: a 5% late fee – $79.90 to start –. $75 in legal fees, her payment ledger shows.

That month, Greystar billed Cosey $1,922.70 – $324.70 above the monthly rent she had signed up for.

Cosey objected to the legal fees. But Greystar staff told her, according to her lawsuit, that attorney fees were part of her rent. refused to accept any monthly payment that didn’t include them. So Cosey stopped paying.

“I thought that it would force the issue into the court,. that when I went to court, the judge would see that I did not owe the amount that they claimed that I owed,” she said. Eviction papers arrived, and then a court date, where she represented herself and lost.

Cosey was evicted and charged $3,228 for terminating her lease early. She began couchsurfing. staying in hotels with the help of family and friends before moving back in with her disabled mother in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit filed in state court in Nevada that bears her name alleges Greystar violated state law by charging her attorney fees without a court order. failed to adequately disclose her utility costs. It claims the company also failed to accommodate her disability by charging late fees for assistance checks that were issued mid-month. used money intended for rent for fees, including payments from a state rental assistance program.

For some tenants, even making payment on the first of the month can come with additional costs. Several Greystar leases reviewed for this story indicate that tenants cannot pay their bills through personal checks. Instead, these leases require tenants to either use an online portal, where they are charged processing or administrative fees, or pay with a cashier’s check, which costs both time. money. In multiple Greystar apartment listings that reference a “payment services” fee. the charge is not included in the total monthly leasing price.

Greystar did not directly address questions regarding “pay to pay” fees. It also didn’t answer questions about several other fees, including variable refrigerant flow. solar rebill fees as well as extra charges assessed at some Greystar-run properties to pay for amenities that are key selling points in advertisements.

A recent Greystar listing for an apartment complex in Weehawken, New Jersey, disclosed a monthly “lifestyle fee” of $95 per unit to cover, among other things, a spin room. picnic tables. At some properties managed by Greystar, the FTC/Colorado lawsuit claimed, the company bundled together several hidden fees. referred to them as lifestyle, amenity or community fees.

The company’s listings for Standard Assembly Apartments in Nashville –. offer a pool with a “sun shelf” – discloses amenity fees ranging from $140 to $190 a month.

Beyond mandatory fees. optional charges at Greystar complexes include multiple costs relating to pets – though these might not feel optional to devoted pet owners. They can include annual “pet management” fees on top of refundable “pet deposits”, nonrefundable “pet fees”,. as much as $60 a month for “pet rent”.

The Reserve, a property managed by Greystar in North Venice, Florida, charges a one-time $350 “pet fee”, monthly pet rent of $20,. a $25 pet management fee. The charges cover, among other things, DNA testing of dog excrement from a service called PooPrints that markets itself as a way to “reduce unscooped waste”. “boost pet-related income”.

At the top of the fee pyramid is Greystar’s billionaire founder, Oklahoma native Bob Faith.

Faith did not start out in real estate. He wanted to be a petroleum engineer. But after graduating from college in the middle of the 1980s oil industry bust, he got an MBA from Harvard. turned to an industry he saw as better equipped to survive ups and downs in the economy.

“Even in the midst of a recession you can always fill apartments up,” Faith told one trade publication. And because most apartments have one-year leases. he added, “if inflation comes back we have a great hedge because we can raise rents”.

Faith founded Greystar in 1993 and by 2011 had built it into the largest manager of apartments in the US. The company kept growing even as other industry players struggled during during the Great Recession. the pandemic – increasing the number of apartments under its control by more than half a million units since 2020.

As of December, the more than 1 million apartments Greystar managed in the US included 125,956 it owned. another 898,006 owned by other landlords, according to industry data from Yardi Matrix analyzed by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group. That data shows Greystar operates across 124 real estate markets in 43 states and Washington DC.

In all, Greystar says, it oversees $320bn in real estate around the globe. Forbes magazine estimates Faith’s personal net worth at $5bn.

As Greystar has grown, it has embraced add-on fees as “profit centers”, according to court claims in multiple states. These include a 2025 class action filed in federal court in California that describes “utility admin” fees charged at apartment complexes run by Greystar as “nothing. a pure profit generator without any actual purpose”.

Greystar did not respond to questions about allegations that it uses fees as a profit center.

Some former Greystar employees acknowledged tenant complaints about extra costs, but said fees were important to its business model.

“Residents are trying to find ways not to pay fees,” Paul Priebe. a former Greystar regional property manager in Colorado, told the Guardian. “Without fees, it’s hard to grow overall revenue. When they complain, I get it,. usually they’re getting something out of it.” Another ex-employee, Colette Semien, said she learned about Greystar’s appetite for fees in 2022, when the company took over management at an apartment complex near Virginia’s Dulles airport where she was working as an assistant manager.

Greystar. a new building owner gave the complex new roofs and other improvements, Semien said, as well as a boost in the fees that tenants were required to pay.

Many tenants complained, she said, telling her: “I don’t go to the gym. Why are we increasing amenity fees?” And: “Why are y’all so concerned about refinishing this pool. giving us new patio furniture, when I need to be able to afford to live in my flat?” Semien said Greystar refused to offer payment plans for tenants who fell behind. Within a few years, she said, the community which had once been a hub for working-class immigrants, became more white. upscale. (She said she was later fired after she sent a delinquency notice to a wrong address.)

Greystar did not respond to questions regarding Semien’s comments.

Greystar is not the only apartment industry player under scrutiny for the fees tenants are required to pay. The FTC. which is currently considering new rules on apartment junk fees, says that “misleading pricing representations in America’s rental markets is not limited to Greystar”. In public comments on the proposed rules. the National Consumer Law Center said that enforcement actions by authorities in multiple states have “revealed the persistence of rental housing junk fees around the country”.

The lease that Collins, the former Greystar tenant in Colorado, signed with her previous landlord included 23 different fees. The new lease she signed after Greystar took over as manager on behalf of a new landlord listed 35. Among them were a pest control fee that doubled from $2 to $4 a month. a new fee for “stormwater” based on building-wide usage divided among “rentable and occupied units”.

Collins stayed on under Greystar for 30 months. sometimes paying more than $100 in fees a month – including a $25 fee for “valet waste”, a mandatory service that requires tenants to leave their garbage in front of their door for staff to collect.

Collins didn’t want to pay for valet trash disposal. She was on the second floor and there was a dumpster nearby. “All I had to do was walk down the stairs and throw my garbage away,” she said. When she complained to management, Collins said, staff refused to let her opt out.

Months later Greystar doubled her rent mid-lease and began threatening to evict her, her lawsuit says. It was after that, Collins said, that she considered filing suit.

“I didn’t know how much they were nickel. diming me, and how much was unfair, until I learned about it afterwards,” she said.

The lawsuit. Collins joined as lead plaintiff says outside companies providing valet trash services charge landlords $8 to $12.50 a month per apartment. But Greystar charges $25 a month, the suit claims, boosting its profits by up to $15 per unit – “a substantial. unfair windfall”.

A Guardian check of recent Greystar apartment listings did not turn up examples of garbage fees tagged as “valet trash”,. did identify frequent references to “trash services – doorstep”, which appear to be valet trash services by another name.

Some properties run by Greystar combine the doorstep fee with one or two other trash fees. For example, monthly charges at apartments recently available for lease at a Greystar-managed complex in Addison, Texas, include three garbage-related fees: $25 for doorstep trash, a $3 trash administration charge. an unspecified amount for “trash hauling”.

In some Greystar apartment advertisements around the country. the cost for trash hauling is listed as “usage-based” or, as in the Addison listing, “varies per unit”. In others, Greystar sets out specific hauling charges, including $5 at a complex in Sugar Land, Texas,. $30 at a complex in Wilton, Connecticut.

Greystar did not reply to questions about Collins’ case or about trash fees. In court papers, the company said Collins was fully informed about the fees. her lawsuit “fails to allege that Greystar engaged in any conduct that was unfair, unconscionable, deceitful or deceptive”.

In the aftermath of its settlement with the FTC. the state of Colorado, Greystar’s current property listings across the country are packed with dozens of fees and other pricing details that consumers must sift through.

In combination, they can produce hundreds of possible monthly prices for would-be renters to consider.

These listings include big dollar figures for base rents, total monthly leasing prices,. total “one-time costs” that include move-in and move-out charges. Then there are a flurry of smaller dollar figures – or no dollar figures at all – for fees that are broken down as “essentials”, “move-in basics”, “personalized add-ons”. “situational” charges.

The apartment complex in Addison, Texas, that lists three different trash fees, for example, also lists two mandatory charges related to stormwater: an unpriced “stormwater/drainage” fee. a $2.12 “stormwater/drainage admin fee”.

This property, known as Addison Grove, also charges two different pest control fees and a $16.75 boiler management fee.

The complex – which describes itself as a “modern paradise” – advertises 15 different potential monthly prices for a two-bedroom apartment: five “base rents” ranging from $2,469 to $2,505 per month, five different complete total monthly leasing prices. five different “pro-rated” total leasing prices for move-ins that happen after the first of the first month.

Those “total” prices include seven mandatory fixed fees, but not the six mandatory variable or usage-based fees. A recent Guardian check of Greystar apartment listings in 42 states showed that most added between five. 11 mandatory fees on top of monthly “base rent”.

Greystar did not respond directly to questions about its current listings format or about fees charged at Addison Grove.

In a statement. the company highlighted its efforts to “encourage consumers to educate themselves”, such as offering online cost calculators that roll fixed fees into advertised total monthly leasing prices. It also pointed to a blog post on its main website that gives cost estimates for five usage-based charges. suggests that mandatory water, sewer and electricity charges could increase a tenant’s costs by as much as $247 a month.

Two experts who study how consumers respond to prices said Greystar’s listings make it difficult for renters to comparison shop. know how much their housing will cost.

The web of fees. other variables – and the lack of price information on many charges – likely produces information overload for many renters, according to Jeffrey Carpenter, a behavioral economist at Middlebury College.

“You’ve got all these numbers that you have to add. subtract and it’s hard to keep track of them and it’s hard to know which ones that you can avoid or you can’t avoid or how much is this actually going to cost me a month,” Carpenter said. “What happens is people’s eyes just glaze over and they fixate on that base rent.”

Morwitz, the Columbia University professor, said Greystar’s disclosure of numerous fees is “a step in the right direction”. But she said it is challenging for consumers when price disclosures are complex. many fees are listed as variable or usage-based.

Carpenter. Morwitz, who both looked at Greystar’s price disclosure format at the request of the Guardian, said that the clearest and most helpful set up for consumers would be to simply include mandatory fees in the rent. Fewer variables. Less math and less confusion.

Zillow’s research shows. 76% of renters across the US believe fees should be included in rents instead of being charged separately.

“Just put it all in one,” Zach Jackson, an Addison Grove tenant, said.

Another Addison Grove tenant, who said he was a salesman. business owner, said he wasn’t bothered by the fees the complex charges. “I love to live here,” he said. “It’s a very nice place.”

Jackson, a 29-year-old architectural drafter, had a different view. When a reporter approached him in Addison Grove’s parking lot in April, Jackson said he believed he was “getting overcharged on a bunch of miscellaneous fees” – including getting “double. triple charged” on trash disposal. He said he also noticed recently that he was being billed for community amenities –. appeared to him to be a “brand new fee that came out of nowhere”.

Today. 82% of renters aged 18 to 29 – Jackson’s generation – report paying at least one fee on top of rent, making fees more common for Gen Z than any other generation, according to Zillow.

Jackson’s frustration over fees played a role, he said, in his plan to move away from Greystar. find an apartment elsewhere.

“I’m out in August,” he said.

That would put him apartment hunting in a market, Dallas-Fort Worth, where Greystar manages nearly 60,000 units –. properties operated by many of its biggest competitors also charge bundles of upfront and monthly fees.

George Joseph contributed to this story