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So-called “management fees.” Listed apartments already rented. Off-market exclusives dangled like bait.

These are among what some apartment-seekers saw as they searched for rentals in the wake of the 2025 FARE Act , which in almost all cases bans brokers from charging fees to tenants. And those practices all violate that law, the city agency tasked with enforcement alleges.

The FARE Act , which went into effect in June 2025 , specifies that if a broker publishes a listing for a rental property, that broker is to be paid by the landlord. The law aimed to end the practice, long customary in New York City, of tenants shelling out for brokers they never hired in order to secure an apartment in the city’s competitive rental market.

Hundreds of pages of summonses and supporting evidence issued by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection between June 2025 and April 2026 offer a glimpse at how brokers are breaking the law or operating in a legal gray area, according to the agency enforcing the ban.

The documents, which The City Reporter obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request, include some clear-cut cases where apartment listings directly ask for broker fees, but not all were as straightforward. Some brokers disguised the fees by other names, or coaxed tenants into paying fees in exchange for preferential consideration. Others offered alternative apartments, then characterized them as “off-market” listings that required a fee.

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Since the law took effect through mid-October, New Yorkers have filed more than 2,500 broker fee-related complaints and queries to DCWP, though most lack enough information for the agency to act upon, it said. It issued 91 summonses alleging 130 violations, including 55 violations that resulted in $60,000 in penalties. The agency also secured more than $24,000 in fees paid back to tenants.

The Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings adjudicates FARE Act cases.

DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine said the FARE Act has helped crack down on broker fees, and that his office has seen a decline in complaints in recent months.

“Our own monitoring of StreetEasy and the other platforms suggests more landlords are complying with the law, and we've been, I think, aggressive in enforcement,” Levine said, adding that the agency has, for the first time, brought in staff specifically focused on landlord-tenant issues.

Some applicants eager to lock down apartments in the city’s tight housing market found promises of preference and priority in exchange for broker fees. But DCWP charged these brokers with violating the FARE Act clause that says, “No person shall condition the rental of residential real property on a tenant engaging any agent” — also known as “conditioning.”

In one instance, two women together applied to two apartments, including one in Crown Heights with a balcony. “We are wondering if there is any way for you to give us a sense of our odds,” one would-be tenant said in an email to the broker, Diana Belorusets. “If there is a chance of our application … getting approved, then we’re happy to hold off and cross our fingers (and toes!) for this unit.”

During a subsequent phone call Belorusets said paying a broker fee would increase the chances of the applicants getting the apartment, according to the summons. The next day, she avoided mentioning the fee, emailing, “As per our discussion yesterday, it seems like you’re not interested in that idea which is fine. But I have other applicants who are so I’ll let you know.”