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.
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.
Fees Promising Applicants an Edge: Conditioning
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.”
Belorusets, who did not respond to a request for comment, was found in violation of the FARE Act and had to pay $1,125 as a penalty.
DCWP also alleged illegal conditioning occurred in two separate instances when tenants in buildings managed by Coney Realty and Management reached out to add new roommates to their leases. Dianne Barwise, who worked at the company but left in December, told one household that the new roommate would have to go through the standard application process through “our broker” and pay a fee. (Neither Barwise nor Coney responded to requests for comment.)
In the other instance, tenant Aleia Jacobs told The City Reporter that her new roommate in Hell’s Kitchen chose to pay the $1,000 lease amendment fee, “just to get it over with.” But Jacobs, 26, felt something was fishy, despite Barwise doubling down. She told Jacobs, “the FARE Act does not apply” because the lease amendment was “at [Jacobs’] request,” the summons record said.
In Jacobs’ case, no one from Coney Realty showed up to an August 2025 hearing, so the company was found in violation by default. The company motioned for a new hearing and claimed it did not receive the summons, but OATH denied the motion. The second case was sustained, with Coney found in violation of the FARE Act.
Many brokers who are hit with summonses are not appearing at hearings to respond to them. Of the more than 70 summonses The City Reporter reviewed with verifiable outcomes, in over half the cases, brokers were found to be at fault because they did not appear.
In several of the no-appearance cases, brokers said they never knew about the summonses until The City Reporter inquired about them.
“We serve brokers at the address where they’re licensed,” Levine said. “If there was any issue in service, they will have an opportunity to contest it.”
Broker Fee by Any Other Name
DCWP also drew a red line at fees creatively renamed.
One StreetEasy ad for a renovated two-bedroom apartment in Woodside included a “finders fee” equal to one month’s rent of $2,350. Another broker included a one-month “real estate fee” on a Craigslist ad. Elsewhere, brokers have described required fees as “for move in and management services,” “one-time management fees,” and for refurbishing the apartment before move-in.
In all cases, DCWP said those constituted disguised broker fees.
In several cases, brokers were charged a separate fine for not “clearly and conspicuously” disclosing fees as small as $25, like those for background checks or credit reports. The FARE Act stipulates that all fees must be clearly denoted in apartment listings.
‘Off-Market’ Listings, and Bait and Switch
Since the start of the FARE Act, tenants have reported a proliferation of “off-market” offerings — those that do not appear on sites like StreetEasy, but that brokers promise to give access to for a fee. But when a broker dangles the availability of these hidden listings it’s a form of conditioning, DCWP ruled in several summonses.
In one case, a tenant reached out to broker Said Bennani about a one-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights. Bennani in a text indicated the apartment had been rented but had a new one in the same building. “It’s 3 times better,” he wrote. “Has a fee. Off market apt.”
The tenant texted, “I’ll pass. Bait and switch is a nasty tactic.”
Said wrote back, “I offered [and] you said no. I’m actually considering you for a fantastic rent stabilized off market listing. Out of more than 100 inquiries I got. Apt is worth an easy $3000. You should say thank u.”
When asked about the summons, Bennani told The City Reporter he had “no knowledge about this.” After being emailed the summons and evidentiary documents, he stopped responding to emails or returning calls. OATH data shows Bennani was found to be in violation by default because he did not show up to a hearing.
Levine, the commissioner, characterized the off-market listings as “shenanigans” designed to evade the FARE Act.
“These backdoor attempts to impose broker fees on tenants, I think, are really unfortunate,” Levine said. “I think the state — which has expressed a lot of commitment to making housing more affordable — can do something very concrete about this by requiring public listings and insisting that brokers choose a side,” between representing tenants or landlords.
DCWP also took issue with broker Marc Shagalow texting tenants about “off-market” units in Crown Heights and Williamsburg.
“Just got this off market listing for a pretty unbelievable price!” Shagalow texted a potential tenant. The renter expressed interest, and Shagalow informed them, “being that this is off market there will be a broker fee.”
“And who would be paying that? I didn’t hire a broker,” the tenant replied. Later, the same tenant filed a complaint with DCWP.
Shagalow declined to comment on that specific case — on which OATH hasn’t yet made a decision — but said he would not bait tenants with fake listings.
“There are brokers out there who are listing apartments, and the apartment is not for rent, and then they say, ‘Oh, I just rented this, but I have this,’” Shagalow said. “I personally wouldn’t ever do something like that because I don’t think it’s ethical.”
The FARE Act, as DCWP stated in summonses, lets agents advertise services, but does not let them “condition the availability of specific or identifiable residential rental property inventory on a tenant hiring and paying a broker.”
Gray Areas as Brokers Cope With Change
At times, brokers sprung fees onto tenants at the last minute, retroactively justified through informal texts, emails and memories of phone calls. When a tenant notified broker Heather Fiumano and her brokerage firm, Arché Nest, that he’d sent in his security deposit, Arché Nest responded, “thank you! This will now serve as your brokers fee.” The tenant responded by citing the FARE Act, notifying the brokerage that despite his appreciation for Fiumano, it was the landlord’s responsibility to compensate the broker.
In a long reply to the tenant, Arché Nest’s CEO Jadine Walters responded that a “verbal agreement” was made over a phone call between Fiumano and the tenant, and, in the absence of a written agreement, argued that “the messages of appreciation you sent Heather after the lease was finalized,” revealed the nature of their “working relationship.”
“Texts such as ‘Ur a friggin hero, can’t tell you how much I appreciate you going out to bat for us,’ and ‘Glad u finally get some bread as well you’ve been helping us for so long’,” affirm that you recognized Heather’s dedication and agreed compensation was both earned and deserved,” Walters wrote.
The tenant asked for a partial refund of half the fee, warning they would otherwise file a FARE Act summons. Walters and Fiumano never responded.
Walters indicated she would comment for this story on behalf of Fiumano, but The City Reporter never heard back. OATH found Fiumano in violation of the FARE Act by default, as she did not appear for her hearing.
Other brokers were up front about the limits of what they thought they could do under the new law, but still ran afoul of it.
One of those cases involved a Craigslist post by Brooklyn Heights Real Estate (BHRE) for three rent-stabilized apartments available that the firm knew of “because of our long-standing relationships with local owners and management companies.” But, the post explained, “due to the FARE Act, we are not permitted to advertise or publicly market these units” while charging a broker fee. Instead BHRE used the Craigslist post to solicit tenants to hire them for exclusive access to units unavailable online. In the summons, DCWP said it was clear would-be tenants couldn’t access the apartments without hiring a broker.
“We didn’t know we were violating any law or anything,” BHRE managing partner Lior Cohen told The City Reporter. “We advertised a general ad on Craigslist that if you’re looking for an apartment … and you cannot find anything, you have the option to hire BHRE as your agent.”
While Cohen said his brokerage only meant to advertise its services through the post, DCWP drew the line at the specificity of the listing, which qualified it as an apartment listing in the agency’s eyes.
“Once we got the summons, we obviously took all the ads out and we stopped doing it,” Cohen said. The case is still pending.
In another case, a proactive tenant reached out to broker Gregory Bartlett about an old StreetEasy listing for an apartment in a brownstone on the edge of Fort Greene Park, what she called her “dream location.” The tenant, Kendra Norfleet, 27, wondered if the unit — or a similar one — might once again come to market.
Bartlett, whom The City Reporter was unable to reach through calls and emails, then asked if Norfleet would pay a broker fee to pay for his real estate company’s service finding an apartment for her. She wrote back invoking the FARE Act and clarified that she was not hiring him to find an apartment “since I already did that part,” with a laugh-crying emoji.
About a week later, Bartlett listed the apartment online and scheduled an open house by appointment. When Norfleet tried to schedule an appointment, Bartlett said the open house had “filled up.”
Norfleet wrote back to say it seemed she was “being punished” for not working with the broker and suspected she was “excluded from the viewing process” as a result.
Norfleet never got that apartment.
“They would not show it to me after I pointed out that I did not hire them and would not be paying them a broker’s fee,” she told The City Reporter. “It really pissed me off.”
After Norfleet filed a complaint to DCWP, Bartlett was found in violation by default after not appearing.
The Future of FARE
Levine at DCWP sees enforcing the FARE Act as only the beginning to help bring New York City in line with other cities where apartment-seekers are not hit with fees for brokers they did not hire.
But the types of FARE Act violations so far point to where he’s set his sights for further action. He said he wants the state to prohibit agents to work for both tenants and landlords, who have “completely misaligned interests and are on opposite sides of a transaction.”
He also said he supports a bill state lawmakers passed that would require all listings be posted publicly.
“The FARE Act was designed to address one problem, which is broker fees, and the notion that New Yorkers need to choose between paying broker fees and having competitive open markets for housing,” Levine said. “That’s a false choice.”
Levine also wants the state to raise the stakes for repeat-offenders of the FARE Act: “The state should seriously consider whether it should continue to grant licenses to brokers who repeatedly violate the law.”
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