Portland advances ban on unregulated rental application fees

Potentially leading to the first law of its kind in Maine, an ordinance banning rental application fees in Portland will soon be taken up by the city’s Housing Committee.

While states like Massachusetts and Vermont have outlawed application fees, Maine currently has no laws regulating them. The absence of regulation means that fees vary from property to property, and many renters can end up spending hundreds of dollars simply applying for apartments. A proposed emergency bill to ban application fees across Maine was rejected by state legislative leaders before the start of session.

In December, Portland’s Rental Housing Advisory Committee initially passed the ordinance by a vote of 6 to 2. Only one landlord, Wendy Harmon, and a legal representative for landlords, Regan Sweeney, opposed it.

The language of the ordinance describes application fees as a “significant burden” on tenants and prohibits landlords from charging more than the first month’s rent and a security deposit when renting to a tenant.

However, the Rental Advisory Committee spent most of its meeting Monday night writing a memo needed to accompany the ordinance when, in the coming weeks, the Housing Committee debates it. City Councilor Jill Duson, who chairs the Housing Committee, had requested members of the Rental Advisory Board cite non-anecdotal evidence in the memo.

This request led to an impassioned discussion around whether or not this evidence exists, and who should be responsible for collecting it.

Katherine McGovern, a lawyer for Pine Tree Legal who serves on the Rental Advisory Committee, spoke to the difficulty of finding non-anecdotal data related to application fees. With no laws regulating these fees, renters cannot formally file a complaint through Pine Tree Legal or even city government. Their complaints, in turn, are not tracked in a meaningful way.

“There is no data,” said McGovern. “I don’t think that that is the end of the story. I think the anecdotal information that we brought as members of [this] group, and from the public comment we received, show that it’s a problem in the community.”

“The resolution we sent to the Housing Committee was based on only anecdotal evidence,” echoed Sweeney. “We were too busy forcing a solution through.”

“I don’t believe this committee has the capability to do that data collecting,” said Aaron Berger, one of three Portland renters serving on the committee. “That is something on the Housing Committee to do, because they can direct staff to do things that are outside of our purview.”

The memo, which will contain a summary of the committee’s reason for proposing the ordinance as well as evidence showing that application fees are a burden for tenants, is expected to be finished and submitted to the Housing Committee before it convenes on Feb. 12.

Photo: Ashley Brown | Flickr