The FTC is coming for rental junk fees. What self-managing landlords should do now.

The Federal Trade Commission has put rental fees on notice. On March 13, 2026 it published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on unfair or deceptive fee practices across the whole lease lifecycle, from the advertised rent to the last move-out charge. Nothing is law yet, but the direction is unmistakable, and it lines up with what a growing list of states already require. Here is what the notice says, where it stands, and the four steps a self-managing landlord can take this week.

What the FTC actually announced

On March 13, 2026 the Federal Trade Commission published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled "Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices" (91 FR 12325, Project No. R207011). An advance notice is the first step in the federal rulemaking process: the agency states a concern, asks the public for data and argument, and uses what it collects to decide whether to write an actual rule. It is not a regulation you have to comply with today. It is a strong signal of where the rules are heading.

The notice asks about fees and charges at every stage of a tenancy, from the application through move-out. Three practices are named specifically:

• Advertising rent that leaves out mandatory fees. A headline rent figure that does not include charges every tenant must pay anyway.
• Charging fees without express informed consent. Fees a renter never clearly agreed to.
• Misleading tenants about what a fee is for. Vague or misnamed charges whose real purpose is not clear.

This is not just a federal story

The FTC notice rhymes with a wave of state law already on the books. California's AB 747, effective in 2026, requires landlords to disclose all rental fees in advertisements. Other states are tightening disclosure, consent, and fee-naming rules in parallel. The pattern across all of them is the same: tell the renter the real, all-in cost up front, and do not surprise them later. A landlord who gets ahead of that pattern is covered no matter which level of government moves first.

Four things to do this week

None of these require a lawyer or a rewrite of your business. They are housekeeping that also happens to be good practice.

• Quote all-in rent in every listing. If a fee is mandatory for every tenant, fold it into the advertised number or state it plainly right next to the rent. No buried charges that only appear at signing.
• Put a full fee schedule in the lease. List every possible fee (application, admin, pet, parking, late, utility) with its amount and what triggers it, so consent is explicit and documented.
• Name fees for what they are. Drop vague labels. A fee should describe the actual service or cost behind it.
• Keep the paper trail. Save the signed lease and disclosures so you can show, later, exactly what the tenant agreed to and when.

How Rentari helps you stay ahead of it

This is the kind of slow-moving regulatory change that is easy to miss until it is urgent. Rentari is built to remove that risk in two ways. First, when you draft a lease, the document surfaces a structured fee schedule rather than leaving fees scattered or implied, so disclosure and consent are baked into the paperwork. Second, Legislation Watch tracks new landlord-tenant bills and federal action, and flags the ones that actually affect your portfolio, so you are not reading the Federal Register yourself.

As always, the system proposes and you decide. Rentari prepares the disclosure-ready lease and the heads-up about a rule change; you review it and approve it. The AI carries the watching and the drafting. The judgment stays yours.

Honest software for an honest-pricing era

There is a deeper point in this rule. The FTC is going after hidden fees charged to renters. The software you run your rentals on should hold itself to the same standard. A lot of property platforms quietly do the opposite: a fee every time a tenant pays rent, a charge for each e-signature, a per-form download fee, a markup buried in a "convenience" line. Those are the same junk fees, just pointed at the landlord instead of the tenant.

Rentari is priced the way this rule wants the whole industry to behave: one clear number, everything included.

• One simple price. From $8 a month for up to 5 units when billed annually, then $1.60 for each additional unit, all the way to 200. (Month-to-month is $10, then $2 per added unit.) Above 200 units, you move to a custom Enterprise quote.
• No fee when a tenant pays rent. No markup, no per-transfer charge, no "convenience fee." The rent passes straight through.
• No per-signature or per-form charge. Unlimited e-signatures with a full audit trail, and the entire 180-plus form library, are included in the plan.
• The whole product, not a starter tier. Screening, leases, rent, maintenance, accounting, and the AI operator are in the one price, not unlocked feature by feature.

For comparison, several established platforms (based on their public pricing as of mid-2026) layer on roughly $2 to $2.50 per rent transfer, around $5 per e-signature, or a separate per-form fee, all on top of a monthly subscription that itself runs from the mid-$60s to several hundred dollars a month. On a small portfolio those line items quietly add up to more than Rentari's entire bill.

Built to help you grow, not just stay compliant

Compliance is the floor. The reason a landlord or a property manager runs software at all is to take on more doors without adding more hours or more staff, and that is where a low, flat price compounds. Because the AI does the busywork (triaging maintenance, drafting the compliant lease, posting the late fee at the legal cap, tagging every expense for tax time) one person can manage a portfolio that used to need a back office. You add units, the cost stays at $1.60 a unit, and the work you personally do per unit keeps falling.

For property managers specifically, Rentari supports managers and co-owners working under a parent landlord, so a small team can run a larger book of business from a single account. You scale the portfolio, not the overhead. That is the whole growth story: a predictable low cost per unit, no surprise fees to explain to an owner, and an AI that absorbs the work each new unit creates. The same transparency the FTC is pushing onto rental fees is the transparency Rentari already runs on, for you and for your tenants.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, "Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Rental Housing Fee Practices," 91 FR 12325, published March 13, 2026 (Project No. R207011, RIN 3084-AB88). This article is general information, not legal advice. Check your state and local rules, and consult an attorney for your specific situation.