Attention Renters, You Need To Know About This New Maine Law

I just want to make it clear that we are not insinuating that all landlords are taking advantage of the situations their potential renters find themselves in.  However, we all know that it does happen.

For many people, getting a place to live is not an easy task.  Unless you were lucky enough to always have the backing of a financially stable family, and / or you always had a really good paying job, there is a good chance that you struggled with housing at least once or twice in your adult life.

Even if the actual monthly rent of an apartment or house is not financially crushing, dealing with the cost of securing and moving into a place can just about make you go broke.

Thanks to a new Maine law, securing a rental property is now a little cheaper than it was.

According to the Maine Legislature website, LD 691: An Act to Reduce Barriers to Housing by Limiting Tenant Application Fees, limits the amount of money a landlord can charge a potential tenant to apply for a rental unit.

Until the passage of this law, a landlord or property management company could legit make a profit off of the application fees for an apartment.

If they charged a $100 fee to apply for a rental unit and it only cost them $50 to run the needed background and credit checks, they made $50 off the fee.  And, considering the housing shortage we are currently experiencing, there could be dozens of applicants for one apartment.  Even if only ten people applied for a rental, that means the company made $500 off just the application process.

Under the new law, the landlord can only charge the needed money to cover the cost of the background and credit checks.

Read the full text of the law HERE

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