A Guardian investigation has found that tenants at apartment complexes operated by Greystar, the largest owner and manager of apartments in the US, face a mass of fees that many renters have never heard of before. These add-ons include boiler management fees, variable refrigerant flow fees, solar rebill fees, and lifestyle fees. Tenants and lawsuits in multiple states call many of these fees inflated, illegal, predatory, or overwhelming.
Fee proliferation at Greystar-managed properties
Nichole Collins, a former tenant at a Greystar-managed building in Colorado, said: 'A fee for this, a fee for that was just crazy to me. I had never experienced that before.' The Guardian counted at least 125 different named fees in leases, court documents, and rental listings for apartments managed by Greystar. Combinations of these fees span Washington DC and all 42 states with listings on the company's website, and include various up-front fees, monthly fees, and penalty charges. Half of these fees are mandatory.
Some costs come with specific dollar charges, while others—such as charges for common area maintenance and utilities—have no dollar amount and are listed only as usage based or varies. The Guardian found mandatory, unpriced fees in Greystar apartment listings in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
Lawsuits challenge fee practices
Tenants are challenging fees charged at Greystar-managed complexes in lawsuits filed in multiple states. These include nine cases currently seeking class action status in Colorado, California, Nevada, and Massachusetts. In a statement, Greystar told the Guardian 'we disagree with the allegations' in these court actions 'and are actively defending those cases.' In various court filings, the company has called tenants' legal complaints factually deficient, implausible, and futile.
Greystar agreed in December to pay $24m to settle claims by state and federal authorities that it had gouged renters with hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden charges at properties owned by Greystar as well as at properties the company managed for other landlords. Greystar did not admit to wrongdoing and the settlement did not put limits on the fees it charges as long as fees are disclosed.
Impact on tenants: eviction and homelessness
Jaslyn Cosey, a customer service worker in Nevada, paid $300 in application and administrative fees to get a chance at an apartment at Glo, a Greystar-managed complex. After Greystar approved her for the two-bedroom unit, Cosey was charged a $150 move-in cleaning fee followed by a string of monthly charges. Among them: $20 for common area maintenance, $6 for a utility service fee, and water, sewer, and trash services that were billed to her, the suit claims, 'according to an inscrutable formula.'
All the fees—including late charges that mounted as Cosey struggled to keep up—left her 'extremely overwhelmed,' Cosey told the Guardian. 'Because, you know, not only is that happening, but life is happening as well. Groceries are going up. Other things are happening as well.' These costs, Cosey claims in court documents and in interviews, helped start her down a spiral that led to eviction and months of homelessness.
Fees as profit centers
As Greystar has grown, it has embraced add-on fees as 'profit centers,' according to court claims in multiple states. These include a 2025 class action filed in federal court in California that describes 'utility admin' fees charged at apartment complexes run by Greystar as 'nothing but a pure profit generator without any actual purpose.' Some former Greystar employees acknowledged tenant complaints about extra costs, but said fees were important to its business model.
Paul Priebe, a former Greystar regional property manager in Colorado, told the Guardian: 'Residents are trying to find ways not to pay fees. Without fees, it's hard to grow overall revenue. When they complain, I get it, but usually they're getting something out of it.'
Regulatory and legislative actions
Fees charged at properties operated by Greystar have also spurred legislation. Colorado enacted a new law in 2025, 'Letty's Act,' after Greystar billed grieving family members thousands of dollars in penalty fees when their matriarch, 75-year-old Leticia Farrer, died. Her family said Greystar claimed Farrer, who was living with dementia, had broken her lease by dying. The law forbids landlords from charging early termination penalties when a lease ends due to a tenant's death.
In October, Greystar reached a $50m settlement in a class action in federal court in Tennessee that alleged the company had colluded with other landlords and property managers to raise rents around the country. In November, the company agreed to pay $7m to settle similar price-fixing claims pursued by attorneys general in North Carolina, California, and seven other states. Greystar denied wrongdoing in the class-action suit, and did not admit wrongdoing in the case brought by the attorneys general.
Cost burden on renters
Roughly half of American renters are now 'cost-burdened,' meaning they spend more than 30% of their incomes on rent and utilities, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Research by Zillow shows that 65% of renters pay at least one recurring fee on top of rent. An April 2025 study by the Urban Institute and Denver's Community Economic Defense Project found that fees charged at properties operated by Greystar raised tenants' monthly bills by an average of nearly 20%.
Eric Dunn, litigation director at the National Housing Law Project, said fees charged by landlords and property managers echo the extra charges that bargain airlines pioneered. 'Airlines used to offer flights that look really cheap,' he said. 'It's only $60 to fly to Chicago. But then when you add in the runway fee, and the take-off and landing fee and the fuel surcharge, and all this stuff winds up being $200.'
Consumer confusion and information overload
Marketing experts told the Guardian that Greystar's fee disclosures are confusing and incomplete and make it difficult for would-be renters to understand how much they will be paying. Vicki Morwitz, a professor of business and marketing at Columbia University, said: 'It doesn't seem to me that there's any way for a consumer to know what their costs are actually going to be.'
Jeffrey Carpenter, a behavioral economist at Middlebury College, said the web of fees and other variables likely produces information overload for many renters. 'You've got all these numbers that you have to add and subtract and it's hard to keep track of them and it's hard to know which ones that you can avoid or you can't avoid or how much is this actually going to cost me a month. What happens is people's eyes just glaze over and they fixate on that base rent.'
