A U-Haul moving van sits outside a Boston home. iStock photo

A surprisingly fast state budget deal reached over the weekend includes a provision that’s aimed at banning tenant-paid apartment broker fees.

The text of bill H.4240 stipulates an apartment broker may only work with a prospective tenant to find a rental property or work with a landlord or landlord’s agent to find a tenant for a property. This means that brokers can only participate in one side of the deal and not work on behalf of both the renter and the landlord.

“So if a broker were going to represent a renter for the purposes of submitting the best possible application and then connect them with a landlord where they would charge the landlord some as well for the purpose of completing the application and the background check, that’s no longer allowed,” Douglas Quattrochi, executive director of MassLandlords said.

Any fee shall only be paid by the party – either the landlord or the tenant – who originally engaged and entered into a contract with the apartment broker. Typically, most renters in Massachusetts search for apartments on their own, without a broker’s help.

Quattrochi believes that this won’t affect landlords’ ability to charge tenants for broker fees, perhaps by wrapping the fees up in an increase to the monthly rent.

“I’d be very surprised that this actually changes a whole lot for people in their in their apartment search,” he said.

Gov.Maura Healey was supportive of the idea of removing tenant-paid apartment broker fees during a radio appearance in January.